Manston St James CE Primary Academy Parents Forum 23.11.17
Thursday 23rd November 2017
Things we talked or asked about / Responses and information including responses from the teachers /· Will we have the (national) Christmas Jumper day like we had last year.
· Are we having Christmas parties?
· What has happened to award assemblies and the opportunity to come to school for that.
· We had a long and very positive discussion about Year 6 being given ‘leavers’ hoodies to wear.
· What is happening about the Y2 residential?
· The school Facebook page.
· There was a question about measles.
· A query about illness, how it is dealt with and who makes final decisions about sending children home.
· The letter that comes home when PE kit has been missing is not very clear. Further detail would help.
· The playground pick up time remains challenging for parents. What can be done?
· Can Parents’ Forum be held at a time when working parents can attend? / · We are happy to agree to this. It will happen on the last day of term (Friday 15 December). Usual school uniform except a Christmas jumper rather than school sweatshirt/cardigan. This is a family choice and is not compulsory. If children would like to wear reindeer ears, Santa hat or other such festive head gear that would be good fun too. Please be careful in your choice and sensitive to helping children remain calm as well as joyful.
· The teachers have discussed the Christmas parties. It appears the style of Christmas parties over the last few years is very different to how it was many years ago. In the last few years the ‘parties’ seem to have become over extravagant and caused challenges and upset for too many people. This year the teachers would like to create a more manageable experience that everyone can enjoy. We propose we can reflect on the most positive aspects of the experiences and think about what Christmas festivities might be for next year. The teachers have agreed the following;
o Christmas ‘festivities’ will take place in the morning of Friday 15 December.
o The teaching team will organise and plan games and other activities for the morning.
o There will be no need for party food this year.
· The opportunity to celebrate children’s achievements with class work and how their attitudes and behaviour demonstrate our school values will take place each Friday morning. The celebration assembly will be in phases so each phase will celebrate fortnightly reception to year 2 one week, years 3, 4, 5 and 6 the next week and so on. We will let families know if your child is due to receive an award so you can join us if able.
· The discussion was very positive with many good suggestions being thought about. The following was agreed or clarified;
o For the current Y6 children;
§ We will ask the Y6 children and the Year 6 team the time they would like to receive hoodies.
§ There will be an option to consider having the hoodies at the very beginning of the summer term as part of creating a strong team attitude and helping each other be resilient during their Y6 national SATs.
§ The hoodies will not be given out straight after SATs.
o For following year groups;
§ We will hold a consultation with staff, children and parents to gather ideas about the purpose of hoodies, what they represent, how they develop and build attitudes.
§ From the consultation we will make some joint proposals.
§ We will consult again on the different proposals to find out people’s thoughts and responses.
§ We will make a joint decision about Y6 and wearing of special hoodies ready for the 2018-19 cohort (current Y5).
· It remains the same. We will ensure all dates for all the residentials are repeated again in the newsletter.
· This has been recently relaunched. Mrs Burton continues to look for articles and news to add to FB. We are also exploring a Twitter account for the future.
· We are not aware that any children in school has measles. No parent has notified us of that. If we are notified we will alert the relevant parents as needed.
· If children become ill at school we monitor the situation looking for key signs of a child being too unwell to be at school. Often feeling unwell is helped by staying in school to keep the child’s mind busy rather than thinking about how unwell s/he feels. We go through a range of things to try and make things better, for example has s/he eaten lunch, been out for some fresh air, been to the toilet and so on. If the child becomes distressed or shows signs of quickly worsening then advice and guidance is sought from other staff. Mrs Kent or Mrs Burton make the final decision as to whether the child is too unwell to stay at school. If a child has been unwell at home but brought to school to see how the day goes the same monitoring process as above happens. The parent will be contacted during the day to confirm s/he is managing or has got worse and therefore needs to go home. The teacher might ask for further advice but might make the decision based on information from the parent at the beginning of the day. If a child has a known health issue and has a health care plan in place the staff always follow the guidance written by the parent in the plan.
· Mrs Kent will ask the teachers to detail if an item of clothing from the PE kit is missing rather than the whole kit. This might be talked about when the child is collected.
· The teachers are very confident about handing the children over and that the right people are collecting the right children. They can see people much better. The teachers in KS2 are now getting to know parents and families much better. However, it is still not as good for parents as it could be. We are waiting patiently for high visibility jackets. We are also still very keen for suggestions from parents so we understand the challenges from your perspective.
· We want to be able to have opportunities to build positive partnership relationships with everyone. Timings are always tricky meeting the needs and availability of everybody. We hope these notes go a little way to helping keep everyone informed. We will do a survey of families to find out when the best time and days of the week would be, whether we need two forums or whether we alternate each half term.