At Cramlington Learning Village we are committed to establishing and maintaining an effective and purposeful working relationship between the school and home and we recognise how parental engagement can improve student achievement, reduce absenteeism, and restore parents' confidence in their children's education.

Schools with engaged parents involve them in school life, communicate regularly and provide opportunities to take part in their child’s learning journey. Parents can show this engagement in many ways both at home and in school.  For example, at home parents can read with their child and help with or check on homework.  Parents can also demonstrate engagement by attending events in held school such as information evenings, meetings, showcases and concerts.

All staff at our school take responsibility for parental engagement and understand their role in involving the family in a child’s learning.

In March 2022, Ofsted commented positively on the way “Parents and carers praised the supportive approach to remote education. They also appreciated the focus leaders have placed on pupils’ mental health since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Parents and pupils agree that bullying is dealt with effectively. Pupils feel safe in school and trust adults to support them”.

​​​​​​​Parent voice is valuable and is used as a vehicle for change at the school.  We listen, value and act on parents’ views on a range of topics, using a variety of methods to obtain feedback. The LPPA has highlighted our commitment to quality assure the parents’ views on the education we offer and forensically evaluate our performance to ensure fundamental change.

Evaluating our parental engagement work is crucial to our success and we make every effort to respond appropriately to all parent concerns and to communicate our subsequent actions.  These responses can be one-to-one or using our usual communication channels – letters, email, website, parent newsletter or meetings.

We believe parents should have opportunities to develop their own knowledge and skills and therefore have run many adult learning workshops facilitated by internal practitioners and external providers as we recognise how valuable the acquisition of knowledge will be in supporting their children’s learning and development.

There is a designated lead for parental engagement and a working partnership group responsible for sustaining a positive relationship with parents, carers and families. Their vision is to develop a number of approaches towards improving the school’s relationship with parents and ensure there is a whole-school approach towards parental engagement.

Moving forward, parental engagement remains one of the key priorities of our School Improvement Plan.

Governors are provided with information on parental engagement and also outcomes of consultation activities. They believe that the school is good at providing a variety of opportunities to engage parents, some of which are formal or targeted and others more open. Parental support and engagement is viewed as fundamental and sits within School Improvement Planning.

In July 2022, we were reassessed by Andrea Hamshaw and awarded again the Leading Parent Partnership Award (LPPA) to help strengthen our school’s partnership with parents. LPPA is a national award that will provide us with a valuable school improvement tool and also give us recognition for our commitment to working with parents. Taking part in the LPPA process has enabled the school to recognise good practice and raised awareness of areas for development.

The LPPA will help us achieve these long-term benefits:

• Improved pupil attendance, punctuality, behaviour and progress.

• Increased parent participation and involvement.

• Enhanced parents’ support of their children’s learning.

• Improved communication between home and school.

It will allow us to enhance parent partnership through:

• Working with key partners.

• Effective leadership and management.

• A welcoming and accessible environment.

• Consultation and communication.

• Information and guidance to support learning.

• Developing parent-friendly policies.

• Promoting lifelong learning activities.

• Joint parent and child learning opportunities.

• High quality induction and transition support for families.

• Monitoring and evaluation of progress.

Andrea added, “Cramlington Learning Village has excelled in embedding the work that it does in relation to parental engagement.  This school shows how the LPPA can be done by a secondary phase establishment when leadership and management of the award is given priority to support holistic outcomes for young people, their families and the community they serve. 

The action plan and page profile to show all the necessary links shows why the most recent Ofsted report praises the work undertaken on parental engagement.  This is obviously not a “bolt on” at this school and it is a golden thread running through out every day practice where the question “what about parents?” is echoed throughout the site.”

The information gained through the Reassessment Visit highlighted:

• The continued commitment of ALL staff to work in partnership with parents, and external agency provision where necessary, to support families to achieve positive outcomes for pupils evolves in line with needs.  This is also supported by the updating of the staff handbook used as an induction tool for ALL staff so that each and every person knows what is expected when it comes to parental engagement and their respective roles at Cramlington.

