MODULE 5: "MEETINGS"
Each parent and teacher partnership will need to decide what meetings are required. This module provides a guide of the many and varied meetings that our parents and teachers have used in collaboration.
There is a clear purpose, a guide of when and how often these meetings might happen, and who needs to be involved. One important meeting that will take place at key times during a student’s education is that of transition. This module will discuss when these key transitions will occur and how to develop a transition plan.
“Focus always has to be on the student. Both parties need to realise that no results come easy. The truth is that these students need parents and educators to work hard for them – we must be diligent. There is no room for complacency. The benefit is that when you get results the value is priceless”
Teacher
RESPONSIVENESS
TRUST
REFLECTION
RECIPROCITY
- Student Centred
- Open and regular communication
- Collaboration integrated into school practices and procedures
- Trial, error and review is inherent in design
RESPONSIVENESS
TRUST
REFLECTION
RECIPROCITY
- Student-Centred
- Open and regular communication
- Collaboration integrated into school practices and procedures
- Trial, error and review is inherent in design
Why hold meetings?
Meetings are pro-active and save time in the long run. Whilst meetings may require time to be organised, a clearly defined, student-centred, and well prepared for meeting will provide forums for communication where more than one party can contribute at the same time. We need to recognise and consider who are the influences, who needs to be involved to achieve student goals?
A parent shared: “Individual education plan meetings twice a year have been an excellent tool to get everybody together. They also have been an excellent place to acknowledge the successes. Very satisfying to be able to check through goals achieved. Has also been a good place for problem solving or identifying areas that might need some tweaking and then pulling together a plan for one or more trial strategies to address the issues or the next step. Also having multiple heads together has meant some really creative problem solving has occurred. These meetings have also been a place where everybody’s contribution has been accepted, respected and valued.”
“Quarterly IEP meetings were held to set goals and review progress. The teacher would provide me with a timetable of the day, and also worked with the therapy team to develop his own detailed class schedule and visuals. The teacher would clearly explain the curriculum that the class was working on, and how they were supporting my son with it”
Parent
A school year is 40 short weeks with many competing demands, so meet early and decide upon which meetings you will have and set dates (most schools have a yearly calendar out before the academic year starts) and invite attendees well in advance.
Family involvement in planning and decision making is important because families know their child best. Family input is instrumental in making sure that the student receives appropriate support, and ensures that necessary changes are made so they can be fully included in the classroom.
VISIT WEBSITE:
Family involvement in meetings, planning and decision making – Family Advocacy
VISIT WEBSITE:
Family involvement in meetings, planning and decision making – Family Advocacy
TYPES OF MEETINGS
- Communication meeting – working with the TEAM Student approach, an agreement of what needs to be discussed, how and when to plan regular check-in meetings. Communication meetings can be formal or informal, an opportunity for parents to check in with school processes and requirements.
- Personalised planning meeting – formally written with agreed goals, clear measures and strategies of how this will be achieved, build in review, trial and error. Meetings to be held early in the school term – best practice.
- Review meeting – an opportunity to reflect on successes, praise all parties involved, and pre-plan for next term. Meetings to be held at end of term – best practice.
- Transition meetings – these are essential to a successful collaboration and for student success. Held in Term 4. Present at meeting should be current teacher, next year’s teacher, and parent/s. The goal is to share the information on the individual student. Any changes that are required can be made in advance, a discussion around expectations and learning plans, ensuring student voice. Read more about the transition meeting here (Autism Learning Partnership)
Transition planning
“Building knowledge prior to the change of a routine or something different is essential to set the child up for success”
Parent and Teacher
Everyday within our lives we all experience change. There are changes that occur in the activities we do, the places we go to, and the experiences we have. Another word to describe these changes is transition. For some of our students, the transitions that occur not only with major changes such as starting school or starting high school; but also the day to day transitioning that occurs from home to school, playground to classroom, and classroom teaching transitions from a maths lesson to art, can all have an overwhelming and challenging impact on our student.
WHAT IS A TRANSITION PLAN?
