What Should Home–School Communication Actually Cover?

Home–school communication is more than a teacher reporting "how the child is doing."

What is really worth discussing is usually five things:

What they are learning | What they are good at | How they are settling in | What has changed lately | What happens next

The channel doesn't have to be the same every time. A quick reminder can go by message; a periodic learning update suits email; and if there are lasting learning difficulties, a clear change in mood or a problem with classmates, a phone call, video meeting or face-to-face conversation is usually better.

What matters most is not how often you are in touch, but this: after each conversation, do we understand this child better?

Two lamps shining on the same child

Sometimes a parent sits down with the teacher, and the first question is: "How has he been at school lately?"

The teacher says: "Quite well — he's been more focused in class."

The parent nods. A dozen minutes pass; both sides are polite and say quite a lot. But back home, the parent may still not know: what has my child actually learned lately? Where is he starting to struggle? Why has he kept saying he doesn't want to go to school this week?

And the teacher may not know that the child has been sleeping badly, that the family has just moved, or that he comes home every day saying he "can't keep up."

This is a very common pattern: everyone is talking about the child, yet nobody is really seeing the child more clearly.

If I had to pick one metaphor for home–school communication, it would be: two lamps shining from different directions.

The school's lamp shows the child in the classroom. The teacher knows when he joins in, when his attention drifts, whether he asks for help when stuck, how he behaves working with classmates.

The family's lamp lights up the other side. Parents see:

• whether he has been sleeping well;
• what mood he is in when he comes home;
• whether he has suddenly become afraid of one subject;
• whether he keeps mentioning one classmate;
• whether he has lately taken a special interest in something.

With only one lamp on, we see only part of the picture. Put the two sets of information together and the child's outline slowly becomes complete.

1. First, match the matter to the channel

No single channel suits every issue. This table can help parents decide quickly.

A simple rule of thumb: the more complex the information, the less suited it is to a few lines of text.

A question like "Is he being left out by classmates lately?" is best not guessed at back and forth over chat. A phone call or formal meeting usually makes it easier to put both sides' observations together.

2. The five things home and school most need to talk through

What they are learning: where the child has got to

Many conversations end on "He's doing well lately" or "His English needs work." Nothing wrong with that, but it isn't specific. What parents really need to know is:

• what has been mastered;
• what is still unsteady;
• which kind of task goes wrong most often;
• how the next step will be learned.

For example, rather than "Reading is weak," try "He follows the gist of a passage but struggles when he has to infer a character's thoughts from context." Now the parent knows where the problem actually is.

You can ask the teacher directly: "What has been the clearest progress lately?" Then: "Where does he most need help right now?" These two questions often say more than "How are his grades?"

What they are good at: don't reduce a child to a list of problems

Home–school conversations drift easily towards shortcomings: where maths falls short, where English lags, why homework is slow, why he is not more active in class. But a child can't be described only by weaknesses.

He may have ordinary grades yet look after others well; he may dislike speaking in public yet be remarkably patient with long tasks; his writing may not stand out yet his spatial imagination is excellent. So parents can ask: "What have you noticed that's more mature about him than before?" or "What kind of task gets him most absorbed?"

Sometimes a child's real motivation to learn is hidden in exactly these strengths.

How they are settling in: for a new transfer, look beyond grades

For a child who has just entered an international school, the adjustment is more than English. It includes:

• a new classroom rhythm;
• new teachers;
• new classmates;
• group work;
• speaking in public;
• more independent ways of learning.

Some children's grades hardly change, yet they are tense every day. Others start without standout grades but are already gradually willing to raise a hand, find a partner, and ask the teacher for help. So parents can ask: "Does he have a regular group he plays with?" "What is he usually like in group activities?" "When he doesn't know something, does he go to the teacher?" Questions like these show changes beyond the report card.

What has changed lately: mood and peer relationships deserve a conversation too

Many changes at school don't show up in marks first. For example: he suddenly goes quieter than before; keeps resisting school; keeps mentioning a classmate at home; starts avoiding activities he used to enjoy; or is lately especially tense and irritable.

The most important principle here: describe what we are seeing first; don't rush to define the child.

Rather than "He's been rebellious lately," say: "For the past two weeks he has refused several tasks he could normally do, and he is clearly more short-tempered at home." The first is a judgement; the second gives facts that both sides can discuss.

What happens next: end the conversation with action

A home–school conversation is best not to stop at "We'll keep an eye on it." That is too vague. More valuable is to spell out the next step:

• what kind of practice will the school add?
• what should the family watch for?
• what does the child take on himself?
• when will we look at the change again?

If, when the conversation ends, the teacher, parent and child all know "what I do next," the conversation has usually already been valuable.

