19.12.23

Dear Parent/Carers,

As I hope you all know, we very much take on board the views of all our children and parents. These views are regularly shared with the Newdale teams.

We consult with pupils through every Governor meeting, and phase leaders/subject leaders also carry out additional pupil voice regularly over the year.

We believe that school and home very much need to work in partnership, with children being at the centre. There simply must be a two-way feeling of trust between school and home, along with open, honest lines of communication.

I have always prioritised having a school ‘open door’ policy where we offer many different ways of communication for parents to use, including a class email address, many staff on duty am and pm (including senior managers), office staff and home school communication books to name a few of these. The hope is always that if parents do want to relay any messages, that they can easily and rapidly.

Thank you to the 19 parents that have already filled in our request to complete Parent View this academic year.

We would very much appreciate it if many more parents would complete this survey so we can gain a fuller picture of your opinions of Newdale.

https://parentview.ofsted.gov.uk/login?destination=give-your-views

We have already begun looking carefully at the small number of responses. I understand that we cannot please everyone, but I can reassure you that all teams certainly try so hard to do just that. I am lucky enough to visit very many other schools, and I know as fact that Newdale goes above and beyond in its offer for the children we have. This is regularly verified by external visitors including our School Improvement Advisor, Local Authority quality assurance visits, safeguarding audits and of course our Ofsted visits. We are incredibly proud of the Outstanding Ofsted result which we gained in May 2023. There are only a very small number of schools across the entire country that manage the ‘double outstanding’ judgement.  I hope this is external reassurance that our school continues to be operating at a very high level.

Unfortunately, some parents who have responded on Parent View so far are clearly not happy with Newdale and this is personally upsetting to me and also affects the feelings of the teams that work so hard every single day. I was surprised to see that we have parents who would not recommend us to another parent. I am keen to hear from those parents who have put ‘disagree’ or ‘strongly disagree’ as a response so any concerns you may have can be clarified/sorted. I would also very much like to talk to any parents who are not happy with our offer to see if we can improve the vital partnership between school and home.

As stated, I am under no illusion that we cannot please everyone, however, that does not stop us from trying to.  I would also just like to remind all parents to be mindful about how messages are worded in reading diaries and how the Newdale team are spoken to, just like we are requested to do in other public sectors. Our teams want the very best for your children. We are all on the same side and should be focussed on working together to support children to be the best they can be.

As ever, we are keen to hear what you have to say, but there needs to be an understanding that we are partners with you for the children and not working on different sides.

That said, I would like to thank the vast majority of you who really are so supportive of our school. We would be most grateful if you could also spend a few minutes completing the Parent View online form. Your views really do count, but we cannot support any of your specific concerns without knowing how.

As a highly regarded school, we have many families desperate to get their children into our provision. I spend a lot of my time fighting appeals to keep our numbers manageable so as to keep the quality of education as good as it can be for your children.

Thank you for your support in ensuring our school continues to grow in a positive way for all of our children.

Miss Cook

Headteacher

Newdale Primary School and Nursery