A transition plan is a written plan to support changes to routine and/or environment. It is important to plan for transitions as much as possible to increase student success. Transition plans can be brief or highly detailed. This will depend on the needs of the individual student and the type and length of transition that is being planned for.
HOW TO CREATE A SUCCESSFUL TRANSITION PLAN
- Ask the student, or parent/carer about how they have been able to cope with changes in the past, what worked and what didn’t.
- Use your student’s strengths, interests and challenges when planning how to best support for transition
- Use of a support/go to person – identify and share with the student a person they know or someone they can trust that can be the person they go to if they need extra support or guidance.
USE OF VISUALS
- Taking photos of the different environments, the new people they will meet and the new activities they will be involved in
- Mapping out the environment – printing out or drawing a map of the new environment, colour coding and familiarising the layout with the student can be a great source of support and information
- Social stories are another great way to prepare students for change
- Visual prompts in the classroom and on the student’s desk to timetable the day’s planned lessons and activities, which can be used to tick off by the student can be supportive and comforting to a student, particularly if there has been a change to the classroom teacher
- The use of a calendar or diary to assist the student to count down the weeks/days that are leading up to the change.
WHEN DO KEY TRANSITIONS OCCUR FOR THE STUDENT?
“To prepare the school, we captured my daughter’s capacities visually – a page of photos of Elizabeth at home and kindy – it was the best way to show Elizabeth’s fine motor, gross motor skills and how she could participate”.
(Taken from “Dealing with Transitions” Community Resource Unit – CRU)
Starting School:
The importance of a positive transition to school is well recognised across the literature. It is considered a significant event for both children and their families, and one that can have a considerable impact on a child’s later educational and social outcomes.
READ MORE:
Preparing your child for school – Bob Jackson
READ MORE:
School transitions – Department of Education NSW
WATCH:
Transition to School Video Clips – ECIA NSW/ACT
READ MORE:
Preparing your child for school – Bob Jackson
READ MORE:
School transitions – Department of Education NSW
WATCH:
Transition to School Video Clips – ECIA NSW/ACT
“High school seemed scary at first but has brought all the same amazing benefits and highlights for my daughter as it did for her older sister. Different teachers for different subjects, being surrounded by teenagers, talking about teenager stuff, have all brought on great growth and independence for our girl. Going into high school, I was a better advocate and more practised at those tricky conversations. And we are really seeing wonderful opportunities opening up because of the work we’ve put into including her in a regular school community”.
(Taken from Dealing with Transitions, Community Resource Unit – CRU)
Starting High School:
Research from the Department of Education in 2016 indicated that students’ sense of belonging in Year 7 is significantly influenced by their prior sense of belonging in primary school, their relationships with peers and teachers, and the support for learning they receive at school and at home.
READ MORE:
Preparing your child for school – Bob Jackson
READ MORE:
Preparing your child for school – Bob Jackson
Life Transitions:
Almost always, things go better if you plan. If you start thinking of an ideal life for your son or daughter when they leave school, your dream is more likely to become a reality if you start planning when he/she is age 2 than age 17. By starting to plan at age 2, every decision can be framed around “will this make it more likely that he/she will achieve the ideal life?”
READ MORE:
Preparing for Life Transitions – Family Advocacy
READ MORE:
Dealing with Transitions – Community Resource Unit (CRU)
READ MORE:
Preparing for Life Transitions – Family Advocacy
READ MORE:
Dealing with Transitions – Community Resource Unit (CRU)
The importance of meetings
The parents and educators who created this framework believed that flexibility, openness and the willingness of teachers to work with parents as peers was very important, especially when it comes to the student. The relationship between the educator and parent/s is one of equals, so the ‘teacher voice’ needs to stay in the classroom. The understanding that this is a long-term collaboration that happens over the student’s whole school life, there is no ‘set and forget’ to building a good school experience for the student. Rather, it is the ongoing development of partnership between school, parent and student to meet the individual student’s needs and goals.
The sharing of successes from both parties and the collaborative problem solving that can occur in regular meetings is very important for the ongoing success of the student. Regular contact to check on needs and also to report on successes. There is value in the shared excitement of progress with our student.
