Dear Parents and Carers,
You will be aware that as a school and as a body of staff, we endeavour to meet with you and address your concerns at our earliest opportunity and as efficiently as possible.
However of late, the practice of certain parents and carers arriving to school without an appointment and expecting to meet with a particular member of staff has become increasingly frequent. Further to this is the practice of stating their intention to remain in our reception area until such time as someone will meet with them, whilst addressing our reception staff, pastoral and academic colleagues in a manner that is wholly unacceptable and indeed bordering on both aggressive and rude.
As a consequence I feel it is essential that I remind all parents and carers of the following;
- To ensure matters can be addressed as swiftly as possible and to everyone’s satisfaction, appointments must be made in advance of any parent or carer arriving to school.
- To be clear, unless a prearranged appointment is in place, parents and carers are not to attend school.
- Whilst on site and in particular when speaking with our reception staff and wider school staff, all parents and carers are expected to address school staff in a calm, civil, polite and non-threatening manner.
- Parents and carers will not be seen on demand, not least because school staff have full and busy timetable commitments across the day and will therefore not be available on request.
- On those occasions where parents and carers refuse to adhere to the above and behave in a manner which is wholly inappropriate to a professional setting, we will as a school refer the matter to our external agencies and will seek legal support in having those parents and carers banned from site.
- This is inclusive of those parents and carers who feel it appropriate to communicate with school staff via social media and/or email in a manner and tone which could be perceived as being aggressive, threatening and/or abusive both in terms of tone and language used.
I am however extremely appreciative of the significant majority of our parents and carers who approach both school and school staff in a professional, respectful and appropriate manner. Your continued support and encouragement is as always recognised and warmly received.
Mrs Bowen
