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EMAIL
YOUR COMMENTS
Rationale
Good home-school communication is essential if our
young people are to reach their highest possible levels
of achievement and parents are to be confident in
supporting the work of the school. Similarly, good
personal relations between all in the school community
including parents/guardian, pupils and staff are
fundamental.
Ideally, communication would involve face-to-face
contact although productive telephone conversations and
written communications are invaluable alternatives.
Recommendations
The group recommends that the school should prepare a
short policy statement on Home-School Communication,
include a copy on the school website and refer to it
within the school handbook. The policy and procedures
within it should be monitored through regular
consultation with all stakeholders.
In particular, the policy statement should include
three areas:
1. General information for
parents.
2. Procedures
for two way communication.
3. Encouraging
Parental Involvement
1. General Information for
Parents
The school should:
- use the whole range of media
to promote the school
- produce a 'What to do
…' booklet for parents, giving practical advice
on how, when and where to get information and who to
consult
- advertise changes which have
been made in response to recommendations from the
pupil council
- issue the parental
newsletter on a regular date so that parents expect
information and look for it.
- display publicity posters in
local shops, churches and health centres
- consider posting to parents
all essential correspondence (including
reports)
- use 'Groupcall' to alert
parents to important dates and to correspondence they
should expect to receive.
- hold information events for
parents where ideas are shared.
- improve publicity for the
options programmes when pupils are making their
subject choices
School
Handbook
The school handbook
should:
- continue to be issued to all
pupils in Primary 7
- be posted as a pdf file on
the school website
- provide a summary of all
courses and subject areas offered at school
Classchat
The 'Classchat' insert in the
local newspaper should:
- provide more information
about the life of the school including more
photographs, more items about individual and group
achievements and a 'Department of the week'
item.
- direct readers to the school
website
- include an email address
from the school which parents can use to send comments
or questions.
School Website
The school should:
- advertise the school website
as an award- winning website
- ensure the school website
includes information of general interest with a
'What's New' section e.g. exams, concerts and a
calendar of events.
- look to continuous
improvement of the website by asking for ideas and
feedback.
- encourage all departments to
continually update their web pages
- ensure the school website
address is visible in waiting rooms, interview rooms,
corridors, school headed paper and other
correspondence.
- ensure the school website
includes links to North Ayrshire Council and other
educational websites
2.
Procedures for two way communication
The school should:
- ask those attending parents'
evenings to update contact details
- target pupils for attendance
at parents' evenings/afternoons
- provide three or four dates
where year heads, principal teachers or guidance staff
are available for consultation during the
day
- ensure that all
correspondence to parents has a contact email address
and the school's website address clearly printed on
them.
- invite parents to submit an
email address for correspondence which is either
specific to individual pupils or requires a response
3.
Encouraging Parental Involvement
The school should:
- encourage parents to be
partners in their children's learning in a variety of
ways including supporting homework and participating
in extra-curricular activities
- take positive steps to
enable all parents to participate effectively in their
children's care and education in areas
like:
- supporting Dress
Code
- supporting attendance and
punctuality
- checking homework diaries
- providing an appropriate
study area at home
- attending information
evenings
- attending parents'
evenings
- commenting on pupils'
reports
- completing questionnaires at
parents' evenings
- taking part in consultation
during audits
- setting pupils' targets
- encourage parents of ASN
pupils to become involved in:
- Internal Support Team and
Joint Support Team Action Planning
- visits to, or working in,
the Educational Support Resource (Base)
P.Gilchrist for Ardrossan Academy Parental Focus
Group 1 May 2007
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YOUR COMMENTS
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