Parent Voice Feedback

6th form – can they leave when lessons finish or Friday rather than lunchtime? I appreciate they need to be signed in and out.

This is something that can be reviewed after the year 12 mocks and improved attendance. Students have scheduled study sessions in school to help them complete all independent study. We will review this as a leadership team after the Year 12 mock series.

Tables/lunch area for 6th form- board room?

Students have the use of the study areas and the open area outside the library for lunch; they also have their own outside space away from the rest of the school.  Additionally, students can access the restaurant in their ‘frees’ so they can go when it’s quieter.

Weekly bulletin – include more for all years and mention good as well as bad to show rectified behaviour.

Thank you for this comment, we will aim to include more for all years going forward, within both Key Information and Celebrating Successes.

We will also liaise with the college pastoral teams to highlight in more depth what behaviours, both positive and negative, we are seeing within the academy, and how we are rectifying recurring negative behaviours through our behaviour curriculum.

100% attendance awards – some are getting more than one while others get none.

The Friday 100% rewards are generated through a random draw. We have had 8 weeks of rewards and only in week 7 did I allow duplicates as these students continued to have 100% attendance in separate modules.

All students with 100% attendance were celebrated in college reward assemblies and so this will hopefully no longer be a concern. We are also going to increase the
frequency of the 100% attendance rewards to every module as opposed to every second module.

School bag – to discuss at the next meeting. What are the reasons behind compulsory bags/benefits or not?

The standardised school bag will bring unity and equality to our uniform. It will ensure all pupils have a rucksack to support good posture, weather proofed and of a protective nature for the Chromebook.

Year 8 reports please. They are still incorrect. I have no faith in these reports.

Reports have been thoroughly checked multiple times to ensure their validity. The initial difficulty we experienced with our data system has been resolved.  Final MYP reports issued in M6 will also undergo the usual checks and will not experience the same challenges with data entry.

I think it is a good idea to provide updates in the bulletin on some of the problems that are still being addressed even if it might not feel it shows the school in a positive light. It would help parents understand how much work is going on in the background, manage their expectations (to a degree), make the decision they don’t want more palatable, it does happen to promote trust, etc.

This is a really helpful comment and we can factor this in our bulletins in the future. We will liaise with college teams to discuss areas/behaviours which we are currently working through behind the scenes and write up what is being done in the background to combat this, including the reasoning behind this, in order to give parents and carers a greater insight into what we are doing to support our students.

Reports – putting a one in place of a zero if they missed a module.

Schools across the trust used a similar model for reporting which is to issue a ‘U’ grade if an assessment is missed. An ‘X’ is issued for those who have recently joined the school.  This allows us to view this grade as a blank rather than pulling down student averages and unnecessarily highlighting concerns about particular pupils.

PSHE on personal hygiene (in light of new pupils).

Physical health and wellbeing is a key part of our Personal Development curriculum, with personal hygiene featured in Key Stage 3. The curriculum sequence is currently being redeveloped.

On the chromebooks my child was asked to upload photos onto a class but the system would not allow it, so he could not complete his homework.

Staff will be working with pupils to teach how to use the chromebook more effectively when completing homework. Pupils will be shown how to complete all homework tasks.  Please see a video here on how to upload photos from your chromebook.

Maybe consider showing the videos to parents to allow them to see line ups, etc.

This is something we are looking into and ensuring all pupils have photo permission for external use prior to this.

Interim reports – it was helpful receiving these before parents evening. Also please keep the average grade column used in the first reports issued, as a parent this is a usual benchmark.

Our intention is always to provide the average grades; the issues we had with our reporting system unfortunately prevented us from producing them on this occasion but that has now been rectified.

Year 7 parents evening was very well run and great to be in person.

Thank you for your feedback. We will continue to refine and improve all our procedures to ensure that the pupils and parents get the best experience from these events.