3. A more useful method: fact → observation → action

Many conversations get tense because we move too fast to "evaluation": "He's not trying lately." "She just doesn't fit in." "This child has no sense of responsibility." Such remarks easily make the other side defensive. A more effective approach has three steps.

Step one: state the fact. "Over the past two weeks, four classroom tasks were not finished in the time given."

Step two: state the observation. "We've noticed that once a reading task begins, he usually keeps going for a while and then stops."

Step three: discuss the action. "This week the school will keep watching the reading difficulty and completion time. At home you could watch his recent sleep and homework. Let's exchange information again next week."

The advantage: everyone is discussing what happened, not arguing about "what kind of person" the child is. This is a habit well worth building in home–school communication.

4. The research: brief, specific communication can work

Communication need not be long. In 2015, Matthew Kraft and Todd Rogers studied, in a randomised experiment, the effect of teachers sending one personalised sentence a week to the parents of high school students taking credit-recovery courses.

Among students whose parents received no such message, 15.8% did not earn course credit; among those whose parents received the teacher's message, the figure fell to 9.3% — a drop of about 41%. The study also found that messages telling families "what needs to improve next" were especially effective in that experiment.

The point is not "if teachers send more messages, students will improve." What is worth noticing is that the message was short, but specific, and the parents knew what to focus on next.

5. Another randomised experiment: communication and classroom engagement

In 2013, Matthew Kraft and Shaun Dougherty ran a randomised experiment in summer courses for sixth and ninth graders. Teachers stayed in touch with families by phone and text. Overall, teacher–family communication:

• raised the odds that a student completed homework by about 40%;
• cut the need for teachers to redirect a student's attention by about 25%;
• raised overall class participation by about 15%.

The researchers suggested possible reasons: stronger teacher–student relationships, greater family involvement and changes in student motivation.

However, the study took place in a particular summer-course setting, so it can't simply be read as "daily phone calls will do the same in every school." It is better read as a reminder: when information between school and home genuinely enters the learning process, communication can have real effects.

6. Don't wait until "something goes wrong" to contact parents

Some parents see a call from school and think at once: "Has my child done something wrong?" Many families' past experience is that when the teacher contacts the parent, it usually means a problem — lateness, missing homework, falling grades, a conflict with classmates. Over time, home–school communication easily turns into a problem-notification system.

But a child's growth deserves to be told to the family too. For example: he used not to dare raise his hand and now volunteers answers; he used to be impatient and now waits for others to finish; he used to need reminders and now starts tasks himself. These changes may not appear on a report card, but for the child they are real.

So a specific piece of positive feedback — "This week he volunteered for the first time to help a new classmate learn the classroom routine" — is often worth more than "He's been doing well lately."

7. The school also needs parents to say what happens outside the classroom

The teacher sees the child for a few hours a day; the parent has known the child for many years. They are entirely different kinds of knowing.

Sometimes a teacher notices a child has suddenly gone quiet, with no obvious change in grades and no discipline problem. From the school's side alone it is hard to know why. But the parents may know that the family has just moved; a parent has been travelling for work for long periods; the child hasn't slept well for several nights; or something big has just happened in his life.

Parents don't have to tell the school everything private. But some background helps teachers understand the child better. For example:

• a recent family move;
• a change of main caregiver;
• clearly worse sleep;
• ongoing reluctance to go to school;
• mood and behaviour clearly different from usual;
• repeatedly mentioning a classmate at home.

Such information can sometimes change how a teacher reads a behaviour.

8. Bigger research: family involvement is part of student support

The Learning Policy Institute and the National Education Policy Center carried out a systematic review of research on community schools covering 143 studies, of which 29 focused mainly on family and community engagement.

They found that well-developed community schools usually combine four elements:

• integrated student supports;
• expanded learning opportunities;
• family and community engagement;
• collaborative leadership.

These factors tend to interact rather than work alone. So not every result can simply be credited to "home–school communication." But this body of research is a reminder that a child's learning, family circumstances, relationships at school, attendance and sense of belonging were never separate things.

9. Home–school communication needs boundaries too

"More communication" doesn't mean "communicate every day." If parents need to know daily how much lunch he ate, who he spoke to, which question he got wrong, why the teacher hasn't replied within an hour — communication easily turns from partnership into high-frequency monitoring. That is not easy on the teacher, and not necessarily good for the child.

As children grow, they should gradually learn to:

• record their own tasks;
• ask the teacher for help themselves;
• express their own problems;
• handle some peer conflicts themselves;
• take responsibility for their own learning.

The aim of home–school partnership should not be school and parents together watching the child ever more closely, but helping the child gradually learn to stand on his own feet.