• The ever-evolving range of information and communication provision for parents and the school to engage in mutually beneficial conversations in relation to pupil learning and holistic development.  Throughout the lockdown period information sharing has morphed to enable parents to continue to be well informed and also be able to raise any issues (whether these be concerns or positive outcomes) with staff across the school through relevant media for their needs.  The use of Google Classrooms has meant that there is consistent information provision across the site.

• The way in which enrichment opportunities for parents and families to support their children’s learning and develop their own learning have continued through relevant media and how these will start to come back into the school as restrictions lift.  The extensive programme of adult learning opportunities continues to develop holistically across the site including both academic and pastoral provision together with a back catalogue of recorded activities to ensure nothing is missed!  Mental health support plays a key part of this information provision.

• Transitions on the whole into the school, throughout and on exit onto the next stage of development.  Starting conversations early helps to develop relationships with families to gain the best outcomes for all.  The year 6 noticeboard has been a key addition to the transition process enabling new parents to interact before their children actually start their secondary journey and gain knowledge from each other and share concerns.

• Consultation happens across the school in a regular, relevant and appropriate manner.  This again will continue as parents appreciate changes that are made and see the value of their voice and in their contributions to school life.  Whether it is information gathered through Parent Cloud, workshop feedback or Parents in Partnership meetings, the elements of consultation and feedback continue as a key priority across Cramlington.

• Monitoring, evaluation and feedback is recognised as fundamental to meaningful development across the school and has become further embedded into every day practice and into the school improvement and development planning processes.

Parents – Although these parents were different ones to those spoken to at the Final Verification Visit the message remains the same.  There is a partnership of which they are a huge part!  Parents are always made to feel welcome at all levels across the setting and the same welcome is provided by each member of staff.  Parents definitely expressed the opinion that, in relation to communication, ALL staff were extremely approachable and that they receive information through a variety of media from both the academic and pastoral staff.  The school has embraced their comments and continues to provide relevant and timely information across the site.  The information parents view on the website is easy to access and comprehensive – this, added to the information from the informative handbook and FROG, enables them to keep up with all aspects of school life including behaviour, celebrations and progress data.  Information is still shared on a regular basis and when questions are raised they are answered in a timely manner. The information parents have received may have changed in its media (e.g. some has now been virtual) but the content is still valued immensely.  Links with external agencies where necessary to provide guidance including training on e-safety (amongst many others) were again described positively and parents were supported by the school to access support. Again, this provision had been enhanced during the lockdowns in an effort to provide the foundation for staff to signpost on to other services that may be able to support families in a holistic sense.

Staff – Parental engagement is at the heart of everything that happens at Cramlington.  Communication with parents is viewed as key by staff and information sharing happens through many forms including e-mails, newsletters, text messages, website and via face to face sessions as well as virtually.   The open-door policy continues to operate and, as restrictions lift, the activities programme to support parents to be involved in their children’s learning and development as well as the opportunity to take part in celebrations and performances, will be resurrected.  The pastoral provision throughout the school continues to work in partnership with teaching, learning and development to support families holistically and to provide advocacy services when the need arises. Lots of information was shared about transitions throughout the site at Cramlington.  It was apparent that relationships with parents and staff commence as early as possible when children are coming into Year 7 to enable effective communication to begin.  There was definitely the feel that the staff had put in place additional measures to communicate with home as a result of the covid-19 pandemic which had further improved relationships between pupils, families and school.  Measures which have been seen to have a positive impact will continue.

Pupils spoken to at the Reassessment visit were able to provide a significant amount of information in relation to everyday life across Cramlington Learning Village.  They shared examples of communication methods in place between home and school including website, newsletters, school visits and the wealth of information that was available on the parent portal.

Students were of the opinion that their parents were made to feel welcome by all staff when they contacted the school, whichever method of communication they felt most comfortable with.  Again, each student was asked to provide a word they thought their parents would use to describe Cramlington Learning Village.  They replied, “welcoming, supportive, friendly, warm and pleasant.” 

The impact the LPPA has on strengthened our relationship with families:

• Launch of the LPPA page on our school website which signposts parents to adult learning classes in the community.

• A parent specific noticeboard in school providing information on adult learning classes, what’s on in the community and ways they can support their child’s learning.

• Parent focus groups to identify change for the better.

• Adult Learning workshops internally and externally sourced.

• All parent events/activities evaluated.

