Communication Policy

Introduction and aims
 
We believe that clear, open communication between school and parents/carers has a positive impact on pupils’ learning because it:
•	Gives parents/carers the information they need to support their child’s education
•	Helps the school improve, through feedback and consultation with parents/carers
•	Builds trust between home and school, which helps the school better support each                               child’s educational and pastoral needs
 
The aim of this policy is to promote clear and open communication by:
•	Explaining how the school communicates with parents/carers
•	Setting clear standards for responding to communication from parents/carers
•	Helping parents/carers reach the member of school staff who is best placed to address their specific query or concern so they can get a response as quickly as possible
•	Setting expectations to ensure a positive work/life balance for our staff

We will only communicate with parents in respect of their own child at the school. Requests to raise a concern on behalf of another parent will be declined, as will be requests for information on another child. Should any correspondence be received from legal advisers then this will be shared with the school’s contracted legal team.

In the following sections, we will use ‘parents’ to refer to both parents and carers.
 
Roles and responsibilities
 
Headteacher
The Headteacher is responsible for:
•	Ensuring that communications with parents are effective, timely and appropriate
•	Regularly reviewing this policy

Staff
All staff are responsible for:
•	Responding to communication from parents in line with this policy and the staff Code of Conduct
•	Working with other members of staff to make sure parents get timely information (if they cannot address a query or send the information themselves)

Staff will not respond to communications outside of school hours (defined as 8am to 5.00pm) or their working hours (if they work part-time), on a weekend or during school holidays. Members of the Senior Leadership Team may respond outside of working hours/days in some circumstances and this decision will be made at their own professional judgement.

Parents
Parents are responsible for:
•	Ensuring that communication with the school is always open, respectful and working from the assumption that we all want the best for our children
•	Making every reasonable effort to address communications to the appropriate member of staff 
•	Responding to communications from the school (such as requests for meetings) in a timely manner
•	Checking all communications from the school and engaging with the school App system and website.
•	Ensuring the school has the most up-to-date contact and medical information for their child. This is to be provided in writing by App messaging the school office.

Individual access arrangements will be agreed with the Headteacher where methods of communication as outlined would not be appropriate e.g. to take account of special needs or access to devices.
 
Communication with the school
 The sections below explain how we keep parents up-to-date with their child’s education and what is happening in school.

Parents should monitor all the following regularly to make sure they do not miss important communications or announcements that may affect their child.

Meetings
1.	Face-to-face conversations are the best way of communicating with the school at drop off or pick up for quick, short messages e.g. re minor issues. Judgements will be made by staff if a later appointment might be more appropriate, especially if they are safeguarding the entry of children into the building and are on supervision etc. 
2.	When a member of staff is not able to speak to you immediately face-to-face due to school commitments, or a longer conversation is deemed necessary or appropriate, then a request for an appointment can be made to discuss the matter either in person or by App later. Parents must App to request an appointment and the school will aim to arrange that meeting within 3 - 4 working days.
3.	Outside of teaching hours, all staff have additional duties which they perform either before school, during break/lunch or after school, so availability of staff outside of teaching hours should not be assumed.
4.	Should a meeting be requested the decision of which staff member will attend will rest with the Headteacher. This would generally, but not exclusively, be in the order Class teacher, Phase Leader, Deputy Headteacher, Headteacher in line with the order laid out in the complaint’s policy but as an example, pastoral staff and the inclusion team may be the most appropriate staff members.  
5.	We hold two parents’ consultation meetings per year. During these meetings, parents can talk with teachers about their child’s achievement and progress, the curriculum or schemes of work, their child’s wellbeing, or any other area of concern.
6.	The school may also contact parents to arrange meetings between parents’ consultations if there are concerns about a child’s achievement, progress, or wellbeing.
7.	Parents of pupils with Special Educational Needs or Disabilities (SEND), or who have other additional needs, will also be asked to attend additional meetings.
8.	Some meetings may be held virtually using Microsoft Teams. Links to these meetings will be distributed through the school organising member of staff.

Email
1.	Parents are welcome to email or App the school office about non-urgent issues in the first instance.
2.	Emails will be most helpful if they are concise, explaining concerns in a clear way. Lengthy and overly detailed accounts can make it more difficult to understand what is being explained and to respond in a timely or clear way.
3.	The school will aim to respond within 2 working days. If a response is unable to be provided within this timeline, which can be to ensure a full and considered response, then a revised timeline will be provided and communicated. We ask that parents await a response from the school and that further emails are not sent pending that response, unless the new deadline has passed.
4.	If there is a change in a child’s medical needs, this information must always be shared in writing through the school office and the relevant forms or plans signed by parents and school representatives.
 
