Parental Voice and Participation

As a school we are very keen to hear the views of our students’ parents and carers as to how we are doing.  Working as a highly effective partnership around our young people we value the support and feedback of our wider school community.  Below you will find some of the ways in which we encourage positive and meaningful relationships with the parents and carers of our young people.

Summary of current practice:

• One central point of email contact for parents and carers at info@phs.cheshire.sch.uk.
• Summary poster available on our website of senior staff roles and responsibilities with direct e-mail address for contact.
• All of our students have their own planners for direct correspondence between home and school.
• Each month we send home a Conduct Summary which shows exactly how many House points have been awarded and also how each young person has engaged with our Positive Behaviour for Learning policy.
• Student Services Centre staffed throughout the school day to support communication and student support.
• We hold Parents Evenings for every year group. We encourage students to attend these and provide materials for a meaningful discussion around the key advice and feedback obtained throughout the evening.
• Information Evenings in September for parents/carers of students in years 7 – 12.
• Year 12 parents also have an information evening in the summer term to support students progression beyond Sixth Form.
• “Meet the Tutors” Evening for Year 7 parents/carers early in the new academic year.
• We have Options Evenings for Years 9 and 11 parents/carers.
• An Induction Evening is held for Year 6 parents in the Summer term.
• An Information Evening is held for Year 5 parents in the Summer term.
• We seek to involve the parents in celebrating success through contact home; a very successful KS3 Awards Evening held in the summer term and Duke of Edinburgh Awards Evenings to present the Bronze and Silver Awards in the Autumn term.
• We hold an information evening for parents of students who are supported by Learning Support.
• Parents are involved in the creation of Student Profiles for students who receive support from Learning Support.
• Parental courses are held in school on topics such as eSafety, Social Media, Substance Misuse, etc.
• Parental questionnaires are given out at parents’ evenings.
• Formal parental questionnaire is issued every two years.
• Strategic Leadership Team attendance at the PTA meetings.  PTA committee imput on key school improvement factors.
• Extensive use of Twitter by school @PoyntonHigh, head teacher @PHS_Headteacher and department and year groups to aid information sharing and celebration of student achievements.
• Parental tours for students in Years 5 or 6 and their parents or carers to ensure that our future students are confident in the decision that they make to attend PHS, getting a real feeling for school life and our day-to-day student experience.
• Parent and carer bulletins are sent half termly via our Standards and Student Progress Team, linked to our easier to use website.)
• GCSE Success Fair for parents and carers of students in Year 11, looking at practical ways to support our young people together throughout the examination period and in the final months of their courses.

Our most recent improvements and plans to engage parents and carers further

• Improved online parental feedback questionnaires with a focus specifically on views around our school development and how we can be even more effective as a partnership around our young people.
• An enhanced development of our PTA group as a forum for school improvement dialogue.  Our most recent meetings have looked at how we can ensure our school reports are as useful as possible for both home and school. 
• Developing the partnership work of our school with our parent skill base and talent pool.  We already have a large number of parents engage with school delivering focussed sessions on our Student Development Days and also through our work experience programmes, our ongoing work aims to strengthen these links further.

Our partnership with parents/carers lies at the heart of our success and we are constantly looking for ways to further develop the strength of this partnership.  A brilliant way to be more involved is to be a part of our PTA group who meet each half term, you can find more information about meeting dates for the group through their Twitter account @PHS_PTA.

Ofsted Parent View

We would encourage parents to please complete an Ofsted Parent View Questionnaire via this link: https://parentview.ofsted.gov.uk/