It’s important to keep parents informed about their student’s progress in the classroom. But whose job is it?

I was confused about this question my first year (when I taught 6th grade). I sent home progress reports every quarter and expected my students to return them with a parent signature. However, I had a few students who just wouldn’t bring them back. They said they’d been lost, ruined, etc. so I’d print them another one and give them a consequence if it wasn’t brought back signed the next day. This process kept happening and soon I was missing my lunch and afternoon break to keep students in from recess at lunch and in the afternoon. This was really getting to me. Finally, I brought up the issue with the principal. She reminded me that it wasn’t my job to make sure the parents saw the progress report. It was the PARENT’s responsibility. She suggested that I send home a note detailing the days that parents can expect a progress report from their student and ask them to get it from their student. Signed reports would get something extra, but I wouldn’t have to police the students who wanted to deceive their parents.

Here’s the letter I sent home:

I’m all about planning. I fall asleep planning, can’t go anywhere without my planner and some unglued if my planner gets lost. So naturally, I needed a really, really good teacher planner. I needed one that had each day as a column, different sized boxes that fit the needs of my different sized time blocks, I didn’t want to have to hand write in things that happened daily or weekly, and I needed space for notes/to-do lists.

Where did I find that kind of planner? I didn’t. I made it. And it was absolutely perfect for me. It was so nice to be able to customize this to fit my schedule and I could change it whenever I needed, since I had the file. I also printed this for the other teachers on my team, which helped in planning. I ran mine of on card stock (so I could erase a few times without ruining the paper) and put it in a 1/2 inch 3-ring binder, along with any other really important papers, like my seating chart, school schedule, etc.

Another teacher on my team printed it on regular paper and had it spiral bound. This didn’t work as well when we needed to change out schedule part way through the year. But whatever floats your boat…

I have shared this file (Mircosoft Excel) with a few other teachers who were able to change it to fit their schedules. It will take some time to tweak it to fit your personal needs, but having a perfectly-tailored, visual planner makes all the difference all year long!

To download this file, click here: Best Ever Teacher Planner. If for some reason, this file doesn’t download right, email me at squareheadteachers at gmail dot com and I’ll send you the file again. Happy planning!

I once had a parent tell me she was having a hard time motivating her child to do homework, etc. and asked if there were any things I could do in the classroom to help. I tried to find something at school, but outside our classroom that might be motivating to the student, (who was on student council) and I tried to find a few things inside the classroom that I could personally be in control of that might help with motivation. Here’s what I wrote to her:

Hi [parent name],

Here’s an idea I loved from a classroom in Utah:

The teacher had a sign posted in the front of the room that had the following words on it – “Neighbors: Front door, Back door, Side door, Diagonal.” This sign reminded her to use her established “random” partnering system (when factors like academic level are not needed to pair students). Neighbors was her way of partnering students (they sat in groups of 4 desks). The kids knew who was their front door neighbor, side neighbor, and so on, so all she had to do was call out a neighbor and the kids would instantly pair up. This saved her lots of time paring up, and she changed seats enough that the kids never got too bored with one partner. When she called “meet a new neighbor”, the kids were free to work with any class member. Sometimes, she’d call “block party,” and the entire table would work together. I thought this was a great way to partner students and build community.

As a teacher, it’s super important to communicate with parents. One of the most important communication experiences you will have with the families of your students is during parent-teacher conferences. Many of my students’ parents never visited the school’s website, or ever saw the announcements on the sign outside the school, so I wrote this letter to send home to inform the parents of my interest in meeting with them.  Although the school sent home mass letters telling about the parent-teacher conferences, I wanted the parents to know I was personally interested. Here’s a letter I sent home right before our school’s online scheduler opened. This saves me the headache of tracking down the parents who missed conferences because they didn’t know they were happening. Feel free to copy/paste it and modify it to fit your needs. As with all letters going home, check your principle’s guidelines before distributing.