Our parent forum is made up of parent representatives from across school who volunteer to sit on the parent forum. We aim to have representation from every class in school and, where possible, representing the full demographic of All Saints'. 

The intention of having a parent forum is for parent voice to be heard at All Saints' and to ensure strong relationships between home and school. This supports us to keep getting better and to have a more secure view of school from the perspective of parents/carers. We also use parent forum to  support us in decision making, running things past our parent forum for their opinion before sharing more widely. 

The wider school community are encouraged to contact members of the parent forum if there are things they would like to be discussed within meetings or to send agenda items to school via email, Dojo or using the MS Form linked below. https://forms.office.com/e/WXUxgnrTMt 

2023-2024 you said, we did!

Homework

One of our very early parent forum discussions was about homework. What this actually showed was that there is very divided opinion in respect of homework. Even amongst the 20 parents/carers attending this meeting, agreement was difficult to reach in respect of homework. Decisions had to be made that were a compromise for all, and prioritised reading at home. Following lots of discussion, both with parent forum, the children and the staff team, the following approach to homework was agreed: 

Daily reading, which can include being read to as well as children reading books sent home (further parent workshops regarding home reading were arranged and x5 took place throughout the 2023-2024 school year).

Spelling lists being sent home which support the spelling work done in school. 

Children in KS2 engaging with times tables practice.

Children in years 5 and 6 engaging with completing either a reading comprehension, GPS focus activity or arithmetic piece of homework each week.

Independent learning opportunities will then be shared for every class which reinforce wider curriculum learning. These are not compulsory but are available for those who wish to engage with something beyond the expected homework. 

Staff will also share short texts to read or links to safe video clips to watch that will reinforce learning in school. The texts shared can be read to the children, and discussed with them, as part of their reading time. Children and parents/carers will be encouraged to engage with these opportunities to further support learning. These additional learning opportunities will always be very manageable. 

Home reading

Inconsistencies were brought to our attention with regards to how changing home reading books was taking place and the monitoring of children's reading records. 

We fed this back to the staff team and set out clearer expectations to resolve the issues raised.

Music

A request was made for school to look at ways to raise the profile of music. 

We developed a KS1 singing group alongside the KS2 choir. A bucket drumming lunchtime club was developed in addition to the year 5 recorder group. A music concert was planned for children to showcase their musical talents, those that they develop within school and out of school. For the 2024-2025 school year, all KS2 children will be taught music by Lancashire Music Service 'expert' teachers. All children in KS2 will learn to play the ukuele for a full term, sharing performances with the school community. Lancashire Music Service will also be offering after school music lessons, percussion on a Monday and guitar on a Friday. 

Reporting to parents

Following the parent questionnaire responses being reviewed, the parent forum discussed how school could manageably ensure parents were more aware about how their children were doing in school and that parents were more aware of what children were learning. 

We developed RAG reports which to be sent out in the half terms where there is not a guardian consultation evening or an end of year report. These will give parents/carers a simple overview of how well a child is behaving in school, how hard they are trying and whether or not they are on track to achieve age related expectations in the core subjects. The timings of the reports being sent out will allow for parent/carer discussion with teachers before a half term. Class teachers have been asked to make sure they more regularly link their class webpage to Dojo posts as class webpages contain the class curriculum overview and the key learning for each subject in a given year group. We also developed a 'weekly round up', shared by class teachers on Dojo every Friday.