Blog: Educational partnership: “Moving forward together”.

A strong foundation is indispensable to children’s well-being and development. The foundation starts at home, in a pleasant family and with committed parents. One of KinderRijk’s goals is to assist you, the parent, in raising your (young) child. That’s why we would like to tell you more about the meaning of ‘educational partnership’.

What is educational partnership?

The educational professionals work together with you, the parents, to connect the worlds of home and the care group. This cooperation is called educational partnership. Both parties are responsible for this cooperation. We need each other to make this a success. This creates an educational triangle between the parents, the child and the educational professional.

Partnership
The best interests of the child are paramount and both parties are open to each other in a solid partnership. This requires mutual understanding, appreciation and space to express mutual expectations in respect of each other.

You, the parent, are the first educator of your child; the educational professionals temporarily take over part of the upbringing and care from you. In this way, they assist you professionally with their knowledge, skills and actions. The educational professionals and you share relevant information during the contact moments.contactmomenten die er zijn, wisselen de pedagogische professionals en jij relevante informatie uit.

On the one hand, this allows the educational professionals to involve you, the parent, in the developmental stimulation and parenting support and, on the other hand, there is room for your input and questions.

This effective partnership will have a positive impact on your child’s development and well-being.

This partnership requires alignment and clear communication. After all, parents and educational professionals have different interests and positions. For instance, we are dealing with different social and cultural backgrounds and therefore with different styles of parenting and communication. This requires genuine keenness from both sides to learn to know about each other and to show and interest in each other.

A good example is different eating habits. For example, some children and parents are used to having a hot lunch at home instead of a cold lunch. Or sometimes it is customary that children up to a certain age are always fed. Whereas, based on our educational vision, we believe encouraging children to eat by themselves is important for motor development, independence and autonomy.

Sharing these questions or such experience will help to make sure that you and the educational professional share the same course of action together and that you fall in line with each other with regard to your child.

Another example could be the sharing of small successes or valuable moments of your child with the educational professionals. This creates moments of engagement and sharing.

During the child handover or other contact moments, our educational professionals involve you in your child’s experience at the childcare centre. Besides reporting on the day, they can, for example, tell you some things about the dynamics of the group your child is in and what this means to your child. This is how we build a solid partnership together in the child’s interest.