BFA Parent Council/Parent Forum
School decisions and policies, such as homework, behaviour and uniform policies, have a direct impact on parents, so it is important that they are given the opportunity to have a say.
Feedback from parents suggests they would like the school to consult them on a regular basis. Parents want to have a say in school decision-making but aren’t always sure how to, and likewise school sometimes struggle to reach and involve all of our parents and carers.
We think a Parent Council is effective way of overcoming these barriers and ensuring a range of parents’ voices can be heard on the issues that matter to them. It's a way to forge a close partnership between parents and the school, where ultimately children benefit.
What does our Parent Council do?
The Parent Council canvasses the views of the wider parent body in order to advise the school leadership and School Strategy Board (SSB) of the parents’ views on different issues. It is a feature of good governance to know your school and take account of parents’ views, so they are as workable as possible. The school leadership also find it helpful to listen to parent feedback on operational issues.
How does it work?
All parents and carers of children at The Beacon School are considered to be members of the Parent Forum. We have an established and successful Parent Forum in place. The Parent Council represents the Parent Forum. This model tends to work best in larger secondary schools like ours.
Parents volunteer to join the Parent Council and the school will make sure there is representation from each year group by inviting parents from any un-represented years or key groups like SEND. The Parent Council meet at least once a term. When the Parent Council/and or school wishes to consult the wider parent community on a particular issue it organises a Parent Forum event which all parents are invited to.
The Parent Council ensures that the views of the parents are heard by the school by meeting termly with school leaders. The Parent Council also ensures that information and meeting discussions of both the Parent Council and Parent Forum are reported back to the parents in a meaningful and timely way.
Our next Parent Forum meeting is on Tuesday 11th June 2019.
We have a meeting at 9am to 10.30am and another at 7pm to 8.30pm.
On the agenda at this meeting:
- Buildings Update
- Catering Update
- BFA Update
- Other items for the agenda will be confirmed
- Your feedback and comments
We hope you are able to make one of the forums but if not, you can easily submit comments or requests for future discussions ahead of the meeting by emailing the Parent Forum.
