Parents play a vital role in working with the school to support young people and school improvement.\u00a0 There are lots of\u00a0ways parents can help – some are basic things such as making sure children get a\u00a0good amount of sleep and a\u00a0decent breakfast before getting to school\u00a0in good\u00a0time.\u00a0 Or\u00a0things which are helpful are\u00a0encouraging regular exercise and relaxation as well as routines such as\u00a0going over the learning from one day and getting set up for the next day.\u00a0 If parents have the skills then give them help with homework – if not then encourage them to seek help from their teachers or from on-line resources\u00a0(my maths, show my homework, scholar and BBC bitesize to name a few).\u00a0If they have the time they can play a part in our Parent Council\u00a0or Parent Teacher Association (even if just to attend the occasional meeting or event).\u00a0\u00a0It is also really good to meet parents at\u00a0the various parental meetings and information evenings through the session.<\/p>\n
As a parent I understand\u00a0life can be busy and for many young people there is a lot of other things on the go.\u00a0 I also understand that not every family is able to offer the same levels of support\u00a0and we will continue to work with you to find ways to help even in the most difficult of situations.\u00a0 The\u00a0Scottish government are very keen to raise attainment and also to ensure that most help is given to try and help some of our poorest families to overcome the barriers to success (what they refer to as closing the gap).<\/p>\n
We are always keen to hear from parents and this week I shall be making contact with a sample of parents to ask their views on what we are doing well and what we could improve.\u00a0 Prior to each holiday I shall ask a different sample for their views and this should ensure that over the year all parents will have been given the chance to provide me with some feedback.\u00a0 I shall ensure this is displayed in the school and reported back to parents through the website and in my newsletters.\u00a0\u00a0Alongside your feedback will be comments on what we have done in response to the feedback – what you said\/and what we did.<\/p>\n
Last year, for example, many parents said they wished they were getting more regular feedback on concerns.\u00a0 As a result we have introduced a new parental slip which ensures parents are aware when we have a concern.\u00a0 This system was introduced in September this year and I know staff are using it to report on homework not being done,\u00a0concerns over effort and low level disruption.<\/p>\n
Parents also wanted more regular feedback on progress.\u00a0 As a result we have just completed an exercise where staff completed tracking information for all\u00a0S4, S5 and S6\u00a0pupils.\u00a0 We are about to do the same for all of the S1, S2 and S3 pupils.\u00a0 This tracking information will generate a progress report for each pupil\u00a0which parents will either have just received or will receive very soon.\u00a0 For each year group this type of ‘skinny’ report will be produced again around January\/February and also just after Easter.\u00a0 This should ensure parents have a much clearer idea of progress through the year and can work with\u00a0the school to help the young person.<\/p>\n
The introduction of the new look website, this weekly blog and the various twitter feeds are all a\u00a0response to parental requests to receive more regular information from the school.<\/p>\n
Harlaw Academy is your school and as your head teacher a very important part of my job\u00a0is to\u00a0help your child and your family.\u00a0 As I said at the start of this blog – parents play a vital role in working with the school to support young people and school improvement.<\/p>\n
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Parents play a vital role in working with the school to support young people and school improvement.\u00a0 There are lots of\u00a0ways parents can help – some are basic things such as making sure children get a\u00a0good amount of sleep and a\u00a0decent breakfast before getting to school\u00a0in good\u00a0time.\u00a0 Or\u00a0things which are helpful are\u00a0encouraging regular exercise and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":708,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weekly-blog","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}