Abstract:

From our point of view, effective cooperation between a school and family is the starting point for a quality and satisfactory course of education. This paper focuses on the use of traditional and non-traditional forms of cooperation between a school and pupils' legal representatives. It points to the researches of some authors, which confirm that both traditional and non-traditional forms of cooperation between school and family take an irreplaceable role in the educational process. In the paper the authors present the results of the research aimed at analyzing the forms of cooperation between the school and the legal representatives of pupils (most often parents) of elementary and high schools. Through the questionnaire method, the importance of cooperation with the family, preferred forms, intensity and satisfaction with cooperation between them and their parents were assessed. In the sample of parents, attention was focused on the intensity, forms of cooperation with the school, as well as whether they were actively seeking contact with teachers and whether they were involved in various activities carried out by the school. The research was carried out on a sample of 130 respondents - 68 teachers and 62 legal guardians of pupils at primary and secondary schools in Slovakia. The Chi-square test was used to statistically verify the established hypotheses. The main findings of the research show that teachers, both at elementary and high schools, consider cooperation with pupils' legal representatives as very important. Among the traditional forms of cooperation, the most preferred are parents' meetings, written communication, parents' visits to the school, Open Day, activities for parents. Teachers consider contact with parents to be sufficient and they also believe that cooperation can affect pupils' performance, even their behavior at school, etc. Parents would intensify their contact with the school by increasing the frequency of meetings and other school actions. They would also like to be present at the lessons and intensify written communication and individual meetings with teachers. They would also welcome activities during the holidays and would like to cooperate on joint projects. The results of the research indicate that school and family intersections from the perspective of teachers and parents seem to be a good potential for increasing its effectiveness in the future, so that the main players in the educational process, our pupils - our children, remain at the very center of interest of both sides, teachers and parents.

Keywords:

Cooperation, traditional/non-traditional forms of cooperation, teacher, parent, elementary school, high school, questionnaire, Chi-square test.