Lord Blyton Primary School
Pupil and Parent Voice Policy
Contents:
- Legal framework
- Roles and responsibilities
- Pupil voice
- Open-door approach
- Parent voice
- Monitoring and review
Lord Blyton Primary Schoolbelieves that pupils should be given the opportunity to express their views on their education and that pupils’ parents should have an active role in their children’s education. We believe it is important that pupils and parents feel their opinions are appreciated, understood and acted upon where appropriate.
1. Legal framework
This policy has due regard to all relevant legislation and statutory guidance including, but not limited to, the following:
- DfE ‘Promoting children and young people’s emotional health and wellbeing’
- DfE ‘Best practice guidance for school complaints procedures’
- National Governance Association ‘Engaging with parents and carers: A guide for governing boards’
- Education Act 2002
This policy operates in conjunction with the following school policies:
- Complaints Procedure Policy
- Staff Code of Conduct
- Pupil Code of Conduct
- Behaviour Policy
- Parent Code of Conduct
- Visitor Policy
2. Roles and responsibilities
The governing board is responsible for:
- Maintaining a strategic overview of pupils’ and parents’ voices.
- Reviewing outcomes of any pupil or parent surveys, ensuring actions are implemented and monitoring their effectiveness.
- Undertaking pupil voice consultations as a part of their school monitoring responsibility.
- Monitoring the feedback received by the school and questioning the SLT on this and any subsequent actions.
The headteacher is responsible for:
- Being open to ideas and suggestions from both pupils and parents.
- Responding to queries and complaints, from both pupils and parents.
- Ensuring opportunities for pupil and parent feedback, e.g. pupil and parent consultation meetings, are regularly implemented.
- Establishing positive working relationships with parents.
- Consulting pupils and parents prior to implementing any major, non-statutory changes to the school premises, management, and its policies and procedures, where appropriate.
- Keeping pupils and parents informed of changes to the school and important news, including via the school website and newsletters.
- Publishing its Complaints Procedures Policy on the school’s website.
- Ensuring that pupils have an appropriate and clear method for providing feedback and voicing concerns, e.g. pupil committees.
- Scheduling parents’ evenings twice a yearto ensure that parents have an additional opportunity to raise concerns.
- Ensuring that all staff at the school promote an open-door approach, encouraging pupils to speak up about their concerns.
Teachers are responsible for:
- Creating a safe and welcoming environment in which pupils feel comfortable to share open and honest feedback.
- Listening to pupils’ and parent’s concerns.
- Familiarising themselves with this policy and any relevant procedures, e.g. the complaints procedure.
- Communicating concerns raised by pupils or their parents to the SLT, where appropriate.
- Responding to all complaints professionally, keeping the identity of pupils anonymous if the complaint is passed on to the SLT, where appropriate to do so.
Pupils are responsible for:
- Raising concerns they may have about any aspect of the school to the relevant staff member, e.g. their teacher, and communicating these concerns to their parents as well.
- Participating in group discussions and class work, voicing their opinions and views.
Parents are responsible for:
- Raising concerns with the school through the appropriate format.
- Attending parent consultation meetings, voicing their concerns and suggesting improvements, and completing parent questionnaires.
3. Pupil voice
Everyday teaching and learning
Pupils will be encouraged to participate in class discussions and to raise any concerns with their teacher.
Pupils will be consulted on class activities to ensure they are comfortable with the set activities, e.g. reading aloud. Pupils who are uncomfortable with a set activity will not, within reason, be asked to partake in the task unless necessary. The teacher will consider any reasonable adjustments to encourage their participation.
Pupils will be encouraged to evaluate their learning, discussing with their teachers any areas they are unsatisfied with.
When starting a new topic, the class will be asked if they have any questions about the subject, so that their teacher can ensure that these will be answered during lessons.
Opportunities for pupils to ask questions will be given during lessons, to ensure that they understand the lesson topics and objectives.
