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Parental Focus Group Minutes

Date of Meeting: 28th April (pm)

4th May 2016 (am)

Present: Mr D Brown, Mrs T Davis, Mrs H King, Ms H Mulligan, Mrs D Pickles, Mrs C Young, Mrs S Sanderson-Smith, Mrs L Segal, Miss K Govan, Mrs L Guldemond, Mrs M Romero, Ms Sureshan, Mrs S Whitely

Apologies: Mrs C Griffin, Mrs A Garlick

1. Welcome and Minutes of the Last Meeting

Miss Cronin welcomed everyone.

The minutes of the Term Four meetings were approved.

2. Show my Homework (Mr P Byrne)

Parents no longer getting a weekly reminder of the homework still to be done (Mr

Byrne to investigate)

Mr Byrne spoke about benefits of Show my Homework such as being able to see

when the homework is set and the amount set

Parents who use it find it helpful to interpret; downloading attachments is getting

easier

Vast majority of pupils have taken naturally to SMH. They know how to use it and

have synced it with their phones

Teachers are able to use Show My Homework cleverly

Parents confirmed that timescales for setting homework have improved.

Reminder that parents are able to download the Smart Board app

Reminder to go in next newsletter and on the website

Add a question to parental survey about Show my Homework

3. Assessment without levels (Mr P Byrne)

Mr Byrne took parents through our journey so far.

Language of levels has gone

Key Stage 2 results will now be a score – Progress at Key Stage 4 will be

measured from Key Stage 2

Mr Byrne went through a PowerPoint presentation (see slides) related to the

problems of levels and why the Government wants to get rid of levels

Pupils want to know what level they are on and to compare themselves

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Assessment without levels – we are currently trialling different systems – we

want a superior system to what already exists and motivates pupils to do their

best

Some subjects have been looking at the language of progress

o Focussed on progress which means that all ability levels are able to

achieve top medals for their ability group

Way forward

o Flight path model agreed by most Subject Leaders – pupils working towards mastery. Number system 1→9 in place.

o Over five years they should be making five levels of progress o An example of Assessment without levels was shared – highly

aspirational o An example of the new numerical system will be given in final newsletter o Discussion regarding including pupil’s flight path electronically.

Explanations could form part of parents’ evening next academic year or have an information evening for all year groups

o Parents were positive about the design of the proposed model.

5. Using the Pupil Voice to ‘close the gap’

Mr Byrne shared some inset he had been on related to ‘closing the gap’

A gap in achievement/progress is a gap in some fundamentals such as

engagement gap / self-worth gap / purpose gap.

Correlated with motivation to learn

Self-worth and engagement is 5x if pupils enjoy school

Purpose gap – do staff know their hopes and dreams – made a difference to how

motivated pupils are.

If pupils have a voice they are 7x more likely to be motivated to learn.

School figures are higher than national for some but pupils don’t always see the

relevance.

School did not come out well on ‘hopes and dreams’ which is important in them

being motivated to learn.

Could hopes and dreams be discussed in drama/PSHEe/ capsule – hopes and

dreams

Look at different ways to promote hopes and dreams

Who is disengaged? Don’t just look at the academic

The pressure of time causes problems.

Need to facilitate opportunities to find out pupils’ hopes and dreams.

School relies on parents letting us know of child’s achievement. Pupils don’t

always want the school to know.

Parents think it would be good if staff made a conscious effort to praise pupils

as some pupils are always disengaged

Possibility of pupils spending some time with their personal tutor to talk about

their hopes and dreams once a year

Possibility of recognising acts of kindness in school newsletter, such as ‘pupil

of the week’.

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6. Journals

Parents went through current journal and put post-its on what they felt were

valuable pages:

A page for writing reminders is needed

Parents liked the pages that we currently use – they felt most pages of

information should be kept

Parents like smaller A5 version of the journal

Likes from other commercially produced journals included:

Pupil Portal guide from Dawson – get the parents to sign Internet Safety

More steps to healthy eating needed

Section on ‘love your parents’

Arrange with company to have original journal but also have shortened

version

May increase price slightly to cover the cost of Show My Homework and other

software

Journals need to be stronger as sometimes they can come apart

7. School photo company

The Year 7 Company were good but the photographs took too long to arrive

None of the parents present had a Year 11 son or daughter who had used

Success photography

8. Mission Statement

Miss Cronin distributed a Mission Statement booklet which contained the views

of all pupils, staff, parents and Governors.

A draft Mission Statement was distributed for discussion.

Parents made some changes to the language but, on the whole, liked it.

All agreed to reflect on it and send in any further ideas to Luciana

A copy of the revised draft is attached.

School Council re-visiting again next week

9. Newsletter

Miss Cronin asked for feedback regarding the smaller sized newletters

Most parents were very happy with the new size especially as the school is

saving 50% on printing costs

10. Parent emails

Miss Cronin and parents spoke about protocols for teachers replying to emails

Some parents can be unreasonable when writing emails

Hard for staff to wait until the next day to open emails during school time

In exceptional circumstances it can be useful to deal with issues as soon as they arise

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11. Date of Term Six Meetings

Wednesday 15th June at 9:15am

Thursday 30th June at 6:15pm.