The School App
The School App is our chosen communication route as:
•	It removes the risk of data breaches caused by human error when sending emails to large groups of recipients.
•	All messages from the school can be accessed in one place removing the risk of messages being lost amongst the email inboxes of our community.
 
We use The School APP to keep parents informed about the following:
•	Upcoming school events
•	Scheduled school closures (for example, for staff training days)
•	School surveys or consultations
•	Class activities or teacher requests
•	Consent forms
•	A weekly newsletter
 
Parents will be invited to download the school App onto their phone using a link. Access arrangements to support additional needs will be agreed by the Headteacher on a case by case basis.

On occasion, a formal letter may be sent to an individual family.  On these occasions, the school office will send attachments by email, with occasional follow up by post.
 
Telephone calls
School office: 01274 678016. Please note Office hours are 08:15 to 16:15 and calls are requested between these times, including pupil absence calls. Staffing may be limited and all calls will be answered as quickly as possible. School has multiple phone lines which may lead to unanswered calls during “light” staffing periods. Please do retry on these rare occasions.

1.	If a query or concern is time sensitive and urgent the parent should call the school office, who will liaise as necessary with relevant staff at the earliest opportunity. 
2.	In most circumstances’ leadership staff are unlikely to be available to receive immediate calls. Teaching staff will be unable to respond to phone calls within the school teaching day and calls will not be put through to classes during teaching time. 
3.	If the query or concern is not time sensitive and urgent then parents should email, App or call the school office and the relevant member of staff will aim to contact them within 2 working days. If this is not possible (due to teaching or other commitments), someone will respond to schedule a phone call at a convenient time.
4.	For general enquiries, please call or email the school office.
5.	Staff will call parents if their child presents as unwell during the school day.
6.	Parents are expected to App or call the school office before 9.15am if their child is absent.
7.	In the event of minor medical issues during the school day pupils will bring home a minor injury slip. We will contact parents if a child has had a head injury, even if minor. 
8.	Abusive calls will be terminated and reported to school leadership for action.
 
Social Media and Online Platforms
1.	The school will not respond to concerns raised via social media or online platforms.
2.	Should the school be made aware of any abusive behaviour towards staff members or children on roll at our school on social media, then the school will contact parents, consider reporting this to the Police and seek the removal of this content from the site. If necessary legal advice will be sought. 

Please note – parents have a responsibility to ensure children are not using age inappropriate or age limited social media/apps/gaming etc. School will refer matters back to parents where their primary school aged children have been able to access these. 
 
School calendar
 We use class year group areas on the website and newsletters to communicate with parents about upcoming events.
Where possible, we try to give parents at least 2 weeks’ notice of any events or special occasions (including non-uniform days, special assemblies or visitors, or requests for pupils to bring in special items or materials).
Any such event will be included on class year group areas on the website.
 
Reports
 Parents receive reports from the school about their child’s learning, including:
•	A mid-year progress report.
•	An end-of-year report covering their achievement in each part of the curriculum, how well they are progressing, and their attendance. In Year 6 KS2 (Key Stage 2) SATs results will be formally reported to parents after children have been individually seen by the headteacher.

School website
 Key information about the school is posted on our website, including:
•	School times and term dates
•	Notable events and announcements
•	Curriculum information
•	Important policies and procedures
•	Important contact information
•	Information about Breakfast Clubs and After-School clubs

Parents should check the website before contacting the school.
 
Inclusion
 It is important to us that everyone in our community can communicate easily with the school. Our website has a language translate feature and policies are copied directly onto the page to enable translation. To be added
Parents who need help communicating with the school can request reasonable adjustments, to be agreed by the Headteacher. This could, for example, include email communication to allow parents to auto translate.
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Types of unacceptable behaviour and communication – 
There are some types of behaviour / communication that the school considers completely unacceptable. These are as follows:

•	Any physical aggression  
•	Physically intimidating a member of staff, pupils or others on school business on or off the premises e.g., standing close to her/him, shaking or holding a fist towards a member of staff or pupil, the use of aggressive hand gestures including finger pointing towards a member of staff, pupils or others on school business. 
•	Shouting at members of staff, pupils or others on school business (either in person, over the telephone or over video conferencing) 
•	Swearing, or using offensive language including derogatory language about a protected group or characteristic as defined by the Equality Act 2010;
•	Threatening or offensive comments about a member of staff or pupil of the school; this can include verbally, via texts, emails, social media, etc 
•	Sending abusive messages to a member of staff, including via text, email, or social media
•	A large volume of emails in respect of the same matter over a short period of time.
•	Continuing to raise the same issue despite it having been already addressed by the school.
•	Posting defamatory, offensive, or derogatory comments about the school, its staff, on social media platforms
•	Disrupting, or threatening to disrupt, school operations (including events on the school grounds and sports team matches)
•	Breaching or not conforming to the school’s security procedures
•	Covertly video or audio recording phone calls or meetings with member of staff
•	Video or audio recording on site activities without the express permission of the Headteacher
•	Any other behaviour that is disrespectful, threatening, or offensive

This list is not an exhaustive list but seeks to provide illustrations of such behaviour which has no place in our school community.
 
