Castle View School gains accreditation for Excellent Parent Communication.
Castle View School, part of Zenith Multi Academy Trust, has been awarded the ‘Leading Parent Partnership Award’ for its exemplar communication between parents and the school.
Being awarded the LPPA shows that Castle View School:
- Supports parents as their children transition through or between schools.
- Includes all groups of parents in supporting their children's learning and developing their own learning.
- Takes steps to ensure that the school is a welcoming, communicative and friendly place for parents.
- Provides clear and accessible guidance to help parents support their children's learning and development.
- Provides clear guidance on the responsibilities of parents, school and pupils, and shares this information with parents as a key part of the induction process.
- Produces parent-friendly policies to establish effective home–school links.
Mr Durkin, Headteacher said: “We are thrilled at receiving this award, so soon after achieving the Wellbeing Award for Schools. We are constantly looking at how we can improve our communication and work with parents and carers. This recognises are efforts and improvements but we will not stop there; positive home school relationships are central to improving children’s life chances.
Dr Wilson, CBE, CEO of Zenith Multi Academy Trust said: 'I'm delighted that Castle View has had their parental communication acknowledged by the LPPA provider. The staff at Castle View, and across Zenith Trust, have always worked hard to always ensure parents are well informed about all matters of school life and this has not changed throughout these unprecedented times.'
Highlights from the report include the below:
Commentary on the evidence provided & strengths identified during verification:
- Stakeholders, in particular, were glowing of the way the school provided clear communication and the work of the school to support parents during the COVID 19 pandemic. All recognised the significant developments in recent years and the further developments during the period of the award.
- The adviser had previously verified the schools successful Wellbeing award and this visit formed part of the evidence base for this process in particular the tour of the school undertaken at that time.
- There was also clear evidence on the school website showing how the school were supporting parents and families normally and through the current lockdown.
- There is a clear philosophy underlying the work of the school that they are a partnership with parents and seeking to work together to the benefit of students.
- Communication between home and school are excellent and provides a strong tool to work in partnership and engage parents in their children’s learning.
- The school have significant capacity within their pastoral team, and this has been used to positive effect to support and respond to the concerns of parents building strong relationships
- The school’s communication and engagement with all parents through the COVID 19 pandemic has been model practice and demonstrated strongly they care and are in partnership with parents. In addition to weekly phone calls for all families they have carried out daily phone calls and delivered food parcels in partnership with a local charity and supermarket to the most vulnerable families. Their regular contact with all has enabled them to identify those most in need and provide timely support.
- School staff have demonstrated they are prepared to go above and beyond to support a family in need and numerous examples were shared with the verifier by all stakeholders.
- The school is open to parents and the wider community and actively seeks to draw them in to the life of the school and to act as a hub for the wider community
- The school have excellent provision in place to support the mental health and wellbeing of parents and the wider family in addition to students and recognise this contributes to unlocking the potential of individual students.
Impact:
- The school has introduced a new app called Edulink, an improvement on an older app. The school makes good use of this and other social media to communicate with parents
- Parental engagement is included in staff induction sessions and in regular INSET sessions held during the year.
- A wide programme of joint activities has been developed
- The school has introduced a new Parent Information Pack and a new Student Information Pack.
- All curriculum information is now displayed on the school’s revamped website.
- The school has responded to parent feedback by redesigning the layout of school reports. They complete the feedback loop by informing parents of changes brought about in response to feedback.
- They have introduced a “You said/We listened” process to feedback systematically to parents on the actions taken on feedback received.
- The school has introduced Microsoft Teams to provide homework information for parents.
- The school have established a parents’ forum and now use the group as a sounding board and feedback mechanism for new initiatives and a conduit to share information.
