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Our Lady Queen of Peace is committed to fostering a positive relationship with parents /carers. Crucial to this is building and maintaining effective ongoing communication between the school and parents/carers about the student’s academic performance and personal wellbeing.
Nurturing a positive communicative relationship with parents/carers can help to establish a relationship of trust and confidence for both the school and the parents. It can also help a student’s attendance, attainment, and wellbeing, and better understand the individual needs, abilities, and interests of the students.
The school phone number is: 01695 725635
The school email is: mail@olqp.lancs.sch.uk
When parents/carers wish to contact school
hen parents / carers wish to contact school
- Consider which communication method is best for the situation – some conversations are best face to face, whilst others, given their nature, may be quickly resolved over the phone or via the ‘Contact Us’ form on our website or via email.
- If the concern is urgent or is related to safeguarding, personal safety or bullying, please ensure that this is made clear in the communication so that it can be dealt with as a priority.
- Our office hours are 08.00-16.30 - staff are not expected to be available in the evenings or at weekends.
- We will respond within 2 working days - we want our communication to be timely as this is in the best interest of our students and we will endeavour to respond to all appropriate communications. The greatest challenge we face is the high volume of communications. We will prioritise communications based on need but must stress that if a member of staff is teaching all day, a response may not be possible until the following day. Teachers’ responsibilities extend beyond the classroom and they may be in meetings or leading extra-curricular activities after school. There may be times that we are able to respond sooner than this; however, there may also be times when school is exceptionally busy, when this timescale is not achievable.
- Appointments with staff must be booked in advance - this is to avoid disappointment. Many of our staff will be teaching or in meetings during the course of a school day. Anyone arriving to reception unannounced will be advised to book an appointment, unless the matter is deemed an emergency.
- All communication should be respectful Who to contact:
Who to contact:
Pastoral concerns
- Contact your child’s form tutor
- An internal referral may be made by the form tutor to the learning manager or Deputy Headteacher i/c Pastoral
Academic concerns
- Contact your child’s subject teacher
- An internal referral may be made by the subject teacher to the subject leader or Deputy Headteacher i/c Curriculum
The Deputy Safeguarding Leads are:
- Mr Diamond (Key Stage 4)
- Mrs Downing ( Key Stage 3)
SEND concerns
Mr Diamond (SENDCo) gdiamond@olqp.lancs.sch.uk
Methods of Contact
Emails can be a useful way of communicating quickly between parents and school. However, as well as having many advantages, this ease of access has also increased the demands made of staff.
As a school, our first priority is to deliver high quality teaching and learning. Staff cannot and are not expected to monitor and manage their inbox during lessons or at other times in the day, when they should be planning and preparing for lessons, assessing student work or carrying out school duties.
To help manage the expectations of all, the following points are provided as guidance:
- We aim to respond to you as soon as possible and within 48 hours.
- Part-time staff may take longer to reply.
Telephone
Please use the main reception number to leave a message for a teacher to contact you.
Reception staff will relay messages to teachers as soon as possible. Lessons can never be interrupted for teachers to take calls.
School will aim to respond to you within 48 hours.
If a call is urgent, please inform the receptionist who will contact your child’s
Learning Manager or a senior member of staff to speak to you as soon as possible. Meetings
These should always be pre-arranged with members of staff.
If you urgently need to see someone, for instance if there is a serious family emergency or a child protection issue, please phone ahead and the reception staff will do their best to find a senior member of staff to see you.
For non-urgent meetings, we will aim to meet with you within five working days.
The school will determine the level of urgency at its discretion, to enable it to manage multiple demands.
Anyone arriving to reception unannounced will be advised to book an appointment, unless the matter is deemed an emergency.
Parental Communication with the school
As natural role models for their children, parents / carers will be required to model good behaviour when communicating and interacting with the school.
The school takes any aggressive behaviour or threatening language towards any member of our staff seriously, whether this is during a telephone conversation, email or during a visit to the school. If a caller or visitor’s behaviour is deemed discriminatory, rude, abusive or aggressive, they will be advised to stop their behaviour. If the behaviour persists, we will terminate the call or ask the visitor to leave the premises. Parents / Carers must refrain from contacting the school if they intend on displaying inappropriate behaviour towards the school.
Use of Social Media
We respectfully ask that social media, whether public or private, is not used to:
Fuel campaigns
Voice complaints about the school
Voice complaints about staff, parents or pupils
- Identify or post images (including video) of staff or
- pupils Insult staff or parents
Attempt to discredit
- Post defamatory or libellous comments Bring the school into disrepute
- If a parent / carer has a concern or a complaint, please contact the school direct so it can be dealt with and resolved in the right way.
Inappropriate use of social media may result in a report being filed with the appropriate authorities.