Partnership with Parents

We believe that a genuine partnership between parents and the school is central to pupils achieving their best.  We encourage dialogue through homework, Reading Record Books and informal discussion between teachers and parents. There are lots of opportunities for communication and also a range of events on the school calendar where families and staff get together socially e.g. PTFA sponsored walk, Sports Days, Christmas and Summer Fairs.

Parent Support

We welcome and value parents’ help in school, whether they have a specific talent or skill or can assist with more general activities. Parent involvement can include listening to children read, helping with cooking, gardening and DT, library and computer skills, or accompanying educational visits. If parents wish to help in school, they must hold a current DBS clearance, which is simple to organise and can be applied for via the school office.

All parents and guardians of children at Wimbledon Park school, members of staff and governors, automatically become members of the Parent, Teacher and Friends Association (PTFA).   For more details visit our PTFA page.

Communication: School to Parents

We communicate with parents in a variety of different ways:

• Email – for general administrative information including educational visits, curriculum workshops, special events and weekly newsletters. 
• School website – for insight into school life and practical information such as our annual calendar and term dates.
• Meet the Teacher evening – at the start of the school year.
• Parent consultations – biannually in the Autumn and Spring terms.
• Annual School Report – sent out in the Summer term.

Communication: Parents to School

Teachers are happy to receive brief messages in the playground at the beginning of the day. Parents can also email their class teacher directly or leave a message about their child with the school office. If parents would like a longer discussion with the class teacher, they can do so at the end of the day, ideally with a pre-organised appointment.

Parent Email Protocol

Good communication and positive relationships between home and school are fundamental to a successful partnership with parents for their child’s education and we are very fortunate at Wimbledon Park to work together with you in a very supportive environment with constructive and open communication.

Class teachers aim to keep you well informed about your child’s learning and experience in school and this happens via the school website, meet the teacher evening, spring term parent consultation, SEND support plan meetings, autumn term progress report (new this year), Parentmail, informal meetings and phone conversations.  

We hope that these channels provide the large majority of communication that parents need with their child’s class teacher.  However, there will also be circumstances where a need for a discussion or to share information with a class teacher arises outside of these usual channels, and class teacher emails can be a useful additional means of communicating.  Email can also be useful to arrange a face to face or follow up telephone call.

Class teachers are busy.  Their job is an intense one and they work long hours.  Their priority focus is the children’s education and they only have a small amount of time available to read and respond to emails.

We ask that parents use the following guidelines for emailing class teachers:

• Emails from parents to the class teacher should be primarily used for information sharing about children’s learning, homework and any upsets or concerns that we need to know about
• Parent emails to school work best when they are brief and informative (less than 8 lines is appreciated)
• Emails should not be used to replace meetings or telephone calls where these are the more appropriate way of following up on queries/issues
• Teachers are not expected to respond to parent emails between 8:40 and 15:45 when they are teaching (and often they will be involved in after school training and meetings meaning they may not read and respond to emails until the following day)
• Please don’t email teachers at the weekend or during school holidays
• Please contact the school office (and not the class teacher) to relay information about absence, collection arrangements, trip details, school clubs, lost property and other similar administrative matters.
• If you need to convey urgent information, please always email or telephone the school office in the first instance (copying the class teacher)
• If parents do raise a concern, an initial response or acknowledgment should usually be provided to parents within 24 hours (Monday to Friday).  This will then be followed up in whatever manner is appropriate and agreed (which may include arranging an opportunity to find out more details)
• If the email relates to a concern or problem, it ought to be focused on understanding the problem and finding a solution (and not be assumptive, sarcastic, confrontational or accusatory)
• Emails should always be respectful and constructive as the tone and intent of email can easily be misunderstood (for example avoid using capital letters or bold text, or multiple exclamation marks)

Teachers will forward parent emails to a member of the leadership team for support where the email doesn’t meet the guidelines or where the issues raised are complicated and require leadership involvement.

WhatsApp Groups Guidelines

Parent WhatsApp groups for classes/year groups are set up and coordinated by class reps.  These groups are not operated or moderated by either the PTFA or the school.

We would ask that members follow these guidelines for messaging and those who do not follow these may be removed from their class group:

• WhatsApp groups are for timely reminders and information sharing about school/class events
• The information shared on these groups is not intended to replace Parentmail/other communications from the school.
• Please keep messaging brief, courteous and respectful.
• The group admins and class reps are not spokespeople for the school or class and their role is simply another parent in the group.
• Groups should not be used to share/air specific issues or grievances about other children in the class or about the school (for example, recently one parent inappropriately shared names and details of an incident between her child and another in class).  Please raise issues and grievances directly and privately with the school/other party.
• Groups should avoid becoming discussion forums – the number of unwanted messages can rapidly spiral out of control.  For example, discussion threads about the teacher strikes understandably generated a lot of parent reactions, but these WhatsApp groups are not the place to discuss matters like these.