Building a Learning Community: Involving Parents

With the heightened emphasis on the learning community in the International Baccalaureate's Enhanced PYP, we have been aiming to reach out to parents in various different ways at the Aga Khan Academy Hyderabad, India. Adding to other long-standing engagements such as parent involvement in school events, participation as guest speakers and taking feedback through surveys and questionnaires, we have explored bringing parents on-board in some new ways of late. These include learning alongside their children, sharing their perspectives on our curriculum and contributing to our resource bank through item donation.

Many times our parents have come in for sessions led by our students but we recently invited parents in for a day of activities, learning alongside their children. Our ‘Design through Literature Day’ provided parents the opportunity to learn with their children as they explored various design and technology projects stimulated by the reading of a selected picture book. Extravagant sandwiches were made, inspired by The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch, fantastical structures were constructed after reading, Brick, Who Found Herself in Architecture and Julia Donaldson’s, The Paper Dolls inspired beautiful dioramas and models of additional characters.

Father of Grade 3 Student Reading to Other Parents and their Children 
Photo Credit: Nivedita Paul

Mother of Grade 3 Student Making an 'Upside Down' City
Photo Credit: Nivedita Paul

Floating City
Photo Credit: Nivedita Paul

Air City
Photo Credit: Nivedita Paul

Lighthouse Sandwich Making

We are always keen to get feedback on our programme from parents and regularly ask for their opinions. At the end of a unit our teachers will ask for parent views on how the unit went and what they might like to see in the future. In each orientation session we get some good data on parental concerns and clarify areas of confusion. At the end of the last academic year at the time of our annual curriculum document review, we tried something new, which was to invite parents in to contribute to the Programme of Inquiry review. Although, admittedly, the choice of parent was fairly undemocratic, we aimed to get a spread of viewpoints by inviting parents whose expertise came from diverse backgrounds. The process of conducting the review along with parents was beneficial in many ways. While teachers were presented with fresh perspectives on old units and were challenged to defend why particular components held relevance, parents felt validated by their contributions and gained a much deeper understanding of the complexities involved in designing a curriculum framework. Both parties found the experience enriching and learnt so much from each other so we will definitely we continuing the practice in each annual curriculum review.  

One big focus area this year has been re-imagining our understanding of ‘play’ and, along with many other play-related initiatives we have been developing our outdoor play spaces. We decided that the enhancements might have more impact on the learning community if we involved students and their parents in the donation of items to enhance the playground. Our first donation drive so far has been items for our mud kitchen, with parents sending in all kinds of pots and pans, bowls and spoons which the children have joyfully utilised making mud soup and mud pancakes and more. The latest request to go out is for interesting-sounding items from which to create a sound wall and other outdoor experiential music stations.

These examples represent a new commitment we are making towards enlivening and strengthening our learning community. We already have an incredibly supportive and involved parent body and hope to further bolster this essential relationship in various innovative ways.