Parent – Teacher Interview Strategies

As we are all well aware, trusting relationships between students, their parents and us as teachers are the cornerstones of high quality student learning outcomes and rich learning partnerships within the school community; they engender “us” approaches.

Building relationships with parents over time will be of great assistance in not only the day to day learning activities of our students, but also in face to face parent/teacher interviews.

Following are strategies that will assist in being fully prepared:

• before the interviews consult colleagues who also teach the class, year level coordinators/advisors and welfare counsellors about any contentious issues or further knowledge they can provide about the parents and their children
• there is nothing worse than saying something, seemingly harmless, that triggers an angry parental response

Before the interview, rehearse the points to be made for each child on his/her:

• current all round performance
• strategies to assist her/his progress
• something he/she has done well
• areas requiring improvement
• some goals to strive for

Use friendly and welcoming body language and greetings when parents arrive:

• during the interview display a genuine willingness to want to work with them to see their child thrive and progress well
• invite them to ask questions
• ask how their child is at home
• the records, both formal and informal, will demonstrate to parents a thorough and professional approach and enhance their confidence in both us and the school

Avoid adopting interview techniques that will irritate parents such as:

• patronising: e.g. “Your son is wonderful”. They have come to the interview to learn about their child’s academic, personal and social development, not hear meaningless comments from us
• judge and jury; don’t speak as though we are passing judgement and sentence on their child
• distant, unaware and disinterested; be present
• know all; don’t speak as though we know more about their child than them; we don’t
• overall, discuss their concerns, their child’s progress and suggested directions as if the child is the most important person in the world: because to the parents he or she is
• parents are the world class experts on their children, so it makes good sense to tap into any insights they have that will benefit their children’s learning and our teaching

Should parents be overly aggressive, terminate the interview by saying “please take your concerns to the Principal”

The keys to children thriving in their learning are open, transparent and rich partnerships between students, parents and us as teachers.

“Correction does much but encouragement does more.” Goethe