• More opportunities for parents to enhance their own understanding of exam board specifications and ways they can support their child through revision.

• Consultation with parents on the development of schools policies.

• Re-structure of the ‘For Parents’ section of the school website.

• Re-structure of the Parent Portal.

• Parent specific information displayed in reception area (flyers, TV plasmas, etc.).

• Parents/visitors are able to sign in using the new VDM screens.

• New ‘tell us what you think’ form for visitors to evaluate their experience of the school.

• A redesigned version of our parent questionnaires to gather specific information to identify change and improvements in key areas.

• A redesigned version of our parent questionnaires for parents’ evenings.

• A new online questionnaire sent to parents to evaluate the effectiveness of parents’ evening.

• To gain better privacy of conversation between parent and teacher at parents’ evening, we now operate a doctor surgery-esque acting upon the feedback obtained in the parent questionnaires.

• A new online parents’ evening booking system – 93% of parents prefer this way of booking appointments.

• The launch of a parent newsletter.

• Settling in days – a development of the questionnaires and interviews with parents’ to explore ways CLV can improve transition.

• A new procedure for Learning Managers for parents of children joining during the school year.

• A new ‘Overview of Transition Activities’ to help pull together the activities available on transition days so staff are aware what is happening.

• A ‘Transition Timeline of Events’ to establish key events and the involvement of primary schools and parents.

• Changes made to the Parent book issued to year 7 parents and made available online.

• Access to online reading lists so parents can support their child with reading at home and encourage reading for pleasure and reading across subject areas.

• A new guidance on volunteers has been developed.

• A Parent Engagement section is being developed to be included in the Staff Handbook.

• A Parent Partnership Policy (waiting for approval).

• The school has identified its key evaluative findings under each of the objectives and created an improvement plan to sustain parental engagement.

​​​​​​​Impact since the LPPA 2019:

• The Working Partnership Group has been extended to include non-teaching staff, adding to the variety of members.

• We have continued to focus regularly on parental engagement within the CPD calendar and at curriculum team meetings. There is now a section in the school’s teachers’ planners on the importance of parental engagement.

• We now have a Year 6 Parent Noticeboard to support with parents’ and children with the transition from primary to secondary school.

• We have offered more parent in partnership meetings including ideas from parents about how we can make improvements in parental involvement within school.

• There have been more parental consultation meetings where parents’ have contributed to, and reviewed, key school practices and policies.

• Our portfolio of external partners who can offer needs-led shared learning opportunities to both parents and students has grown.

• We have offered a broad and rich variety of adult learning classes in school including literacy and numeracy.

• We now evaluate the effectiveness of the year 9 and year 12 options evenings.

• We have ensured that parents are always thanked for their contributions and involved in celebrations of success.

• The school aims to provide sufficient financial resources and time to enable those responsible for leading and managing parent partnership to continue to deliver an effective programme and pursue new avenues outlined.

• We have taken action to improve the uptake of family and lifelong learning activities.

• A new Careers Programme for Parents' available to access from our main website.

• A new School Online Safety Hub - this is a new and improved section of Frog that includes useful information around the topic of online safety.  

Moving Forward 2022 – key priorities

• To explore with the school’s Web Designers ways to capture the adult learning workshops and key events on offer for those parents who are unable to attend.

• To explore how subject areas can provide activities/events for parents across the year.

• To offer adult learning workshops and opportunities at weekends to further improve uptake.

Feedback from the LPPA Report 2014

• The commitment of the school to work with parents is one of its core principles and is clearly managed by a very experienced Senior Leadership Team and supported by the Governing body.

• The LPPA framework has been used very effectively as a diagnostic tool.

• Staff are motivated and proactive, resulting in distributed leadership of the LPPA framework.

• The staff are very approachable. Parents are confident to ask questions and share concerns.

• The school is a very welcoming place and is an organised and very effective learning environment.

• Communication is a strong feature of the school which results in a strong sense of teamwork between the school and the parent body.

• Parents are well informed of their children’s progress and are given a lot of information and guidance in how they can support the learning.

Our commitment:

We are committed to working with parents, carers and families to strengthen the links between school, home and the community. If you would like to get involved, please contact Tony Brown (LPPA Coordinator) at tbrown@cramlingtonlv.co.uk.

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