10. Which situations merit early contact?

Not every small thing needs an immediate call to school. But if the following changes persist, don't wait until the next parent meeting.

• Learning performance keeps changing: not one bad test, but a clearly different pattern over a period.
• Willingness to go to school clearly changes: for example frequent lateness, absence or ongoing resistance to school.
• Mood and behaviour clearly different from usual: for example staying quieter than before, becoming tense easily, marked mood swings, or avoiding peers and activities.
• Recurring problems with peers: for example being left out for a long time, repeated conflicts, or obvious fear of certain classmates.
• A major change in the family: for example an international move, a change of main caregiver or anything else that may affect the child's state.

Many problems are not complicated when they first appear. What is really hard is that both sides have been watching for a long time and still haven't exchanged information.

11. A 15-minute parent meeting: what to cover

You don't have to say everything. Making these four things clear is already valuable.

If, at the end of 15 minutes, both sides are clear about what the next step is, the conversation has usually done its most important job.

12. As children grow, they should join the conversation

With younger children, home–school conversation is often Parent + Teacher. As the child grows, it can gradually become Student + Parent + Teacher.

The child is no longer just "the person the adults are discussing"; he starts taking part in his own learning. You can ask:

• "What are you most pleased with this term?"
• "What is hardest right now?"
• "What do you want to improve next month?"

This is practice in an important ability: understanding your own learning and gradually taking responsibility for your own growth.

13. At CCS, we want communication to begin with "getting to know the child"

At Chiangmai Cedar International School (CCS), we don't want our first serious attempt to understand a child to come after a problem has already happened.

The school sees the child in class, in learning, in peer relationships and in campus life. The family sees daily habits, interests, changes of mood, character and a much longer course of growth. Both sets of information matter.

So for families applying to CCS, admission is not only about submitting documents. According to the admissions information published on the school website, the process includes: submitting an enquiry form and booking → a pre-admission test for new students (English, Maths, Grammar and Reading) → an interview (online or on campus) → completing the follow-up application, fees and enrolment documents → arranging a visa if needed. Specific requirements follow what the admissions office provides at the time of application.

The interview and conversation with the admissions team matter in themselves, because getting to know a child can't start from a report card alone:

• What has his learning history been?
• What worries him most about the transfer?
• How is his English?
• What gives him confidence?
• What changes would he like teachers to know about in advance?

All of this can help the school understand the student more fully.

14. When you first contact CCS, talk about the child — no need to decide yet

If your child is about to enter an international school for the first time, or is transferring between countries and curriculum systems, you can begin by telling the school:

• how old your child is and which grade they are in;
• what curriculum they have studied;
• how their English is;
• what they enjoy most;
• what worries you most right now.

You can also tell us: "Is there anything you'd like the teachers to know in advance?"

You don't need to decide whether to apply at your first contact. CCS welcomes campus visits where you can learn about the programme, fees and enrolment documents — request one through the form on the home page or call the school.

Get to know the child first, then the school. Sometimes that helps more than comparing a list of numbers from the start.

Contact Chiangmai Cedar International School

If your family is comparing international schools in Chiang Mai, or would like to know more about the CCS programme, campus visits and entrance assessment, you can contact the school through the Admissions page.

• Phone: +66 (0) 62 620 8307, +66 (0) 62 638 8162
• Email: ccs-admin@chiangmaicedar.ac.th, Chiangmaicedar@gmail.com
• Address: No. 2, Soi 5, Chiang Mai–Mae On Rd., On Tai, San Kamphaeng, Chiang Mai, Thailand

In closing

Back to the opening metaphor. School and family are like two lamps.

The school sees the child as he is in the classroom; the family sees him once he has left campus. With only one lamp on, we see only part. When the two lamps slowly turn towards the same child, things that were blurred begin to come clear.

So what home–school communication really needs to do is not exchange more trivia, but answer together:

1. Where is the child now?
2. What is he going through?
3. What can each of us do next?

That is the real value of home–school communication.

Main research and sources

• Kraft, M. A. & Rogers, T. (2015), The Underutilized Potential of Teacher-to-Parent Communication: Evidence from a Field Experiment, Economics of Education Review. Weekly personalised teacher messages cut the share of students not earning course credit from 15.8% to 9.3%.
• Kraft, M. A. & Dougherty, S. M. (2013), The Effect of Teacher–Family Communication on Student Engagement: Evidence From a Randomized Field Experiment, Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness. Covers homework completion, classroom focus and participation.
• Learning Policy Institute & National Education Policy Center, Community Schools as an Effective School Improvement Strategy. A systematic review of 143 studies, in which family and community engagement is one of the four pillars of community schools.