ABSTRACT
School staff can often be left wondering why there was such a low turn-out for the last Parent–Teacher Association event or why so many parents did not know about the field trip. Consistency and routine are probably the major issues to get right when setting up home–school links. Students arrive home from school with a variety of pieces of paper that often do not appear to come from the same source. During the Assertive Discipline training sessions relating to home and school contact, it was shown that the positive note home was the single most influential method of changing students' behaviour. Plenty of planning and preparation needs to go into the smooth running of parent evenings. Sessions that are supposed to adhere to appointment times but overrun, leaving parents frustrated, can do more harm than good in establishing good home–school relationships.
