Parent information sessions
In the Junior School, parents are equal stakeholders in their child's learning journey. To support this alliance, the school continually orients parents on different aspects of school life at regular intervals. Some of these orientations are based on academic areas like how inquiry looks like in the classroom, what are our mathematical teaching and learning practices or how transdisciplinary learning promotes critical thinking skills. These sessions follow a format where the facilitator first introduces the idea, associated jargon and the Primary Years Programme (PYP) stance on these aspects. This is followed up with classroom examples where the parents are given the opportunity to experience the learning first-hand through well-designed engagements. These sessions are led enticingly and interactively by our homeroom teachers as well as single-subject specialists, celebrating the diversity of experiences amongst our staff. Some of the aspects addressed were assessment, inquiry, mathematics, and reading and writing.
Members of the Junior School pedagogical team also regularly engage parents with sessions intended to better understand how our school is unique in its context and ethos. These sessions focus on the school’s philosophy and how it manifests in its policies and practices, giving parents a bird’s eye view of how the school functions. Some of these sessions have been on reviewing the assessment and academic integrity policies as well as the preparation the school had made towards the multi-programme International Baccalaureate (IB) Evaluation visit, which took place in November 2023. The PYP Coordinator has also run special orientation programmes for Grade 5 parents addressing the overall big idea of transition. In these sessions, he takes the parents through the details of the unit on adolescence that caters to a lot of the issues arising out of physical, emotional and social maturity and change. He also addresses the heightening of academic standards in the PYP Exhibition, which threads across the continuum as the Personal Project in the Middle Years Programme (MYP) and the Extended Essay in the Diploma Programmes. This is an opportunity for the PYP students in their final year to independently inquire into an issue that arises out of their passions, interests and abilities, inspiring them to conduct self-directed inquiry and take meaningful action. This special Grade 5 parent orientation also covers aspects of the PYP to MYP transition programme, completing the circle of growth and change and equipping the parents with strategies and know-how to support their child as they embark upon this journey.
These sessions have proved very beneficial in not just keeping the channels of communication open with the parents, but also in involving them in the daily happenings in the life of their child.
Abhimanyu Das Gupta,
PYP Coordinator
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