Buddhist Wong Fung Ling College
School-Based Experience in Home-School Cooperation
Nowadays, youngsters need to face abrupt changes during the course of growth. Students with special educational needs (SEN) are in a more pressing need for our support in order to overcome various difficulties during the course of schooling. We firmly believe that, with the mutual trust and cooperation between parents and the school, students with SEN can adapt to the learning stage of secondary school happily and healthily.
In line with the Whole School Approach to integrated education (IE), the Student Support Team, the Discipline Team, the Guidance Team, class teachers, subject teachers, etc. of the school perform their respective duties to provide support for students with SEN. Generally speaking, the majority of parents of the supported cases would show various degrees of anxiety about their children’s SEN and put forward to the school various requests for support. The role of parents is vital in the process of nurturing students. We expect parents to become learners and learn the methods to support their children at home. Therefore, the school focuses on developing and promoting home-school cooperation systematically. First, we need to establish good communication with parents. Second, we need to help parents understand IE policies and support approaches of the school. Third, we encourage parents to participate in the development of related support plans actively, review the progress of students and the effectiveness of support and further optimise each support measure.
As a matter of fact, regardless of the types of cases being handled, the families cooperate with the school closely at all times. For example, we make use of the questionnaires distributed on the registration day for S1 students to understand the daily situation of students with SEN from the perspective of parents. Teachers would also observe the conditions of the students in different circumstances and keep in touch with parents. The implementation of highly transparent IE policies is the best way to let parents rest assured. Therefore, we have tried to compile school-based support measures and strategies into pamphlets, with various information on special education included, aiming to enhance parents’ understanding of the support measures and IE. In addition, the parents are also invited to meet with the instructors of small-group training to understand the performance and progress of their children, and learn ways to support their children at home. Through these training activities, we are pleased that students receive appropriate support while the communication between parents and students is enhanced, which brings their relationship closer.
When dealing with individual cases, we firmly believe that parents’ understanding of and experience with students can help us take care of students more effectively. Therefore, it is very important to have parents’ recognition and assistance. We need to observe the performance of students in class more closely and make more positive and affirmative comments. Whether good or bad, we call parents to discuss the performance of students more often; replace blame with care, replace demand with cooperation and maintain two-way communication. We explain to parents more often the methods of taking care of students, encourage parents to cooperate accordingly and establish a relationship of mutual trust. Simply put, home-school cooperation is one of the keys for the effectiveness of student support.