Wherever possible, pupils will be given the opportunity to lead their own learning, e.g. choosing their own subject for individual projects.
Pupil committees
The school will give pupils the opportunity to volunteer to become a pupil council candidate, becoming part of the pupil council. The school will apply the following criteria when forming the pupil committee:
- Candidates will volunteer and then be elected by their peers only
- Two candidates from each class will be elected
- The collective pupils elected will make up the full pupil committee
The pupil committee members will conduct fortnightly meetings with the relevant school leaders, such as the PSHE co-ordinator and the Headteacher.
In these meetings the pupil council members work together, the present staff and pupil committee members will establish the concerns and work towards solutions. The relevant plans of action will be communicated to the headteacher by the pupil taking the minutes, where appropriate. These plans will be reviewed by the headteacher and the governing board for approval.
Pupil council members will record all concerns about the school that are communicated to them.
Concerns raised to pupil council members will be kept anonymous, unless it is appropriate to inform a member of staff, e.g. in cases of safeguarding concerns, the DSL will be informed.
Pupil voice meetings
Pupil voice meetings will be help during registration time, so that all pupils have the opportunity to voice their opinions.
Pupils will be consulted on the relevant subject learning.
There will be an opportunity in these sessions for pupils to communicate any further areas of learning or information.
4. Open-door approach
The school will maintain an open-door approach in regard to all areas of school life.
Both parents and pupils will be encouraged to communicate any concerns, whenever necessary, using any method outlined within this policy.
Parents are encouraged to contact the school office from 8:00am to 4:00pm on Monday – Friday to ensure their queries, concerns or complaints, can be dealt with as soon as possible.
While the school has a protocol for pupils to follow if they have a concern, this being informing a pupil committee member, if pupils feel further action is needed, they will be encouraged to voice these concerns to their teacher.
While parents will be encouraged to voice concerns through the school office whenever possible, parents will have access to other methods of communicating with the relevant staff, e.g. having the school email addresses of the teacher and the office email.
5. Parent voice
Parent councils
Parents will be invited to volunteer for the school’s parent council so that concerns may be raised and rectified where necessary.
The parent council will act as a voice for all parents of the schools’ pupils, reflecting their views to the relevant staff members, such as the SBM and the teacher.
Together, the relevant staff members and the parent council will work together to establish concerns and generate resolutions, where appropriate. These will be reviewed by the headteacher and the governing board for approval.
If the headteacher and the governing board reject the parent councils’ plans, the parent council will communicate this to parents, via a newsletter. If the concerns are raised again, the parent council will put the plans to the headteacher and the governing board again.
Parent questionnaires and surveys
All parents will be invited to complete parent questionnaires and surveys, which will be sent out termly, via letter. Parents will be responsible for returning the questionnaires and surveys.
The purpose of the questionnaires and surveys will be to establish how satisfied parents are with the school.
Parents’ evenings
Parents and pupils will be invited to attend parents’ evenings twice a year. Parents will be given the opportunity to discuss concerns with teachers at these evenings.
Methods of communicating concerns
Parents will be encouraged to raise concerns via a telephone call or email to the school office or Mrs Quinn, Child and Family manager.
Parents will also be able to raise concerns at parents’ evenings, in a questionnaire or survey, or during parent consultation meetings.
In addition, the school will provide information on the school’s website and Facebook. The complaints policy is on the school website.
The school aims to respond to all concerns raised via any method of communication within 2 working days.
Parent consultation meetings
Parents will be consulted on the relevant, non-statutory, changes that are being considered for the school, such as the addition of a resource Base, certain policies.
There will be an opportunity in these sessions for parents to communicate any further areas of dissatisfaction.
6. Monitoring and review
The headteacher will review this policy with the governing board annually.
Any concerns regarding the effectiveness of this policy will be reported to the headteacher immediately.
Any changes to this policy will be communicated to all members of staff, pupils and parents.
The next review of this policy will be September 2026.