INTO/CPSMA Statement on Home/School Links

The Catholic Primary School Managers Association and the Irish National Teachers' Organisation are agreed that good relations between home and school play a critical role in ensuring that every child derives maximum benefit from her/his time in school.

1. Boards of management should encourage and promote the development of links between parents and teachers.
2. Boards of management would also find consultation with parents helpful in the management of the school.
3. The teaching staff should plan the most appropriate form of home/school links to meet the educational needs of the pupils.
4. The board of management should be advised of the details of this plan. In accordance with the Rules for National Schools, the board of management should approve the details of this plan.
5. A teacher may not be required to participate in home/school links activities outside of school hours.
6. The times and dates to be arranged for meetings between parents and teachers should, as far as possible, be convenient for parents and teachers alike.
7. The Department of Education and Science should promote home/school links by authorising boards of management to allow teachers to dismiss their pupils from school for The board of management should encourage the development of good channels of communication between the teaching staff and local schools medical, psychological and social service personnel who may be in contact with the homes of the children.
8. In large schools, the duty of organising a home/school links programme may be assigned on the establishment of a post of responsibility.
9. This would not remove the responsibility from any class teacher for having an individual home/school links programme.
10. The Department of Education should appoint an additional assistant to each special school and to each school in an area of socio-economic disadvantage in order to facilitate the development of home/school links programmes in those schools. This additional teacher should provide opportunities for class teachers in those schools to meet parents, and if necessary, visit homes during the school day. In the longer term, this principle should be extended to all schools on the basis of additional assistants in the larger schools and peripatetic teachers for groups of smaller schools.
11. The Department of Education should encourage programmes of home/school links by ensuring that every school has a suitable interview room, free from the noise and interference of the classroom, in which teachers may meet parents.
12. In order to encourage the highest level of participation by teachers in home/school links and to try to ensure that they do not suffer any personal financial loss due to such participation, an expense allowance should be sought for teachers.