Poor home-school communication

[katalex]

Our school held a parents forum meeting last November after the head teacher left suddenly and they asked for negative and positive feedback. I said that communication was poor. Often, messages are only passed on via a noticeboard in the playground at the front of the school and the web site is not kept up to date - there are often events on there that happened weeks ago and they never use it to tell us that events are cancelled/postponed etc. I work and drop off my dc at the breakfast club at the back of the school and I only pick them up one day per week, therefore I don't get to see this noticeboard. I told them that it would be better if they could keep the web site up to date with events/cancellations and utilise the text messaging service that they set up but never actually used. The web site was kept up to date for about 2 weeks and we received 3 text messages in total (months ago).

In April we received a letter outlining the results of the Ofsted report, which has placed the school in special measures. In this letter it said there would be a meeting for parents to discuss this on 9th May. I checked the web site the day before and it wasn't mentioned so I asked the FLO when I dropped off at breakfast club if it was still going ahead. She said no, and it was likely to be 22nd May. Ever since, I've been waiting for a letter, text, web site update to confirm but nothing so far. So I phoned the school this morning to ask, and it was confirmed that the meeting is tomorrow. When I asked if there was going to be a letter and commented that it isn't on the web site, I was just told that it was on the noticeboard in the playground. I explained to her that I don't get to see the noticeboard but it seemed to fall on deaf ears. I can understand this approach when it's something like cancelling a school assembly that they've invited parents to (although I generally try to get time off work to go so it can be quite annoying) but this is really important, so surely they would want to make sure that everyone is aware.

I want to speak to the acting head about this but I hate complaining about things. I get very nervous. How can I phrase this without seeming too negative?

You could write to the Head copying to the governors? Obviously attend the meeting and let as many people as possible know about it. Does the school have a comments box? Someone should be responsible for the school website. Your letter/ comments don't have to sound too negative. Just make queries and offer suggestions for improvement. Have you a fellow parent who would be happy to bring things up at the meeting? Is there a parent Governor who you could talk to? Good luck!!

katalex:

I'm sure you're not alone. Would a solution be to write a general letter requesting a meeting (as OFSTED had described) and get parents to sign it (before/ after school)?

In this way the school can't claim 'only a few parents are concerned about this' - or fob you off as individuals. [sorry very cynical but have learned that parents have individually complained to our Head about something to all be told that they were 'the only parent' to have raised this issue].

HTH

Thanks for the advice. I was hoping not to be quite so formal just yet but a letter may be the way to go. I don't know if there's a comments box but I've already mentioned it before in person and in writing (on a feedback form). I'll try to drum up some support but it's difficult to get to know other parents when I'm only at the school for 10 minutes a week, especially working parents. My cm is the only cm who goes to our school, which makes me think there probably are only a few of us with this problem. I hope that wouldn't mean that the school thinks it is acceptable that we are not given important information. Anyway, the cm picks up one other little boy in ds's class so I'll see if I can catch his dad when I pick up the dcs from her house this week.