Parent pages

Parents

At Valley Primary Academy, we foster relationships with our parents, carers and wider community.

We have high expectations of ourselves, our children and our parents and carers. Together, we can improve all areas of academy life, with clear expectations from all sides.

All parents and pupils are expected to sign a Home – School Agreement when they become a pupil at Valley. The purpose of this agreement is:

To foster partnerships between the school and parents
To raise standards across all areas of school life
To make expectations clear on all sides

Punctuality

We place a huge importance on punctuality - it is vital that all children arrive in time for morning registration.

If children arrive late, this not only interrupts the lesson and makes it difficult for the class teacher to settle the children, but your child will also miss the lesson introduction. Being late can make it difficult for children to understand what they are learning that day. With the first lessons of the day being vital literacy and numeracy lessons, this can have a big impact.

We also schedule a lot of our small group interventions in the mornings, so it is vital that your child is here to benefit from this additional provision.

Attendance

Regular, punctual attendance is essential to the progress and success of every pupil. At Valley we expect all children to have 96% attendance unless there are exceptional circumstances.

Many parents believe that they have a legal right to take up to 10 days holiday during the school year but this is no longer the case. The Government and Norfolk County Council guidance is now that no holidays should be taken during term-time. As such, the academy will not authorise any holidays during term time.

If there are other exceptional circumstances that require your child to be absent from school for a short period of time, please put your request in writing to the Headteacher.

Please see the letters below regarding attendance.

Attendance letter Attendance traffic light initiative

Absence

If you know your child is going to be absent for a clinic visit or dental/medical appointment please inform the main office and bring a copy of the appointment card.

Wherever possible, appointments should be made outside school hours unless it is an emergency.

Sickness

If your child is going to be off sick, please call the main office before 9.30am on the first day of absence. You will be asked for the reason for the absence and when you expect the child to return.

Behaviour

At Valley, we have a behaviour management policy which encourages pupils to recognise and respect the rights of others, assist them with developing self discipline and also enhances their self esteem. We aim to create an environment at all times that encourages good behaviour.

At the beginning of the new school year all class teachers establish the class rules with their class. These rules are displayed prominently in the classroom and referred to on a regular basis.

At Valley our emphasis is on rewards to reinforce good behaviour. This is achieved by:

Frequent praise of both work and behaviour
Stickers, certicards and stamps in books for good work
Showing good work to Senior Management Team

Awards in achievement weekly assemblies. Although we work very hard to ensure high standards of behaviour, there will be times when class rules are broken and it is essential that certain sanctions are used to show disapproval of unacceptable behaviour.

A stepped approach is used:

A verbal reminder is given e.g. ‘remember our class rule about putting your fans up, make sure you do that next time you want to answer question please’.
The behaviour is recorded on the traffic light system.
If the child continues to behave unacceptably they have “time out”
If the unacceptable behaviour persists, the child will be sent to a member of the Senior Management Team.

A positive partnership with parents is crucial to building trust and developing a common approach to behaviour expectations and strategies for dealing with problems. We will always inform you at an early stage if there are concerns about your child’s behaviour.

Bullying

Bullying is the repetition of unwanted behaviour towards a child over a period of time. We take bullying very seriously at Valley and work hard to make sure the children feel safe and secure at school. However, we are not complacent and know that bullying can happen in all schools and at all ages.

We want children to tell someone – a friend, a teacher, a parent or other adult, so that intervention and positive action can take place. Please help us by encouraging your child to tell someone if he or she is being bullied and please contact us straightaway so that we can deal with the issue as soon as possible. Similarly, if you suspect your child is developing bullying tendencies, please let us know so that we can talk and take positive action to remedy the situation.

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Complaints procedure

Our Academy takes all complaints seriously. We would always ask that you raise any complaint informally, in the first instance, wherever possible. However, in some circumstances this simply isn’t practicable and you will need to raise a formal complaint.

In either event, full details of how to do this can be found in our Trust Complaints Policy available here.

Ofsted Parent View

Parent View gives you the chance to tell Ofsted what you think about your child’s school, from the quality of teaching to dealing with bullying and poor behaviour.

The survey can be completed at any time; you don’t have to wait until the school is being inspected.

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