Pihu, was feeling restless, not with anxiety but with excitement and joy. The kind of feeling that tickled your tummy with butterflies, eagerly waiting for her baba to attend the School Management Committee (SMC)  meeting.

"Aaj Baba bhi aayenge school!" she whispered, her eyes wide with joy and pride, her cheeks bright like a morning sun.

And so he arrived. Little Pihu ran to him, welcomed him with a hug, barely managing to reach up his knees, grabbed his hand and pulled him to meet Badi Ma'am.

As parents stepped into the SMC meeting at Government Primary School Gular, joy filled the room, smiles stretched from ear to ear. Little chitter-chatters and tiny huffs and puffs of satisfaction in the classroom, in the form of jumping up and down at the thought of their two major worlds - their schools and homes collaborating.

This was one of the many experiences I've had as an enabler of school community partnerships that tells me, “this is important”. As cliché as it may sound, parents showing up creates belongingness for the child, settles them into their new environment, brings the school closer to home,  and makes an educator more than an educator - a trustworthy, approachable, amicable adult.

But what really holds our parents back?

What hesitates them to be a champion for their children? The answer is complex but deeply human. More often than not, it’s rooted in a lack of self-confidence. A systemically ingrained doubt in their own abilities, a lifelong message that their voice doesn’t carry meaning; especially in spaces like schools - slowly erodes their belief that they can and should have a say in their child’s learning. Over time, this leads to passive involvement, not out of disinterest, but out of internalised discredit from being seen as their child’s first teacher, their most powerful ideal.

So, what are our educators doing to bridge this gap?

Here are some of our simple practices that Badi Ma'am at Gular School brought into her SMC - small steps that are slowly stitching GPS Gular and the community of Gular closer:

• Personalising invitations - not just asking our students to inform about the PTM, but crafting handwritten cards with cute little drawings made by the children themselves, turning the invite into something special and heartfelt.

• Making the space feel joyful and safe - like the time Razia* didi, a parent who, while fasting during Ramzan, not only attended the SMC but also joined in for a game of musical chairs AND WON! We saw children giggle, gape at in disbelief and cheer on for their mothers, whom they had so rarely seen play and run around.

• Acknowledging parents’ efforts meaningfully - teachers calling out small, specific actions that contribute to their child's learning, whether it’s reminding their children to do their homework, ensuring a 100% attendance through the year or cooking delicious food.

• Opening up space for authentic dialogue - creating a space for parents to voice their ideas, share challenges, and really feel like co-owners in the process - who have a voice, who have their own special wisdom, like they belong and deserve to be heard.

• Sharing meals together — chai and lunch SMCs scheduled intentionally to align with the only available window some working parents may have. Food becomes more than sustenance here; it becomes connection.

  
  

But none of this happened overnight.

Creating these small moments of connection and trust took consistent effort — and a whole lot of listening, co-creating, and reimagining what family engagement could look like in our schools.

We began by thinking about what it'd take for our educators and parents to regain trust in each other and themselves. We worked closely with our Head Teachers to design SMCs not as compliance-driven meetings, but as community-led events - warm, child-centred, and grounded in respect for the wisdom and lived realities of our SMC members.

We co-planned and co-created tools and practices that made this possible:

• Objective-oriented session plans, anchored in empathy. Every meeting was designed by stepping into the shoes of our community members, always asking, what do we want them to feel, say, or do? We planned backwards from there.

• Invitation formats that carried children’s voices. One Saturday was all it took to sit with students and create handmade cards. Small efforts that carried big emotions.

• Post-meeting reflection and debrief spaces with educators - helping us learn together, tweak, and deepen the impact each time.

• Celebration routines that made visible the often-invisible contributions of parents - a word of gratitude, a little acknowledgement, a simple paper badge.

• Planning for contingencies by thoughtful scheduling that respected the time and dignity of working parents, hence ensuring that no voice is missed out in this space and that the design of the space itself accommodates for the diverse needs of the SMC members.

  
  

  

  
  

This journey is ongoing - collection of small wins coupled together, the success story - however, is still being written. For now, I’m passing on a celebration of hope and faith in the quiet, powerful force of incremental change.

Pihu walked back hand in hand with her Baba that day. Gushing about the wonderful song he sang during Antakshari. "Mere Baba to bahut gaane gaate hain!" - she had declared proudly to Badi Ma'am a few days earlier. Pihu wondered if that was why Badi Ma'am had decided that we'd have an Antakshari competition at the SMC.

Maybe that’s what it looks like when schools start listening closely and when little dreams, whispered in passing, begin to shape how we show up for our children.

About the author:

Akriti manages SEF’s Government Partner School Project in Uttarakhand. There she works closely with teachers across 5 Government schools, to enhance the quality of teaching and children’s school experience.

To connect with Akriti, click here.