Parental Contact
We have a comprehensive academic support system involving parent teacher consultation evenings, pastoral review days, an integrated reporting cycle and many other information evenings concerning support for examinations and how to learn most effectively.
Progress Reports
At Sandringham we report three times a year to parents, providing information on how students are progressing. More importantly, in line with our Assessment policy, the reports will offer specific advice on how students can improve.
Each progress report contains the following information:
- Target Grades;
- Current Attainment;
- Predicted Grade (KS4 / KS5)
- Rewards and Consequences received;
- and Attendance.
Each report will also provide an assessment of a student’s performance against three Core Competencies. An explanation of each is given below.
- Attitude to Learning (AtL) – An assessment of this student’s attitude towards – and engagement with – the subject. AtL grades will reflect a number of indicators including effort and application in lessons, verbal contributions, quality of written work, and focus and engagement.
- Home Learning (HL) – An assessment of the quality and consistency of this student’s Home Learning, as well as the effort the student is exerting.
- Organisation and Deadlines (Org) – An assessment of this student’s organisation (including equipment) and their consistency in meeting Home Learning deadlines. In the summer term report, each individual subject teacher, the student’s Form Tutor and the year group‘s Director of Learning provide comments and advice to help guide each student‘s progress.
More guidance can be found in the ‘Report Guidance’ document below.
Reporting Dates
Progress report 1: After Autumn half term, ready for Pastoral Review Day
Progress report 2: According to year group, one week before the Parent Teacher Consultation
Progress report 3: End of Summer term
The cycles differ slightly for year 11 (where the final report is in the spring term with an additional report containing trial exams results in January.) Whilst the process for reporting is similar in the sixth form, dates and report content are coordinated across the BeauSandVer Trust and so may differ slightly.
We have moved to a paperless system for reports delivery via the My Child At School system.
Pastoral Review Day
Pastoral Review Day provides an opportunity for students to discuss their wellbeing and broader personal development with their tutor or a member of the Pastoral team linked to their Year group. Students complete a questionnaire in confidence ahead of the meeting which then forms the basis of the discussion. Parents attend these meetings with their child and also have the opportunity to raise any relevant concerns.
Parent Teacher Consultations
Parent teacher consultation evenings are held once a year for each year group and provide an opportunity for parents and students to meet with their class teachers to discuss progress in individual subjects.
Curriculum Evenings
In addition parents are invited to special Curriculum Evenings: Year 8 into 9, Year 9 into 10 and Year 11 into 12. There are also Information Evenings for Year 12 parents to introduce them to their child‘s curriculum. There are GCSE information evenings during year 10 and 11 to support parents in preparing their children for their GCSE exams. Parents are welcome to contact the school at any time to discuss their child‘s welfare and progress.
Ad hoc Consultation
Parents are welcome to contact the school to discuss their child’s welfare and progress. In general, the first point of contact should be your child’s form tutor. For subject specific queries, the Director of Learning for the subject is the contact point and wider pastoral or welfare concerns should be addressed to the Performance Director (Head of Year.)
Please be mindful that most teachers are unable to access email during the day due to teaching and extra-curricular commitments. For this reason, we operate a 3 working days turnaround to email enquiries that can be sent to admin@sandringham.herts.
My Child At School
We encourage parents to make use of our My Child At School online system where parents can review key data about their child’s education at any time of the year. This will contain the most recent data on attendance and rewards/consequences as well as a copy of all reports that we have produced on your child. For students in Key Stage 4 and 5, exam timetables for trial and public exams are available well in advance of the exam seasons. We are working with the systems vendor to increase the amount of data available via the system in future and it is a key part of our communication with parents.
