When your child joins the school, you will be invited to sign our Home-School Agreement, along with your child and the Headteacher. This agreement covers all the important aspects of school life with which we hope you will give us your full support during your child’s time at the school. The children’s progress is discussed three times a year. There are two consultation evenings when parents have an opportunity to see their children’s work and meet the class teachers. There is also an opportunity to speak to your child’s class teacher formally during the summer term. Each parent will receive a written report of their child’s progress towards the end of the summer term. If at any time you have a problem concerning your child, please do not hesitate to contact the school. All parents are very welcome in the school yard before school begins and all teachers are available to speak to at the end of the school day. An appointment can also be made to see the Headteacher if required. General information is provided for new parents in an Information Pack and newsletters are also sent out on a regular basis. We also use a text-messaging system to inform our parents of any updates. We are always very pleased to welcome parent helpers at school. You can help in any of our classes with a wide variety of tasks. Please contact the school if you are interested.

Parent-Teacher Association

The Parent Teacher Association runs events throughout the school year to provide enjoyable social events for pupils and their families and to raise funds for extra school equipment. Our main fundraising event is the world-renowned ’Grindleford Gallop’ which raises substantial amounts of money for the school. All parents are automatically members of the PTA and welcome to attend all meetings. Our PTA has helped us to purchase large expensive items like staging for school plays, computers, an adventure trail for the playground and books as well as helping to finance school trips to keep the costs down for parents. Our next fundraising will go towards fitting solar panels to the school.  See the PTA page for up to date information.

Homework

Homework is a valuable tool for learning. It reinforces the importance of schoolwork as learning for life and extends and strengthens the home-school partnership which is so important. Homework offers children the opportunity to practise, consolidate and reinforce skills and concepts learnt in school; giving parents the chance to work with their children and share in their learning, and teachers the information needed to assess how well pupils have understood what they have done in class. Homework is most successful when an effective dialogue occurs between home and school. Parents are encouraged to check their children’s work and to contact the class teacher should there be any concerns about the nature of the work set.

Children should expect the following approximate amounts of homework per week:

KS1 –

• Daily reading and looking at books, preferably with parents
• Learning spellings
• Learning number facts and playing number games

KS2 –

• Daily reading
• Learning spellings
• Learning number facts, carrying out maths activities
• Finding out information/independent studying