We were last inspected in November 2022 and developing our partnerships with parents was one of our recommendations. Since then we have consulted with Parent Governors, the Parent Forum & the LA to identify actions for improvement. Below is a summary of what we've done so far. We'd really appreciate your feedback on how we're doing and what you'd like to see us do next - please complete the form linked at the bottom of this newsletter.
What have we done so far?
Revised our Newsletters - the problems with the old format were discussed with Governors (including parent Governors) and we explored new technology before settling on our current format which we believe is easier to read on a phone. Links to Newsletters are now sent via text and email and are posted on the school website.
Reviewed ways of communicating. We sought advice from the LA as part of this review, learning from problems other schools have experienced. We have taken the decision to use text and email (not Google Classroom, See Saw or Twitter) as our messaging formats. This was to avoid missing messages if we use multiple apps, and because emails are easier to find (whereas it can be hard to find a message within a Google Classroom or See Saw stream). Information about who to contact in a range of different scenarios is available on the school website linked here.
Updated our school website. The school website had become cluttered and we had struggled to maintain it effectively coming out of the pandemic. Prior to making changes, we spoke to LA officers, looked at other schools' websites, explored commercial options and considered manageability. We decided to stick with using Google as it is free and, since the pandemic, we have been using Google Drive via the Welsh Government Hwb platform, for a lot of our work. This makes it easy to link documents and ensure the website is regularly updated. Our Parent Forum told us they appreciate the calendar being maintained and the newsletters being posted on the website. Staff and Governors were keen to see greater basic information shared to address common queries (& sometimes complaints). Discussions with them informed the revised content within the Information section. We'd be keen to know if there is anything else that parents would value on the website.
Established a list of parent volunteers who have DBS checks to support us in running school trips. We know that some parents told Estyn that they were frustrated that trips didn't run in 2021/22 - ensuring adult to child ratios on the trips, was a major factor in this. We can't run trips without our volunteers and we are incredibly grateful to them. Even with this in place we struggled to have enough adults on one trip last term. If you would be interested in joining our volunteer list please contact the school office.
Consulted more regularly with parents through online questionnaires. We are finding that only a small number of parents complete the surveys. Often the views shared are from those who are most positive or most negative and therefore it can be difficult to gain a true picture of parental views or to track progress. We'd really like more parents to respond.
Set up a parent forum who meet half termly to discuss 'hot topics' (e.g. the revised sex education curriculum, our class organisation policy and attendance procedures) and to review our changes as we introduce them (e.g. the new newsletter format, the introduction of See Saw and the improvements made to the school website). Anonymised responses from parent questionnaires are discussed with the forum. If you would like to get involved then please contact Mrs Tucker: TuckerJ58@sch.caerphilly.gov.uk
Communicated the School Vision
Estyn commented that 'parents have not been involved in creating the school’s new vision'. However, the actual content of the vision had not changed (and parents were consulted on that when it was written a number of years ago). What we were in the process of doing at the time of the inspection was revising the motto. Our old motto was Dysgu Gorau, Dysgu Byw, Learning Together, Learning for Life. However staff and Governors felt that this was a little woolly. We wanted something memorable that captured what was important in our vision. We had settled on Achieve, Believe, Care and were about to communicate this to parents when Estyn notified us of their visit.
Since then, we have created a video, with the help of the school council, to explain our school vision and shared this on our website - linked here. It only takes a minute to watch.
Re introduced our Meet the Teacher event in September. Most people who gave us feedback after this event were positive. A parent asked us to consider doing a later event for working parents and we will do a survey of preferences in the summer term before making a decision for next September - what we want to do is ensure the best attendance.
Worked with the PTFA to reintroduce regular fundraising events. We are very grateful for their hard work over the last 12 months - they're a very hardworking team and have been very successful! Please follow them on Twitter & Instagram!
Shared more information with parents about our school & curriculum.
Estyn said that 'Parents are not given sufficient information about how they can support learning' and that 'their input into Curriculum Design has been limited.'
Information about how to support learning
The Parent Forum have enabled us to discuss changes / updates in detail and gain an insight in parent views before communicating information more widely. For example, knowing it was a 'hot topic' across Wales, we talked to them about changes to Sex Education to support us in getting it right when we released information to all parents.
We have also begun to put on events to provide greater information to parents about how they can support learning (we're aiming for one event per half term). In the summer term, we ran the family learning project to support parents of targeted children with helping their children with maths. Last term we reintroduced the Meet the Teacher event in September and we put on a presentation for parents in November about the cluster WRAP project (which is about building and improving relationships). This term we will run an open session for all parents to come in and see how children learn maths in Pontllanfraith and we will provide information to parents about e-safety at parents' evenings.
Curriculum Design
Parents had been asked to contribute to Curriculum Design in 2021/22. We had a limited number of parents engage but their contributions were shared with staff and Governors before we took the next steps.
Our original Curriculum Summary was published in July 2022, however, it was revised last term, with staff & Governors, following engagement with curriculum advisors.
Our School Ambassadors helped to create a video to communicate our curriculum more effectively (linked here).
All teachers have asked parents to contribute their ideas at the beginning of a new topic. Emails will be sent out on Friday outlining this term's topic and asking for your contributions.
All classes produced a short video to share with parents about what they covered in their Autumn Term topics (please log in to your child's Google Classroom to see these if you didn't get a chance over Christmas). Please email your child's class teacher if you have difficulties in accessing Google Classroom with your child's login information. We have used Google Classroom because it's secure and we need to be mindful of photo permissions.
How are we doing and what else would you like to see?
We'd really appreciate your feedback - please complete our form linked here. To get an accurate picture of parents views we need more parents to contribute. Please help us to make a difference - we want everything do to benefit the children.