Portfields Together

Dear Fellow Parents,

On Thursday evening, I attended the Portfields Together evening. This is the second one I have attended and I find them really useful. I am a year 3 parent and the pandemic made me feel quite disjointed from the school and not part of the Portfields family. These meetings are beginning to make me feel more included in the decisions the school is making and that my voice is heard.
So, what did we do during the meeting? 

Firstly, we met the new senior management team we put names to faces and got to speak with those running the school. The hour was split into two with us spending half the time on discussing behavior and the other half on homework.

Behavior - We were reminded of the schools behavior policy and the three B’s then we got stuck into discussing what works well and what could be better. We covered the Yellow and Red Card System, Portfields Stars, VIPs, Dojo’s, Mrs Folkard touched on the current thinking on reward vs sanctions and how the school wants to ensure it is following the most up to date information. Most importantly, I got to hear from other parents and their experiences of the systems Portfields has in place. As parents we put forward ideas for improvements.

Then we moved on to homework: Is homework useful? What does it teach our children? Should primary children have homework? Well, we didn’t discuss any of that but we did look at the homework our children get, we talked about the lack of consistency across the school, that the creative arts are missing from homework, that some years it is working well and in others it isn’t. That at times parents feel like they are the teachers when they should be supporting their children’s learning. The Portfields Senior Team listened and made notes, encouraged our discussions, and didn’t shy away from constructive criticism.

I am going to keep going to the Portfields Together Meetings and I hope to meet more of you there.
The next one is scheduled for the 20th April at 9-10am or 7-8pm (this new time followed feedback). The content of the next session will be Behaviour 'updates and what is new' and we will be talking about the enrichment opportunities at Portfields (trips, after school clubs visitors etc).

We would really like some representation from all year groups so that the Portfields Team can get a much better understanding of what is going on across the school. 
 

Hope to see you next time,

Emma
Yr 3 Parent