Dear Parents,

Parents new to the school, or who have never attended the Parents’ Forum may be asking, ‘What is the Parents’ Forum?’ and ‘Who attends the Parents’ Forum?’. Hopefully the next few lines will answer both questions.

One of my key aims as headteacher has always been to have excellent communication with parents. Parents’ Forum is one way of helping achieve this and over the years has proved to be a very effective two-way communication system.

When Ralph Sadleir’s Parents’ Forum was first started the purpose was to create a group where parents could

• discuss school related issues with other parents and members of the school staff
• help review policies and procedures that affect parents / pupils
• improve communication between home and school
• improve mutual understanding of current issues affecting parents, pupils and the school

To date we have succeeded in all these aims and hope to continue to do so. In fact we have been so successful in what we have tried to do that other schools in the area have copied our format.

Agenda for the forum are generated by issues that are current to the working of the school and by matters put forward by parents. The forum is open to all parents and those attending usually cover all years in school so discussions usually reflect opinions of parents with children throughout the school.

Notes from the meetings are posted on the school website where they are accessible to our whole school community. I often receive emails from parents commenting on items that are being discussed.

In order to facilitate consultation with as many parents as possible, forum meetings are held in an afternoon and then repeated in an evening. Parents expressing interest attend one or other as the agenda is the same for both sessions. This year meetings will alternate between Mondays and Wednesdays. I hope this will enable more parents to be involved.

The first meetings will be on Monday 7th October 2013 at 1.45pm and 7.30pm.

Parents can attend as many or as few of the forum meetings as they wish; attendance at one does not mean you have to attend the next!

Discussions and subsequent work over the past years have included:

• Communication between home and school
• School prospectus
• The local pyramid of schools
• Transition from year 4 into 5 including the development of a comprehensive handbook for parents
• Healthy living
• Freman College
• School policies
• Reporting pupil progress to parents

From the points raised by parents a number of changes and improvements to our working practices have been made. We hope this will continue this year as our partnership with you strengthens still further.

If you are interested in attending the forum and would like an item discussing at the forthcoming meeting please email me at admin@ralphsadleir.herts.sch.uk

I look forward to meeting with many of you and discussing how we can move Ralph Sadleir forward together.

Yours sincerely

Mrs E M Hinton
Headteacher

Dates for 2013/14

• Monday 7th October 2013
• Wednesday 27th November 2013
• Monday 20th January 2014
• Wednesday 5th March 2014
• Monday 12th May 2014
• Wednesday 18th June 2014
• Monday 23rd June 2014 – joint meeting to welcome parents of incoming pupils

Please sign in at the school office from where you will be taken to the appropriate room for the meeting.