Please let Miss Cronin’s PA, Mrs Frangella-Cramp, know of any requests for future agenda items: mrsfrangellal@strichardscc.com

END OF MEETING

Comitas, Caritas, Scienta St Richard’s Catholic College is a caring community where all are welcomed in the spirit of Christian love and respect. Our school encourages the wonder and joy of learning, enabling all to flourish and grow together in friendship, knowledge and faith. We aspire to be courageous, having the integrity and the spiritual strength to make a positive difference in the world, both now and in the future, cherishing our school motto of Community, Charity and Knowledge.

‘I have come so that all may have life, and have it to the full.’ (John 10:10)

Assessment without Levels

Our Journey

What was discussed?

• What the primaries are doing (JBl).

• The problems of levels.

• Different Models: Mastery vs. graduated flight path.

• Language of progress.

The Problems of Levels

• Inaccuracy and inconsistency between teachers and subjects. 

• Teaching became focused on getting pupils across the next threshold instead of ensuring they were secure in the knowledge. 

• Too often levels have dominated lesson planning.

• Formative classroom assessment was not always being used enough.  

• levels were often the main focus of conversations with pupils and their parents or carers.

• Pupils compared themselves to others.

Assessment without levels must:• Be superior to our current system e.g. not the same with numbers replaced with 

words.

• Taken into account previous data e.g. Low, medium and high achievers. 

• Blend of formative and summative assessments. 

• Track progress accurately and give a clear indication of performance at GCSE (9 to 1). 

• Integrate with SIMS / 4 Matrix

• Motivate pupils to do there best. 

• Be flexible to allow departments to use the assessments that work best for them while feeding into a whole school system. 

Language of Progress

• Platinum 

• Gold

• Silver

• Bronze

• Combination e.g. Silver / bronze

• Mastered / Excellent

• Secure

• Developing

• Emerging / Fondation

Way Forward• Flight path model (see JCa’s prototype) was needed in which the programmes of 

study could be broken down into year groups to assess progress during each year (Two SLs disagreed with this point). 

• Numerical system is needed that relates to the new 1 to 9 system so that parents will accurately know what progress their pupil is making and the likely outcome at GCSE.

• Pupils would be on 1 to 9 system from Year 7 and are expected to make one level each year (highly aspiration). 

• Medal system to be used (Platinum Gold, Silver, Bronze) to band ability of pupils and related expectations for each year group depending on your starting point.  

• Departments to develop assessments that suit their subject and can accurately assess progress. 

Using Pupil Voice to ‘Close the Gap’

Pupil Voice Gap

7 times more likely to be motivated to learn.

Self Worth Gap

5 times more likely to be motivated to learn

Engagement Gap

16 times more likely to be motivated to learn.

Purpose Gap

18 times more likely to be motivated to learn

Ideas from staff (1)• More opportunities to talk to class with videos etc.• Surveys in T&L.• When children are absent, they need more support to catch up. Find out how they 

are getting on.• Form tutors need more individual time to talk to their students. More time has 

been taken away from form tutors due to other demands.• Catch up with them if they’re absent.• Contact them by phone when appropriate.• Channel their hopes and dreams through Crest and clubs.• Discuss their hobbies, interests, where they have been, what they done at the 

weekend etc.• Difficult to get to know the pupils well in busy classrooms and focus on 

achievement.• Add to PSHEE lessons.• In a week in form time we have numeracy, DEAR, literacy, an assembly therefore 

hard to get to know the form.• Inappropriate scale. Theory suggests never to use 3 or 5 point scales as people will 

always opt for middle one as default.• Misleading language e.g. boring/neither enables them to opt out of question.

Ideas from staff (2)• PSHEE activity. Many students have short term hopes and dreams.• Five jobs you would like to do – give them time to find out about these in tutor time.• More careers advice in KS3 to help them have hopes and dreams – identified by tutor but meetings not 

given.• Give more time for a parent to come in and share how they got their job or what they do – not just high 

fliers.• Make sure they know what subjects they need to achieve a particular job.• Tutor time filled up with too many things to do now so don’t get to know the tutees well.• Can we have (once or twice a year) so that we can have 1 to 1 time with tutees and find out about their 

hopes and dreams.• First and foremost strategy.• Ask pupils their hopes and dreams.• Could aspirations and ambitions be part of PSHEE not just careers.• More speaking tasks where pupils can express themselves.• Try to link lessons to something which is happening outside of school. E.g. news and culture. Ask the 

pupils how it links.• Would be useful to ask similar questions of staff.• Whole school positive approach is likely to mean staff and pupils share positive approach.• Acknowledge return to school. E.g. All OK? We really missed you.• Time given to talk and listen to the pupils hopes and dreams.• Write an essay on your hopes and dreams.• Ask my pupils what their hopes and dreams are and then write about how English can help you achieve 

this.• KS2 transition could have hopes and dreams written underneath photos.• Photo gallery of each Year 11 pupil with subjects studied, career ambitions and hopes and dreams.