Leveraging Parents as Critical Partners in the PYP

Conducting parent workshops on the essential elements of The Primary Years Programme (PYP) is key for your school. These workshops allow parents the opportunity to engage in the same learning process their children do on a daily basis, thus providing parents the chance to construct an understanding of an inquiry based PYP classroom. This in turn then strengthens communication between school and home.

The first workshop I facilitated for our parents this year was an overview of the essential elements of the PYP through an inquiry approach. Parents, both new to PYP and those who have experience with PYP, were able to connect their prior knowledge with new information and ask questions to take their learning forward. Using the Visible Thinking Routine, ‘I Used to Think…. But Now I think….‘ helped parents reflect on the workshop.

As this first workshop was an overview, a survey followed that afternoon. The data collected is now driving the next workshop focus.

“The workshop was an eye opener, helped me understand how the teachers work together and appreciate the inquiry based learning done at ISS.” (parent feedback)

In addition to workshops there are other ways we include parents as critical partners.
-Inviting parents into the classrooms/asking for volunteers to join class trips
-Using parents’ strengths, especially when authentically linked to units of inquiry
-Encouraging parents to communicate on our class blogs
-Parents modelling and promoting the Learner Profile

How do you engage parents at your school?
How do you support their role as critical partners?