Parent Community Discussion Group Meeting
2pm Thursday 19th March 2015
Notes
Mrs J Silvester, Discussion Group Co-ordinator:
Introduction and Welcome, Aims
Ground Rules for discussion
Present:
Mrs J Silvester
Mrs S Brooke
Mrs Rachael Surcouf
Mr Mark Godel
Mrs Udi Vithanage
Mr Sanka Tissera
Mrs Nicki Vieira
Mrs Shaanthi Kanagasabapathy
Mr Elanco Kanagasabapathy
Co-ordinator, Parent Community Discussion Groups
Learning Support Assistant
Parent of Kai Surcouf (Y3)
Parent of Caspar Godel (Y4) and Parent Governor
Parent of Sudeepa Tissera (Y5)
Parent of Sudeepa Tissera (Y5)
Parent of Jamie Vieira (Y5)
Parent of Anushan Elanco (Y6)
Parent of Anushan Elanco (Y6)
Contributions from parents are in black and contributions from staff are in red.
Initial points/questions raised by parents
Mr Watkins (Head of VCJ) has instigated voluntary assistance from parents – there are about 12 parents with a
range of skills and experience (including a PhD chemist) giving anything between 1 hour to a couple of
mornings per week. Would VCP consider something similar?
We have been considering this recently (especially for Year 3 reading) and will consult with parents and staff.
At VCJ, you can’t go in to your son’s year group.
Especially for reading – the more they read the better. Some businesses allow employees time out to help
(usually for a term at a time). Parents might need help with, for example, how to deliver certain maths topics so
that there is consistency.
Parents would have to commit for a certain amount of time, especially if the school were to invest in training,
and in order to give consistency.
Helping out in Year 8 maths at VCJ (in one parent’s experience) has been an eye-opener as to how class sizes
really matter.
An open-door policy is always welcomed by parents.
If you are helping out, you can get more involved and see what the children are doing – this can also be helpful
with knowing how to support your son at home.
It also helps to see at first-hand the difference between how your child behaves at home and at school.
A number of businesses support these kind of initiatives.
We will definitely pursue this further.
What would be the plan of attack?
We will speak to VCJ to see how they run the scheme there, as well as HR/Mr Rotherham about DBS checks.
Then we would go to parents to see how many might be interested.
On a different note – last week was House Poetry and one parent’s son came home and said he had won! He
got two House Points, which is great, but could the winners also get a certificate to give recognition?
The recognition tends to be more about the credits and recognition within the House.
For House Music next year, Mrs S is considering giving the boys a card showing a record of the events they
have participated in (to replace the current House Points they are given – which will go directly to their House).
It is not always practical to write certificates – e.g. Sports Day etc, but we will consider which events this might
be viable/suitable for.
Parent Consultations
How did parents feel the consultations went? Was it useful to have the notes outside? The intention is to allow
better use of time within the meetings.
It would be useful to meet the maths teacher too!
And the French teacher! (especially as this doesn’t feature in the end-of-year report).
The reports used to be subject-by-subject and therefore there was repetition of the same issues in each subject.
This is why we changed the report to reflect the core values. The intention is that now the report is about your
child and their learning.
For one of the parents, as a French teacher at another school teaching half an hour Year 3 to Year 6, there is still
a lot to write which is subject-specific.
It would be nice to have the chance to take the consultation notes and main report home and discuss them with
your son, then write a response with your son.
There is no official requirement for teachers to write the consultation notes – so they are already doing a
considerable amount of extra work.
It just feels like a missed opportunity to discuss and help your son to move forward.
It would be yet more admin. work and therefore staff would have less time to spend on planning, teaching etc.
The first consultation feels to early to have such a full academic written ‘report ’in Year 3.
Do we need 3 occasions? (2 consultations and a written report) – If all is going well, it might not be necessary.
Regular feedback/meeting is needed so that we don’t miss any minor issues. When we trialled having the
second consultation in May, parents and staff all felt it was far too long a gap.
Is there any manageable way of communicating to a parent how their son is doing with his targets?
We are in a difficult position currently, with the new 2014 curriculum and a lack of guidelines as to how to
assess against this! This is causing problems with how to report. Teachers know the children’s strengths and
weaknesses within each subject and in general, but there is not yet agreement over how this can be measured.
Mr Price would prefer teacher assessment to be used alongside an externally set and externally marked test,
which would be used to validate results.
As a staff, we will be looking at Parent Consultations on our next INSET day.
In the second consultation, it would be good to review how your son is doing against their targets. At one other
school, they have a brief parentmail at the end of each week which includes what the children will be doing in
each subject the following week. This enables parents to give more input at home.
It would definitely be helpful to have more regular information.
In an ideal world, it would be great to use technology to provide some real-time information!
We hold the Parent Information Evenings in September and send out termly newsletters to convey this
information. Sending weekly information would be lovely, but it once again comes down to whether spending
time on this is more productive than spending time on something more directly related to learning.
Other points
When the children walk from the gym to Heathfield in the winter months, please could they be made to wear
their tracksuits?
This should be happening – we will check this.
THANKS TO ALL WHO ATTENDED FOR A VERY HELPFUL MEETING.