Managing parents' expectations at nursery is a perennial challenge. These might include demands to know when their child will be taught to read or write; it may be that a parent expects a 20 minute de-brief every day of what their child has been doing.
One thing that I have put in place to help us manage parental expectations is a solid keyworker system. We recognise parents as their child's first educators and as authorities on their needs and preferences. Good engagement with parents helps to ensure a continuity of care from home to nursery and back again. Our keyworker system provides the whole family with the security of an enduring relationship. We even back this up with a 'reserve' keyworker, so there will always be someone who knows each child well.
When a keyworker has a solid relationship with a family, it becomes easier to explain that it's not that we can't or don't encourage children to read or write, but we will only do so if that is something the child is interested in, and has expressed a desire to do for themselves. We have to help parents understand that a child's communication, language and literacy development is much broader than reading and writing and that by forcing them to access literacy activities in a very narrow way can hinder, rather than promote, development.
It is important to provide feedback in the format that suits each family - written or verbal, focusing on care or activities. These are the things that I encourage each child's key worker to discover.
But what can be done when a parent expects lengthy daily feedback? It not only leads staff and parents to over-analyse what a child has done, but also keeps a staff member tied up with that parent and not engaging with the children who are left for lengthy periods of time or unable to give feedback to another parent.
Sometimes I do intervene and help parents understand what we can deliver.