“Having consistent communication and empowering the teacher that it is ok to make mistakes like everybody else, it is through these mistakes that we can move forward with everyone’s learning – both educator and parent alike”
Parent
I need to consider what do we do at home that might be useful in the school context. How can I assist the teacher to understand my child’s strengths, and how can that information be brought into the classroom? I have to be patient with the teacher, I need to remember that they have a lot of other children in their classrooms too, and remembering all the detailed information about each child, can be very difficult. I need to be prepared to revisit information, to support and remind the teacher from time to time.
I need to remember to leave my teacher hat in the classroom. I need to ask questions about my student, to be curious about how things are managed at home. I need to be ready for lengthy discussions to obtain as much information that will be useful to support and encourage my student
READ:
Parents individual education plan (IE) report
READ:
New and improved IEP meetings – Kathie Snow
VISIT WEBSITE:
Your Child’s IEP: Guide for Families – All Means All
READ:
Parents individual education plan (IE) report
READ:
New and improved IEP meetings – Kathie Snow
VISIT WEBSITE:
Your Child’s IEP: Guide for Families – All Means All
THINKING: “LET’S PREPARE FOR THE MEETING”
Prior to any conversations it’s good to have thought about what we want to talk about!
Use the meeting matrixes to think ahead about the points, observations, suggestions and recommendations you need to bring up in the meeting.
Please click on the icon that applies to you to see the content
Which meeting do you want to attend or contribute input into?
How would you like to do this? Can you make some goals or raise some issues you would like to discuss?
Use the meetings matrix and add some things you would like to be raised during the meeting.
RESOURCE 1:
Student Meetings Matrix
How can you prepare for an upcoming meeting? Looking at the different meeting matrixes below, what issues or concerns need to be raised and what format would be the most appropriate for the meeting? Does it need to be informal such as a brief catch up, or is a more formal format required due to the nature and complexity of the matter?
What preparation is needed before the meeting? Do you need to share documents or examples of your child’s school work, or does information from other people/services involved with your child need to be shared – remembering what to share and what is relevant?
If the meeting has been called by the teacher – How can you prepare for the meeting? Looking at the meeting matrix, what points, observations, suggestions and recommendations can you add?
RESOURCE 2:
Communication meeting matrix
RESOURCE 3:
Personalised planning meeting matrix
RESOURCE 4:
Review Meeting matrix
RESOURCE 5:
Transition meeting matrix
How can you prepare for an upcoming meeting? Looking at the different meeting matrixes below, what issues or concerns need to be raised and what format would be the most appropriate for the meeting? Does it need to be informal such as a brief catch up, or is a more formal format required due to the nature and complexity of the matter?
What preparation is needed before the meeting? Do you need to share documents or examples of student’s work, or does information from other people/services involved with your student need to be shared?
If the meeting has been called by the parent – How can you prepare for the meeting? Looking at the meeting matrix, what points, observations, suggestions and recommendations can you add?
RESOURCE 2:
Communication meeting matrix
RESOURCE 3:
Personalised planning meeting matrix
RESOURCE 4:
Review Meeting matrix
RESOURCE 5:
Transition meeting matrix
Let’s have a meeting about meetings
“Collaboration occurs via effective meetings with a clear agenda. I think you also have to develop a good working relationship from the outset, so it helps to respect each other and show some trust.”
Parent
Share – The meeting matrix relevant to what you plan to meet about, does the student want to be involved?
Consider – What meetings need to occur, when they will happen and who will be invited.
Impact – Fill out blank meetings matrix, diarise and invite attendees.
RESOURCE 6
Conversation Guide – Meetings
RESOURCE 6
Conversation Guide – Meetings
Let’s share something positive to start with – on the topic of something we have discovered about our student or more generally.
What has been discussed, decided upon? Has the student been consulted before, during or regards to the outcome?
What needs to be followed up, who will do this, by when and how will we know it’s been done. Is there a review required?
Who else is it important to share this information with? How will we do this? Who will do this? (Consider other staff, replacement teachers, peers).
Now go back to your “Conversation Guide” document and complete the “actions” section.