Home School Partnership

Hexham Middle School is committed to fostering a genuine partnership between home and school. The school recognises the importance of the parents' role and believes that a collaborative partnership can produce significant improvements in many areas of educational endeavour. In order to achieve real partnership the school has set up a Home School Partnership Forum which is composed of parents, teachers and governors. The forum is considering strategies for improving communication between home and school. It also provides the opportunity for greater understanding between teachers and parents and emphasises the value of each other's role. The forum has agreed that the partnership should carry out the following tasks:

• maintain a process of review to enable communications between home and school to develop;
• consider issues of school organisation which directly impact upon parents and students;
• promote a positive image of the school.

The forum has introduced a number of initiatives including the Home School Planner, Home School Agreement and the review of the school uniform, and is looking at other ways of improving the partnership which are both manageable and sustainable. The group is a valuable link between home and school and provides a channel through which issues of concern to parents can be raised. In the past we have looked at homework, SATs and issues regarding communication between home and school.

Topics currently under discussion include:

• Travel to school - one of the parents on the group organised a questionnaire on behalf of the County Council to find out how pupils travel to school with a view to improving routes into school and general safety.
• School uniform.
• School lunchtime - following a visit to a group meeting by our canteen supervisor, two parents visited the school at lunchtime to assess the 'lunchtime experience'. They have now produced a questionnaire for pupils and parents to explore the issues and investigate ways of making lunchtime more enjoyable for all.

If parents have any concerns that they would like discussed by the group, they would be welcome to come along to a meeting or send queries to the chair of the group. You can also use the enquiry facility on this website, to send in your comments.