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'Global Day of Parents’
'Global Day of Parents’
In 2012 the UN General Assembly established an annual day of celebration recognizing the important role that parents and caregivers play in protecting and nurturing their children. The annual ‘Global Day of Parents’ has been celebrated on the first day of June for the past twelve years and is celebrated with an exchange of gifts and small acts of kindness from children to their parents.
The United Nations’ ‘Rights of the Child’ lays out the conditions under which children will thrive and flourish and highlights the significance of a family environment that is infused with an atmosphere of, “ … happiness, love and understanding.” The convention further asserts that, as well as being the biggest sources of support, parents and caregivers must also be supported in their efforts.
Support for parents can come in many forms. There is much to be said about peer support, where parents share their experiences in support of one another. This was very much evidenced in the self-harm workshop co-led in the first semester by our SSS team and Ibu Risye, a Secondary parent.
Further avenues of support can be found online, such as the resources shared here by the United Nations or here by UNICEF.
An additional source of support and guidance for parents can also be found within the school gates. At Global Jaya, we recognise that parenting can be a tough and lonely job at times. This is especially the case if your child is not making expected academic progress, or if your child’s physical or mental wellbeing is suffering or if your child’s behaviour is not aligned with the values of the school. It is in these moments where parents and teachers must work together and support one another with the same end goal in sight: a flourishing child!
To be the best support possible for our GJS parents, we share these teacher-parent partnership guidelines:
Communication: To facilitate our partnership, we strongly believe in the importance of two-way communication. We will let you know if your child is not doing well or if behaviours are becoming problematic. In return we ask that you let us know if there is contextual information that is likely having an impact on your child’s wellbeing or ability to learn.
Consistency: In order to ensure that school is a safe space for every child to flourish, we recognise the need for our actions and processes to be objective, fair, balanced and reflective. In order to achieve this in a consistent manner, we strive to ensure that all of our responses and actions are closely informed and guided by our school policies. We take proactive steps to ensure that policies are transparent, easily accessible and that all staff and students are educated about the content of our policies. In return, we ask that all parents read our policies, attend parent policy workshops and support our efforts to reinforce the content of these policies with their child.
Growth: We recognise that school is a place for growth and that, during the course of the school day, students are learning more than the content of their subjects. Students are learning about themselves, the world, how and where they fit, how to be alongside others, how to navigate difficult situations, how to be leaders and change-makers and how to problem solve. Our role as educators is to embrace every aspect of the school day as extended opportunities to help students to grow. Our Behaviour policy is built around this very premise and reinforces the importance of students learning from the mistakes that they make and being equipped to make better choices in the future. In return we ask that you put your trust in us in the knowledge that our behaviour processes are robust, objective, reflective, collaborative and always with student growth and accountability in mind.
The well-known African proverb states that, “It takes a village to raise a child”. As we approach June 1st, ‘The Global Day of Parents’, we hope that you will take the time to celebrate yourselves and all of your efforts and the sacrifices that you have made in support of your child’s success. Further, we thank you sincerely for allowing us to be part of the village that is raising your child to be the very best version of themselves possible.
Happy Global Parents Day!
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