Parent volunteers are students' parents who are willingly to give some help in school. The education system is perhaps one of the most important domains that parents are involved in. Parents have an important role to play as partners in ensuring that their children continue to receive a good education.
For this reason, parents are encouraged to take part in the student's learning process and school activities. It helps bring about a significant change for the children and student's academic achievement.
Hence, this article aims at exploring and analyzing the importance of parent volunteers in primary school.
What are Parent Volunteers?
Parent volunteers are those parents who have volunteered to help in school.
They are dedicated to the education of their children and also involve themselves in other activities such as preparing and serving food, providing transportation, working in the library or being an office assistant.
Although parent volunteers are not teachers, they help the school's administration by offering practical support.
Schools have been dependent on the support of children's families for their growth and development. Based on this, the role of parents is becoming very significant.
What is Parent Engagement?
Some parents voluntarily come forward to supporting the school by providing their services.
This activity is usually referred to as parent engagement. Volunteers take various roles. Most of them are motivated by a desire to support their children's education.
Parent volunteers voluntarily give their time to participate in activities to help develop the school and its pupils. These activities may be as simple as serving food during lunchtime or special events. They may also involve being part of the governing body.
How do Parent Involvement Support Schools?
To understand the benefits of parent involvement in children's education, it is important to look into their different roles. Most of the time, these roles are determined by the needs of the individuals.
Still, they can also be influenced by the experience and interests of parent involvement. Some of these roles include:
1. Supporting school staff and teachers in classrooms
In primary schools, parent volunteers are usually assigned to support school staff and teachers in classrooms. They can be classroom helpers, in this sense.
Through this, they contribute a lot to the primary school as they manage students who are not focused, help maintain discipline, improve their skills, and help increase student achievement.
For example, involved parents can help prepare educational tasks.
2. Helping with administration
The school principal is the most important person in a school because he is the one who manages the school and takes care of all the operations of the school.
The principal also needs parents' help because parents have a vital role in their children's lives. Parents are in charge of making sure that their children are doing well in school, and they also need to make sure that the teachers in the school are doing a good job.
Suppose a student is having problems with his or her education. In that case, it is understandable that this could be because of a problem with the teacher.
If parents think that their child's teacher isn't doing a good job, they can ask for another teacher to take over the class. They must discuss these kinds of things with the principal, and it is beneficial if they can also talk with other teachers at the school.
In this way, parent volunteers can also help school staff improve performance by maintaining adequate financial resources, improving relationships with other parents, and involving them in decision-making processes. This contributes to promoting accountability.
3. Communicating with other parent volunteers
Volunteers have a huge role in communicating with other parents and keeping them informed about what is going on in their child's school; they hold meetings and parent-teacher conference, pass on information through newsletters, phone calls, emails, and text messages.
In this way, they help in creating a sense of belonging among parents. This also helps increase parent involvement, which improves students' skills and academic performance.
4. Mentoring students
Parent volunteers will help in the daily programs. Thet design the programs to support students at risk of failure by improving their academic performance. Also, the developing of students' good study habits. By developing work with other students and maintaining good communication about students' progress.
5. Supporting teachers by modelling
Parent volunteers can help teachers by modelling positive behaviors for students. Through this role, they can contribute a lot by setting examples for young students who may not be performing well academically.
6. Helping with parent volunteers activities
Another one of the benefits of parent involvement in children's education is by letting them help with school activities.
Parent volunteers can support different activities such as fundraising and charity work. In this way, they contribute a lot to their schools.
Why Parental Involvement is Important
For individual children, having parent volunteers means having extra adults concerned about them. They genuinely interested in their grades and well-being. Most parents want what is best for their children; being around them and helping out can serve as positive role models.
Other than this, parent volunteers can also help out in promoting family involvement in activities. By being around and taking part in school events, they can encourage other families to be active in their children's education.
Parent volunteers also serve as an avenue for families. They are able to increase their understanding of how schools operate. This is because they gain a better insight to the school. Also, what makes them function well. They also get an opportunity to meet other families who share similar interests and concerns.
How Parent Volunteers Involvement Leads to Student Success
There are various advantages of parent involvement. Parents can develop a positive relationship between the educational institution and the students.
This is because they can act as peer mediators and guardians at home. On the other hand, they will not develop a relationship with the students.
If problems arise, parents can act as mediators to resolve such issues. This is because they have a good understanding of what their children like and dislike.
Thus, they can easily identify with such issues. Therefore, they can solve such problems in order not to affect their performance.
Great Help in Improving Students’ Potentials
Parents can be of great help in improving the school environment. For example, they can help in organizing activities and events such as the clean-up. They can also assist in organizing fundraising activities.
The above helps to remove any form of boredom that the students may feel. This is because they can organize different games and participate in other activities to keep them entertained.
Parents can be mentors for the students. They have more first-hand experience than the teachers. The parent can guide them in different aspects of life. They can help children solve their problems. Thus, they can make decisions that will lead them to become responsible adults.
To be effective, parents should be responsible for what they can handle. This is because if they overdo it, it may become problematic for them. Hence, this may affect their children's performance at school and at home.
In conclusion, having parent involvement can bring about many benefits for individual students and other school community members.
The main aim of parents taking part in school activities is to ensure that their children receive the best education.
By being around and helping out, parent volunteers can serve as the family involvement and become familiar with how schools operate, which is important for improving communication between parents, children, and schools.
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