Author: Mr Roundtree

At Moortown Primary, we seek your thoughts on lots of things, whether this is straight after an open-session in school like our Watch us while we work sessions, or in the annual surveys in the summer term.

Just before the summer term last year, we also asked for your views on the annual reports. We wanted to make sure we kept the reports as informative for you as possible, and we also wanted to relieve some of the workload for teachers when they write them.

You told us that the aspects of the reports you found most helpful were the teachers’ overall comments and the grades for progress, attitude and attainment – we’ll be keeping these aspects in the new reports (we’re going to make the grades even clearer and use them for attendance, behaviour and effort, too).

Some of the sections will be made smaller or not included. This is based on your feedback, too.

Thank you to all the parents/carers who helped us with this. Do speak with me if you’ve any questions, comments or concerns.

As we approach the time of year when many of you will be visiting school to enjoy our Christmas production, we thought it would be useful to send an extract of our Online Safety Policy (even though this new version is still in its draft format):

Staff and parents are reminded at least annually (eg during an assembly or performance) about the importance of not sharing digital images and video without permission, due to reasons of child protection, data protection, religious or cultural reasons, or simply for reasons of personal privacy.

We appreciate that families will treasure photographic/video memories, and the general rule is that parents and carers may take photos and videos of the children in their care, for personal use only. There may be rare exceptions to this, and parents / carers will be made aware in advance of particular events where no filming etc is possible.

When parents capture footage or still images of their children, there is a strong possibility that other children will also be visible or audible. For this reason, no such content should be shared publicly.

Live streaming, whether public or private, cannot be permitted on streaming platforms or ‘live’ features (e.g. Facebook Live) to stream events/circumstances as they occur. Parents / carers may be asked to leave the premises or event if this takes place.

Parents will be provided with clear direction by a senior member of staff in order to comply with this policy around public performances.

You can read more about this in an article written by a barrister specialising in education law.

We recommend two videos which talk about the issue of consent.

We do suggest you watch them first. You might not feel they’re appropriate to show your child, but they should help you to feel better prepared to talk to your child about the notion of consent, and they might also be useful for an older child.

Tea and consent comes from Thames Valley Police – it likens sexual consent to agreeing to a cup of tea, or not agreeing, or changing your mind.

Consent for kids is an American clip – it gets across the message in a very matter-of-fact way (as long as you can cope with the very American accent of the narrator!).