Schools

• 38 Parents
• 23 Teachers
• 22 Students (Secondary School)

Leading discussion groups on school- family communication

8 discussion groups in total:

4 with the participation of parents

2 with the participation of teachers

2 with the participation of students

Areas of discussion:

1. School-Family Communication: means of communication, evaluation of the information flow
2. School-Family Cooperation: common activities, parents' proposals and involvement
3. Parents' Role in schools
4. Teacher-Parent Relationships: positive and negative attitudes, expectations

• Means of communication found:

on an individual basis:

• individual meetings
• school reports
• personal notebooks
• letters
• phone calls

on a class and school basis:

• newsletters
• bulletins
• circular letters
• notices
• posters
• informative reports

Documents collected were:

• school plans
• newsletters
• bulletins

1. SCHOOL - FAMILY WRITTEN COMMUNICATION to assess in a number of documents:

- where a satisfactory level of quality has been reached

- where quality still has to be improved

• One contact person in every school unit in charge for collecting and delivering documents to the Cospras person (Medizza)

1. Collecting documents on school-family written communication(86 documents in total)

2. Grouping documents in 5 categories:

a) School Plans and projects (5 in total)

b) bulletins -newsletters (10 in total)

c) circular letters to families (40 in total)

d) documents from the notice board (15 in total)

e) "informative" papers and posters(16 in total)

3. Analysing and evaluating the above mentioned documents according criteria of quality in written communication

1. A number of considerations about where and how documents examined by the expert have reached a good level of quality, and where and how they can be improved

2. A number of suggestions aiming at an effective school-family written communication

12 Parents (3 from Pre-primary School, 3 from Primary School, 3 from Middle School, 3 from High School)

12 Teachers (3 from Pre-primary School, 3 from Primary School, 3 from Middle School, 3 from High School)

1. Conducting interviews on parent-teacher individual meetings:

• preparation, contents, way of running individual meetings
• aims, expectations, feelings, description of problems
• suggestions for an "ideal" parent-teacher individual meeting (24 interviews and 311 pages transcribed from the interviews)

2. Analysing interviews and categorising main issues found

Three categories found:

1. Setting (place, time, relationships)

2. Teachers' and parents' viewpoint

3. Other (whatever is not included in the first two categories mentioned above)

1. SCHOOL - FAMILY WRITTEN COMMUNICATION

• to present the results of the research to the pilot -schools involved
• to elaborate a number of training materials for the improving of school-family written communication

None

1. Reviewing considerations and suggestions made by the expert

2. Working out tools ready to be used by teachers and non-teaching staff

Production of in-service training materials to be validated

2. SCHOOL - FAMILY SPOKEN COMMUNICATION

• to present the results of the research to the pilot -schools involved
• to elaborate a number of training materials for the improving of the teacher-parent individual meeting

None

Working out tools to be used by teachers

Production of in-service training tools to be validated

1. SCHOOL - FAMILY WRITTEN COMMUNICATION

To have training materials ready for use

None

Reviewing training materials by considering the reactions of pilot schools at the presentation of the research

Production of a cd - rom with suggestions on how to improve school - family written communication

2. SCHOOL - FAMILY SPOKEN COMMUNICATION

To have training materials ready for use

• 82 teachers
• 9 parents

Validating training materials by having them read and discussed by a number of teachers and parents

Producing the basic structure of a cd - rom with in-service training materials for schools

3. BOTH WRITTEN AND SPOKEN COMMUNICATION

Presentation and distribution of the training materials, possible follow-up in schools

Presentation of the materials, final debate with questions and comments of participants.

Planning a possible follow-up with further contacts with schools.