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Dear Parents and Carers

At the start of October, I sent out a parental survey so that I could gather information about how you may feel more connected with the school, and the learning experience of your children. I would like to thank you for your responses and present this document to you. I aim to provide some feedback on these responses. However, it is not possible to address each response in this document. To that end, I have grouped the responses you have provided into categories.

The information about the form was sent out as a hard copy with students in Year 7 – 11 and to all our contacts electronically by email.  The information was sent electrically to 1906 email address that we have on our school system. I received 166 replies which indicates an 8.7% response rate from our parental community. I have shared and discussed your responses with the rest of the senior leadership team.

I will concentrate this document on the four main areas, namely parents’ evenings, feedback on learning, curriculum information and general communications.

General Communications

I was pleased to see that many parents felt that the communications coming from the school were of a good standard. However, it is apparent from the responses that this is an area that parents would like us to look at. Current systems involve out-going communication via email, the weekly newsletter and the school website. This is supported by the Facebook Newsfeed and X account. I am conscious that some parents feel there is too much information coming from the school, whilst others feel there is enough. To that end, I would like to propose an opportunity for parents to come into school to form a focus group to look at aspects of our communications. I would like to undertake this work during this half term. If you would like to be part of this working group, please register your interest by emailing the main office ([email protected]) with Communications Working Group as the email title.

Parents’ Evenings

There were a significant number of parental comments about our parents’ evenings. Many of these responses expressed ideas about face-to-face opportunities to meet with staff in school. As a result of these comments, a full review of parents’ evenings will be undertaken later this academic year. Again, we will look to gather more specific information from parents. Due to the school calendar being set, we will continue to conduct our parents’ evening via SchoolCloud rather than in school during this academic year. However, I am very aware that parents of our Year 9 cohort have not had the opportunity to come into school as they joined our community during the pandemic. I would therefore like to make one change to our school calendar. The KS4 Options Evening will now take place in school. Due to restrictions on the use of the hall and other planned events, I would like to move this evening to Tuesday, 23^rd January 2024. More details about this evening will be shared with our Year 9 students and their parents in the coming weeks.

Aligned to responses about parents’ evenings are the comments from parents about wishing to have more opportunities to come into school. I know that many parents enjoyed the opportunity to go into their child’s primary school. In a large comprehensive school such at JTHS, is this more problematic due to the size and organisation of the school day. The senior leadership team is committed to looking at developing opportunities to open the school to parents and we will share our plans once they have been formulated.

Feeback

In this category, parents asked about the level by which students receive feedback on their work and parents receive feedback on the progress of their children in school. Under DfE guidance, schools must provide a written report for the academic year before the end of the summer term of that year. At JTHS, feedback about progress is provided each term either as a data report, a full written report, or a parent’s evening. Each provides information to parents about their child’s attitude to learning. Reports are published to parents on Go4Schools and can be viewed at any time once they have been published.

Staff are asked to provide feedback to students on their work in lessons, homework or assessments in a timely manner.

Curriculum Information

Comments from parents indicated a need for the school to provide greater clarity about what was being taught to their children. As curriculum lead in the school, it is one of my responsibilities to ensure that our school website is regularly updated with this information. The school website is the first port of call for parents wishing to know what their children are being taught. There is a dedicated page to our curriculum where parents can see what is being taught in each subject within a half term on our curriculum maps. There is also information on the students’ journey through JTHS and their curriculum allocations. This page can be found here: Curriculum - John Taylor High School (jths.co.uk).

If there is anything further you require about our curriculum at a subject level, please contact the respective subject lead via the main school office email. Staffing roles and responsibilities can be found on the Information tab of the school website.

I hope you find this information useful and I look forward to continuing to work with you on this.

With best wishes

Mr Twynham

Deputy Headteacher

Dear Parents and Carers

We are holding our Open Evening for parents of Year 6 children on Thursday 26^th October – 6.00 pm-9.00 pm.

The school will close at 12.30 pm in order to provide time for staff to prepare rooms, displays and experiments.  Bus companies have been notified and buses will be departing from school shortly after 12.30 pm.

Students travelling on the number 12 to Lichfield will need to catch the bus at 1:28 pm from Barton. We will provide supervision in L1A for these students until 1:15 pm unless parents are happy for their children to wait in the village or are being pick-up.

The canteen will not be open at lunchtime but will have a wider selection at breaktime for the students to purchase food. We will be extending break by 10 minutes to facilitate this on Thursday.

If your son or daughter has volunteered to help out on this evening, please ensure she/he has returned the appropriate permission slip (supplied by the teacher) and attends the evening in full school uniform. They should check with the teacher they are helping what times they are needed for, however, they can be collected from the front car park around 8:30 pm.

During the Open Evening, there will be a variety of charity events taking place where our visitors and students will be able to purchase a small selection of refreshments. These will be cash purchases only.

Friday 27^th October is an INSET day.

The half term break is Monday, 30^th October – Friday, 3^rd November

With best wishes

Mr Twynham

Deputy Headteacher

We understand that the 809 has a 20 min delay due to traffic congestion.

Due to the flooding in Yoxall students will be taken and dropped off at St Peter's School away from the flooding.

Dear Parent / Carer,

Due to the flooding in Yoxall, Diamons buses will drop the students as far into Yoxall as possible. This is likely to be St Peter's Way roundabout. We will put the 806 Yoxall students onto the 808 service as the 806 will not be able to access Yoxall from Kings Bromley.

Regards,
Mr Twynham

Deputy Headteacher

Students on these buses need to come to the hall at 2pm as the buses will be picking up students early due to concern about the flooding on local roads in Derbyshire.

We have been informed that the 809 is delayed by 20 mins this morning.

Dear Parent/Carer

As a school we are looking to undertake some work on supporting our parents with school to home communications. We want to align this to our vison and values of ‘one community’. Your engagement in your child’s education really matters to us as you are part of this community, alongside our students and staff.

As a starting point we would like to capture parent voice about what would make you feel more connected with the school, specifically linked to the learning and experience your children have at John Taylor High School.

We see this as a vital piece of work and would welcome your response to the question:

What would make you feel more connected with the school and the learning experience of your child?

Please could you record your responses on the following MS Form either by typing the URL or scanning the QR code. If there is an issue with these electronic methods, we would be happy to receive your written comments on the reverse of this letter. Students in Years 7 – 11 have received paper copies of this letter today.

To help us with this process, please can you be succinct in your response. We would appreciate a response to this question by Friday, 20^th October 2023.

With very best wishes

Mr Twynham

Deputy Headteacher

https://forms.office.com/e/hH3imYykUV

We have been made aware by the transport company that there is a 10 minute delay on the 810 bus.

A replacement bus service has been dispatched. The delay should now be more likely 5 - 10 mins.