Parents Forum

Parents Forum: 16th January 2012

Parents’ Forum was held on Monday 16th of January and again it was lovely to see lots of parents come into school for this.

Abrianna Bedeau-Wallace led this meeting as agreed at our previous meeting as part of the school trying to give parents as much ownership for the Forum and its discussions as possible. As a result of this, Abrianna wanted to discuss the terms of reference for the Parents’ Forum so that we were all clear about what the purpose of the Forum is. This ties in with the idea that we would like the Parents’ Forum to play a more active role in school life, policy and decision making. One of the issues has been that parents come to Parents’ Forum for lots of different reasons – some come with particular questions relating to their children. We all felt that one solution to this is, that alongside the Parents’ Forum, we start a Parents’ Drop-In session once a half term with Heads of Year so that parents can come with any concerns they have about their children. In this way, we hope that Parents’ Forum can be a body which discusses new policies and decisions and life at school in a general way and Parents’ Drop-In can be used to discuss individual matters. Please see the dates and times for this below.

We talked about the new diary – all parents seemed happy about the changes and we had more feedback about homework and the homework projects. Mr Jones was available as well to take feedback on the behaviour policy.

Parents’ ESOL classes have started and are going well. About fifteen parents are attending overall. Further details of this can be obtained at Reception or by calling Ms Weekes.

Please also keep in mind the International Evening which is on May 11th which Ms Weekes is helping Ms Lansley to organise. Lots of students have signed up to participate and celebrate countries from all over the world. If parents would like to get involved themselves, there are lots of ways to do this: by making some food for the evening, helping their child to come wearing clothes which are traditional for the country they are representing, helping welcome and serve food at the event or by helping their child to promote their chosen country in the brightest, most colourful and entertaining manner. Interested parents should contact Ms Lansley for more information. We hope that lots of you are planning to come along.

The next Parents’ Forum meeting is on Thurs 15th of March, 2012 at 6pm– hope to see lots of you there. Parents’ Drop-in will be on Tues 28th of February, 2012 between 5pm and 6pm