Actions that may be taken by the school because of unacceptable behaviour and communication

Exemplar consequences are 
•	Police involvement 
•	Parental site ban/exclusion
•	Meeting with leadership team
•	Legal advice sought from school’s contracted legal advisors
•	Vexatious complainant protocol implemented
•	Individual communication protocol put in place

​​​​​The school will always seek to respond to an incident in a proportional way. The final decision for how to respond to the unacceptable behaviour and communication rests with the Headteacher, who may seek advice from the Governing Board.
 
Monitoring and review
The headteacher monitors the implementation of this policy and will review the policy every 3 years. The policy will be approved by the Governing Board.

Parent/carer quick communication guide

Handy contacts
Office phone				01274 678016
Office email				office@wibsey,bradford.sch.uk 
Safeguarding – non-urgent		safeguarding@wibsey.bradford.sch.uk 
SEND/SENDCo queries		SEND@wibsey.bradford.sch.uk 

The School Office is open for calls from 08:15 to 16:15.

Target Email response times are up to 2 working days.

Teacher responses to App messages are up to 2 working days. 

Target telephone message responses are up to 2 working days.

Many communications will be dealt with in shorter time periods however the volume of work and responsibilities for all staff fluctuates and all have limited working hours. 

Safeguarding concerns where a child may be at immediate risk of harm, contact the Designated Safeguarding Lead – Adam Emmett – telephone via the school office 01274 678016. In Mr Emmett’s absence ask for a DDSL (Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead) Anonymous calls are not accepted by the school and you should give consideration to contacting Children’s Social Care. 

Your call will be triaged and you may be asked to provide further information via the DSL email or signposted to Children’s Social Care.

Out of hours safeguarding – if a child is at immediate risk of harm then call 999. For general police concerns call 111. Relevant numbers for Children’s Social Care can be found on www.bradford.gov.uk 

Headteacher
Requests to see or speak to the Headteacher immediately, via phone call, email or drop in are unlikely to be possible. Where a matter is deemed urgent, a senior member of staff may be available. In the first instance raise general concerns in the following order;

1.	Class teacher
2.	Phase Leader
3.	Deputy Headteacher
4.	Headteacher

You may be signposted to a member of the Pastoral Team if they would be the most appropriate person.

Medical messages
In the event of minor medical issues during the school day pupils will bring home a minor injury slip. We will call parents if a child has had a head injury, even if minor.

Who should I contact?
If you have questions about any of the topics below, or would like to speak to a member of staff, please App message the appropriate person, email the most appropriate address or have a brief playground conversation as outlined.

Issue						Contact
Quick messages about minor issues		Your child’s teacher on the playground
(Immediate communication – target response within 2 working days)

My child’s learning/class activities		Your child’s class teacher via App for an appt
/lessons/homework				(Target response – within 2 working days)

My child’s wellbeing/pastoral support	Your child’s class teacher via App for an appt
						(Target response – within 2 working days)

My child’s on-going medical needs	School office email or office drop in. Complete and sign relevant forms. 
 
A general safeguarding concern	Office Phone call. Ask to speak to or arrange a meeting with the Designated Safeguarding Lead or 
						Email safeguarding@wibsey.bradford.sch.uk 

	
Payments or School trips	Via Parent Pay or as instructions in the trip letter. Follow up via office.	

		
Uniform/lost and found	Your child’s class teacher on the playground or email to the school office. 

		

Attendance and absence requests	
Website form handed to school office or school office drop in to collect a form. You will be notified of responses via the office attendance team. 

Pupil Behaviour	Your child’s class teacher on the playground initially or via App. A meeting may be necessary.

Continued issues will be referred to Phase Leaders. 	

School events/the school calendar

Class letters, Newsletter, website in the first instance. School office App secondly.

Special educational needs	
Email SEND@wibsey.bradford.sch.uk 
(Target response – within 2 working days)

Breakfast Club and after-school clubs	

Parent Pay for bookings. School office via telephone for late cancellations. Very late bookings may not be accepted. Children not booked in by Parent Pay cannot be accepted on the morning except in exceptional circumstances. This is for staffing and safeguarding reasons.

	

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