Back in the Autumn term, we wrote about our parent / carer forums, intended to bring families inside some of our school improvement processes, with the foci on Homework and Assessment. Student Personal Development and Antibullying. These forums have led to some changes to our practice, such as the development of the recorded presentations explaining more clearly the reports we send home.

Just before Easter, we held the second of these forums and we really valued the input of the parents and carers who attended and. thought it useful to share the summaries of the discussions.

In the Personal Development session, we shared the Unifrog site, currently being used by the Year 10 students, their families and employers offering work experience opportunities in July.

The Anti-Bullying group talked about the forth coming anti bullying ambassador training planned for the students: currently almost 80 students have expressed a desire to be involved and external training has been sourced. We are looking forward to this happening later this term.

And in the Homework and Assessment group, we firstly shared the findings of our homework student voice survey and what we shared with staff in terms of best practice setting homework : the importance of clarity of instruction, of accessibility and of ensuring explanation of the point of the homework. We also asked parents and carers what they would find useful in terms of supporting their children’s learning at home. As a result, we will be hosting a KS3 Parent Information evening during this term, and our currently working towards putting links to all knowledge organisers on our website so that you can, with your child, access them at home to support revision.

The next parent forum is scheduled for June 19^th, from 6 – 7pm, and we really hope that many of you will be able to attend.

Deborah Banks

Deputy Headteacher