Extra-curricular Observation
H4 HOPE Principle Honor the family/community involvement in the learning process.
The H4 principle indicates a teacher’s ongoing commitment to serving the students and ensuring that families and the greater community feel welcomed and invited. Each fall our school holds a Harvest Fest to celebrate the beginning of another school year and socialize with the community. The Harvest Fest is a PTO (Parent Teacher Organization) event held in the evening and is open to students, their families and the community. There are activities such as a ‘cupcake walk’, beanbag toss, and a bouncy house set up in the gym. Students and their parents are free to explore the numerous activities in both the cafeteria and the gym areas. The students have a great time getting to see each other outside of school hours and often group up and go from one area to the next. It’s a great chance for parents to spend some casual, relaxed time at the school and meet their child’s friends and their families. Often for parents who are new to the school it is a great way for them to start to feel relaxed in this new setting. They’re also able to interact with the teachers in a very casual manner, which can also calm some nerves.
Helping parents feel welcomed and comfortable at school is the first step in getting them more involved in our school community. Once parents begin feeling more comfortable they are more likely to begin participating in other ways as well, such as volunteering or perhaps going on a field trip. Parents who attend our community events are also likely to contact the teacher with any questions they may have about their child’s behaviors or academic performance at school.
Many of our students stay at our school all the way from Kindergarten through to 6th grade so the Harvest Fest event can be the beginning of many long-term relationships; friendships amongst the students, friendships amongst the parents and hopefully friendship amongst the parents and the teacher(s).
A strong sense of community is built at this event. I really enjoyed getting to see the students so happy playing games and wandering around. And the parents had fun watching their children, and playing with them in games such as pin the tail on the donkey or trying a ring toss.
The older students (mostly the 6th graders) often group up and wander together in a large pack. It’s a safe area for them to be together with their friends and (slightly) away from their parents, who are often with their younger children. Many times the 6th graders help with set-up, decorations, or the game booths. The 6th graders created a ‘haunted hallway’ for people to tour.
The picture above is a flyer for the 6th graders to start their work in the creation of the haunted hall. It demonstrates the level of both student and family involvement as shown under the highlighted area “Parents and students are all encouraged to attend this initial planning meeting”. Parents are heavily involved in the process, they started showing up around noon on Harvest Fest day just to start moving tables around and setting up the various booths and stands.
Having participated in this event numerous times, I am again reminded what a nice ‘treat’ it is to have all of these people come together to share in a night of joy for the children. As a result of attending this event I am able to see what community really looks like, I know the feelings of camaraderie and helpfulness that surround these events transfer on to other areas of our lives as well. That parents and community members who feel welcomed and comfortable in a school environment and with teachers are much more likely to provide support and encouragement to their child and increase their communication and relationship with teachers as a result.
The Harvest fest is a really nice community event, and everybody gets involved in one way or another. Parents and teachers get to see each other and talk, often spending an hour or so together as they work together putting in a shift at the popcorn stand or cotton candy machine. The kids are really well behaved, happy, and excited. The younger kids seem to think that it is incredibly cool to be at school at nighttime and play games, while the older students really enjoy getting to see their friends. What makes this school important is that they take the huge amount of time and effort it takes to put this into production, but that they do it over and over again throughout the year. The Winter Fest planning is already in full swing!
Lewis is learning 