Leter To Parents

[Guest]

Hello.

 

The Pre-School chair (and I think it's a good idea too) would like me to start sending a letter to parents at the beginning of each term which tells them what themes and activities we will be doing. She would also like me to include the learning aims, ideas for continuing learning at home and the resources needed.

 

Does anyone do this and if so what (and how much) to you tell the parents?

 

I have long term planning with ideas of themes and focus activites but most of the detail is done weekly as I do the planning.

 

Any ideas would be very gratefully recieved!

[Helen]

I think giving information to parents about the curriculum you offer is essential, but I'm not sure a termly letter will give them as much information as more frequent contact might. You could have a noticeboard which constantly changes, with your short term planning on there, and photos showing the learning that has gone on. Maybe you already do this, and the letter idea is in addition?

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is what is the letter for? Is it to give the parents just a list of topics/themes that their child may or may not take part in, or is it to give the learning intentions that you generally want to offer the children for the next few weeks? Or is it to detail the activities you are going to offer (this would be a huge task!) If we are to follow the EYFS closely, there is an argument here for not giving out a list of learning intentions for the group, because we need to considering the LIs for each individual child.

 

I love the idea of giving ideas to parents about how to continue the learning at home Be careful it doesn't turn out to be a huge task, though!

[Beau]

Perhaps rather than sending one out telling parents what you will be doing you could send one out retrospectively telling them what you have been doing, linking this to the curriculum (don't put in too much information as this might result in overload from the parents and they might not bother to read it!) and giving ideas of how the parents can extend the activities their children have been engaged in. I would also invite them to come up with further observations related to this and suggestions from themselves as to where you could go next.

[Guest]

I guess what I'm trying to say is what is the letter for?

 

We do already have a notice board with weekly planning, but to be honest as much as I say "have a look at the planning" no one does! And I think the main reason for the letter is beacuse the chair feels the parents just drop their child off and dont really know what we do all morning. She would also like to involve parents with getting resources (funds tight so she is thinking if we have a list of what we may need parents could bring bits in)...

 

Although we dont really use "themes" as such any more I was thinking maybe a simple list of ideas (much like my long term planning) with ideas for activities? Do you think this would work? But the learning aims would be hard to include as I tend to change this around obs when doing the planning - so any ideas?.

 

I would like to keep the chair happy and can see the idea behind the letter but like you say I dont want this to be a huge job!

Thanks xx

[Inge]

we send a brief newsletter once a term on everything else.. dates for Diary etc.. and a brief have you seen our display..

and then do as Helen says have it as a display in Preschool which changes weekly as we do things .

We add planning to this with learning intentions and then pictures to show how / what they may have done..

and there is an area for parents to add their own comments on if the children have continued this at home , or if the child has something they are 'into' at the moment for us to build upon.. surprising how many parents add a comment.. even just liked this.. or does this at home.. which we can then develop and build on..

 

we are a put away group, and use a wheeled coat rack covered with material to put all this on, easily moved and added to etc..

 

With EYFS and working to child we find that this changes daily and we cannot predict or say what we will be doing next week, sometimes even the next day is not planned until the day before, only to change because someone comes in with a theme that day which we change everything to.

 

Continuing it at home sounds like a big task to me, and I would be a bit worried parents felt it was 'homework' (knowing a couple of our parents would see it that way)

 

Inge

[Inge]

When we need resources from parents we put up a notice a week in advance asking for them, with the day it will be used, we found too many and it gets forgotten ,

 

Do you have pictures up with the planning.. it is one way to get them to look, as they try to spot their child, over a term most are featured in ours and they spend a bit more time looking, but ours tends to go up mostly a day afterwards, or occasionally same day if we can get the PC at work to print correctly.. (having a few problems!)

 

Most of ours is a couple of pictures with what we did, what they could have learnt from it, and comments if we want to.

 

Perhaps a newsletter with what has been happening telling them where more can be found.

 

Inge

[Guest]

Hi

We are very much the same as above.... we have committee meeting where we do our staff report on things that have been going on recently and then the committe do the newsletter to parents detailing this, forthcoming diary dates, other news etc etc. I run the pre-school website and update a page on that weekly detailing what we have been up to in the last week. We also do not have themes as such (have to keep explaining this to the committee who are used to them!) so they do the advert for the pre-school in the village mag typically in the same way...all retrospectively. Only time we use a theme is if ths kids hook onto something (last week unusual vegetables all from reading the enormous turnip book)

The thing is you cant make parents read things...we have our notice board and we also use the doors into the pre-school to put up important notices (backed in bright colours etc) but they are hardly read. Even giving out newletters individually doesnt seem to work. However, we are doing our best and I think that we are giving the parents plenty of opportunity to see and read what goes on.

Sometimes to link in with home we set a little task but again not many actually do this.

 

For me the big thing I seem to keep stressing is "child-intiated", "learning through play" and "EYFS". Keyperson interviews so far.....3!! Its hard work to get parents involved sometimes.

[Guest]

we have a half termly newsletter that the parents are given the first week back (saves a lot of envelopes and stamps!) and this one i added the 4 principles with a brief description of what they were this will then be a part of the newsletter each half term to give the parents an idea of what we are working towards and hopefully encourage them to ask questions about them!! we also find that although we write a daily board to let all know what we have been doing, but how many people read it is anyones guess!!! at least we know we are doing our best to keep them informed and included.

[hali]

i put mine in my termly newsletter and direct parents to noticeboard where a more detailed document is displayed.

[Guest]

We do a foundation stage newsletter every Friday. It mentions successes of the current work and what the brief is for the following week We also include things like reminders of events and mentions pe kit/ suitable outdoor clothing etc , appeals for items from home (this week boxes to make dinosaurs with) and some ideas for things to do at home to support classroom learning.