☕️ Busy? Here's the TL;DR
- We put together a conference template!
- It's a creative, personal solution for updating families
- Use photos to show work & text boxes to describe performance
- Link to resources for parents + a helpful post on tough parents for you.
I’ve led some parent-teacher conferences that were real doozies. I’m sure you can relate...😜
Communicating all that we have to say about students in a short amount of time, some of it challenging, is not easy — not to mention the endurance test of the day, itself! To help with planning & with parents/caregivers who aren't able to attend conferences, we went ahead and put together a parent conference school newsletter template. Why a school newsletter for a conference form? It’s personal, engaging, and interactive.
Additional bonus? Caregivers can translate your feedback into their home language, if different from English.
So, what’s in the Parent Conference newsletter?
The template kicks off with a text block for a paragraph about your class or the student, accompanied by an inspiring quote. Next, you’ll find a helpful post on how to best prepare for conferences, followed by an example of how to use the photo gallery widget to discuss student work.
The middle of the template is dedicated to your feedback on the student.
We've got placeholders to discuss the essential aspects of student success in schools, followed by a blog post that offers clear, concrete suggestions for how to share feedback with families that might be hard for them to hear.
Because there's almost always feedback that's hard to hear...
Balance feedback from the teacher with feedback from the parent.
School psychologist Michael G. Thompson talks about the importance of starting the school year by asking parents about their hopes and fears for their child. Accordingly, we’ve got a sample google form that solicits parent input. Lastly, parents & caregivers always appreciate a resource that helps them support their child’s success, so feel free to use the one we’ve included, or replace with your own.
Wishing you smooth sailing on conference day.