Family and Community Relations in Early Childhood Education - Free Paper Example

Introduction

A good relationship between families, the community, and the school is integral in improving learning at the early childhood education level. Cooperation between the families and community in childhood education does not only improve the well being of the children at school but also provides a conducive environment for learning (Hill, 2015, Boonk et al., 2018). The benefits of family and community involvement in childhood education include positive learners' achievement and improved learners' behavior (Britto et al., 2017). A successful family and community involvement in childhood education need to be an ongoing activity where the families and community actively participate in the children learning activities to improve the learners well being and learning outcomes.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Studies have established that families and the community get involved in childhood education on a very minimal level due to busy schedules and commitment to other activities (Bassok et al., 2016). However, According to McClure et al. (2017) the need for family and community involvement in childhood education cannot be underestimated. The management and teachers of Melaka Expatriates School have scheduled an event that will bring together parents and community members to discuss the preschool management issues and encourage both parties on the importance of collaborating. Melaka Expatriates School is a community childhood education center located in northern Malaysia. The school was established in 2001 and has grown to become one of the best preschools in Northern Malaysia. This is an outline of the key objectives of the event, explaining the target groups, the date of events, a written itinerary of events, the estimated costs, and a concluding remark.

Objectives

The event will be scheduled to host parents, community leaders, and teachers, with the aim of establishing the coming up with best practices and approaches for running the preschool. Since Melaka Expatriates School is a community-based school, the involvement of parents and the community is paramount; thus, the activity will be of importance in ensuring the full involvement of parents and the community in the running of the school. It is expected that the meeting shall establish the ways parents and the community can assist teachers and the preschool management in running the school in a manner that the children or learners' outcome and well-being is improved. In the meeting, the benefits of a strong parent, community, and school relationship will be discussed while the teachers outline some of the activities that the school has been engaging in to promote the relationship. In the discussion of the activities, parents and the community leaders shall explain the school's progress over the years by giving them the annual reports, social events calendar, and school performance in academics, music events, school fairs, cultural functions, and barbecues.

This activity will be done by open discussion and parent-teacher interviews. The interviews will engage the parent, teacher, and child. The inclusion of the child will help in negotiating tasks and monitoring achievements. Where necessary, private information about the well-being of the child may have the child excluded from the meeting. The following will also be discussed; whether parents can volunteer in some school programs, how and when parents should be attending parent groups or committees, social activities that can bring both parties together, and after-school activities that parents can engage their children in. It is expected that parents and community leaders will come out of the event having understood more about their children's school's whereabouts and will have contributed to how the school can improve its operations through collaboration with the parents and community for better learning outcomes and child wellbeing.

Out of the activity, it is anticipated that collaborative learning strategies meant to improve early child learning will be established. Some of the strategies to improve learning that may be arrived at may include increasing the number of parents-teachers meetings, parents checking the school's website or emails regularly for updates, initiating community volunteer programs such as working in the school's canteen, working on school events such as school raffles, parents helping in school sports and attending other events like school concerts. The activity may also have other attributed benefits, which include; the child's physical development, the child's social and emotional development, and how children can adjust to kindergarten.

Target Group

Some of the ways through which families and communities can work collaboratively with the childhood education centers are; volunteering in classrooms, attending school functions, helping children do their homework, home reading with their children, and setting up community resources and learning centers (Coleman, 2018). Thus the event will target a total of 18 children and parents. Parents' involvement in school activities and events has been a challenge to most preschools. This has affected the implementation of some learning activities or initiatives that require direct input from parents. In order to ensure the target group attends the activity, the school will develop some approaches that will encourage parents to come and participate in the event. Among the strategies will be writing a note to them that will be delivered to their homes. Parents or family members allowed to attend the event will have to have a clear relationship with the child. The school will have an approach to ascertain the relationship between the child and the parent or guardian. In the case of a parent sending a representative, for the safety of the child, the school will also do a cross-examination to prove the relationship. Children will also participate in the event. Thus, it is only children who are officially registered by the school will attend. However, most parents in Malaysia have a tendency to carry other children when attending a function. Thus, in the event, parents come along with other children, the children will have to sit alongside the parents. The children will be expected to be punctual in their school attire and well-groomed for the event. The event's organizers will ensure that the children sit in a well-organized manner for easy identification by both parents and teachers during the event. By collaboration, the school will ensure that all the children are represented in the event by either parents or a family representative.

Date of Event

Initiating family and community involvement at childhood education centers requires a well-thought plan to mobilize families and the community to participate in child learning activities (Castro et al., 2015, McClure, et al., 2017). The choice of a date for the event is critical, for it shall determine the number of participants who shall attend the event. Most parents or guardians are usually committed to their jobs and would not be easily available for school activities on days when they attend their official duties. Therefore, the school has made various consultations with all stakeholders and realized that most parents or guardians would have an easy time attending the event towards the last month of the school's academic calendar. Therefore, a consensus has been reached that the event will be carried out on the school closing day. This will be during the last week of the school's academic calendar. One strength of choosing this day is that it has been a tradition in Malaysia that parents attend their children's closing day ceremony. Thus, parents plan in advance to be available for their children on the closing date.

Having the event done on the closing day means that the attendance of parents will be optimal; hence the objective of the activity will be easily attained. The other strength of the date is that since it shall be the last day for the school's semester calendar before a break, the children will be safer as they will head back home accompanied by their parents or guardians. The date is also favorable to the community leaders and representatives who take a keen interest in education matters. We shall welcome some of the community leaders who may be willing to attend the event to motivate the parents and children and address the issue of family and community involvement in improving early childhood learning. The event will require the school's administration to be well prepared, for instance, having materials such as report cards, student assessment tools, and grading policies well put in place. Therefore, the choice of date towards the end of the term will give the school administration enough time to be well prepared.

Committee Involved

The committee chosen to plan for the event includes the preschool head, teachers, and the parent's representative. The preschool head will be the head of the committee in preparing the event and making the event a success. The head of the committee will have the responsibility for ensuring all activities before the date are planned in a systematic order. While doing this, the head will make sure that work is done according to the activity goal. However, the planning for the event will be a collaborative process that will entail discussion with the teachers at the preschool to establish all the tasks to be accomplished. The head of the committee then assigns each of the tasks to an individual teacher or person to handle the task. The head of the committee will also periodically assess the level of accomplishment of the activity preparation tasks, and in the event the scope of tasks changes, then the head of the committee will reschedule the tasks and reallocate them to a person to accomplish the tasks. All the teachers who will act in the capacity of project team members will frequently report to the head of the committee on the progress of the tasks assigned to them. In case the teachers find some challenges in the implementation of the tasks, they shall communicate the same to the head of the committee to ensure the issue is addressed before the actual activity date. The parent's representative will represent parents in the committee. The representation of parents will provide a framework that will be used in various discussions at the event.

The school has one child appointed as the school representative who is tasked to direct the other children. The child representative will be partly included in the committee as he will be trained on how to organize his fellow children during the event. The child representative will also give a vote of thanks speech on behalf of the other children in the school during the event. The committee is expected to determine the event's goals, adjust the structures to make the event a success, and analyze each and every task to be done during the event. The committee will also ensure that tasks have been properly assigned to the required personnel. It is also expected that the committee comes up with a well-set budget to fund the event. The committee members will also confirm that the selected date for the event is convenient for both parties and that the venue is easily accessed. The head of the school, who is also the chair of the committee, will play the role of officiating the activity on the day of the activity.