Parent Engagement

Pupils, parents, teachers all sign a Home-School Agreement. This is a joint promise that all of us will put in the time and effort required for our children to succeed. Parents are expected to support children by supervising home learning, ensuring that children attend school and wear the correct uniform.

Parents and carers are an integral part of our school community, and your feedback forms an essential part of our ongoing development and improvement. We regularly run surveys and sessions to gather your views on the education your child is receiving, and to understand where we can do better.

You can share your feedback via these channels:

• Ofsted's Parent View tool. This survey consists of 12 short questions around topics such as teaching and behaviour, and will feed into our ongoing development plan
• Directly with a member of our staff
• The main school office

We do our absolute best to provide you with timely, accurate information about your child in a variety of ways. The different ways we do this are: 

Emails: We send out all communications, including our weekly celebration newsletter, by email through ScholarPack. Please note that if you change your email address, you need to let the office know and change it within your iPayimpact account otherwise you will not continue to receive communications from the school. We will send all communications to the first contact held on record.   

Text messages: When we need to get an urgent message to you, we may send a text message. You will not be able to reply to the message but should contact the school if requested to do so.  

iPayimpact: We are a cashless school. iPayimpact is our online platform for making payments for school meals, school trips, breakfast and after school clubs and Nursery. Please make sure that you have activated your account. If there is a new payment item for your child, you will be notified by email. 

Newsletter: Every Friday we publish a newsletter. We use this to share information, celebrate our successes and give you an ongoing insight into life at Ark Castledown. We also share key dates here for the coming term. A link to our newsletter will be emailed each week, put on Facebook and saved to the school website. 

Social Media: We have school Facebook and Instagram pages which we use to celebrate our successes and give you an ongoing insight into life at Ark Castledown. Follow us to stay on top of all the amazing things your child is getting up to. 

Website: We use our website as a repository of key information and an entry point for prospective parents. It is not the place to see ongoing conversation from the school, although you can find the latest newsletters here and we publish key school dates on our website calendar. If you want to see details about things like school governance, our performance, our curriculum and our policies, this is the place to come. 

Informal Conversations: We really value developing relationships with all our parents. We will always aim for there to be a member of senior staff available to talk to at the beginning of every school day. Class teachers bring children out at the end of the day and may take opportunities at this time of day to pass on information or simply share some news with you about your child.  

Phone Calls: If we are unable to catch you in a playground, if we need to contact you during the school day or if we want a longer and more private conversation, we will call you. It is very important that we have up-to-date phone numbers for you. In an emergency, we will need to get in touch. If you see the school calling, please do answer. 

Meetings: In a variety of situations, we may ask you to attend a meeting with school staff. We will always contact you to discuss your availability and be as flexible as possible in arranging meetings. However, especially if external agency workers are involved, our ability to be flexible may be limited. We ask parents to be flexible themselves and to please attend school meetings, on time.  

Home Visits: If your child is joining us in Early Years (Nursery/Reception), we will arrange a home visit with you before your child starts school. Key staff will come to your home to meet with you and your child. We think it is very helpful for children to meet us in their own space, before they come to us and learn to make Castledown their second home! During home visits you get to know your child's teachers and find out everything you want to know about life at school. 

The Early Years Stay and Play: Before your child starts in Nursery or Reception, we will invite you and them to a ‘Stay and Play’. You'll get to know the space and teachers, as well as other parents and children.  

Meet the Teacher: At the beginning of each new academic year, we run a Meet the Teacher event for parents with children in years 1 to 6. This is a chance for you to get to know the teacher, as well as find out about expectations and routines for the year ahead. 

Parent/Carer Consultations: Two times a year, we will invite you in for a meeting with your child's teacher to discuss their progress across the curriculum. 

Curriculum Leaflets: Each term curriculum leaflets with information about what your child will be learning in the coming term are emailed home. This also includes information about home learning expectations and ideas for you to enrich their learning at home. Curriculum leaflets are also on our website. 

Seesaw Learning Platform: Reception pupils in school have a personal Seesaw account. In Reception, teachers like to send reminders about trips or bringing things into school and the platform also allows parents to share ‘wow moments’ their children have at home. Please note, teachers cannot respond to general notes and messages on Seesaw.    

Learning celebrations: Each term, every year group aims to invite parents into school to celebrate an aspect of their child’s learning that term. This might be a gallery of artwork, a dance or musical performance, Digital Days or something completely different. Details of these events will be shared with as much notice as possible to enable people to attend. 

End of Year Report: At the end of each academic year, we will provide you with a written summary of your child's learning and achievements. 

We hold workshops for parents to help parents with their child's learning and development at home in areas such as reading, phonics and maths.

Whilst your child is in early years, we offer a range of opportunities such as:  

• Seesaw logins to upload photos and observations of home learning.    
• Termly stay & play sessions 
• Reading sessions  

We know that bringing home and school together is vital in giving our children the best opportunities in life!

We also collect a series of guides and resources that are available on Spark. This covers topics such as supporting your child's learning, keeping safe online, and maintaining good mental health.