HOME SCHOOL COMMUNICATIONS

At Whiteheath, we are keen for our families to talk to us if you have any concerns or if there is something you need to let us know about concerning your child.

Informing us of your child’s absence

If you need to inform us of your child’s absence/illness, please call the school office and leave an answerphone message or email welfare@whiteheath-jun.hillingdon.sch.uk

General School enquiries

If you have a general enquiry, about School Money payments, times of clubs, term dates, collection arrangements etc., please call the office or send an email to the office – office@whiteheath-jun.hillingdon.sch.uk

Communicating with the class teacher

If you would like to speak to your child’s class teacher, all teachers are available on the playground at the end of the day, or you can write a message in the home link book or you can email them on the class email addresses below:

Our protocol

The following outlines school procedure with regard to email communication between home and school. 

All communication must respect the dignity of the recipient. 

1. Within 48 hours - receipt of an email will be acknowledged (during term time but not over a weekend or school holiday or closure). 

2. Within 5 working days - provide a response to the email by telephone or in writing (including an email). This may include informing the sender that more time is required to provide a full response. If this is the case, staff will indicate a timeframe in which a response should be expected. 

3. If a member of staff is not able to deal with the email directly then they will pass it on to the most appropriate person and inform the sender that they have done so. 

4. Staff will not be expected to monitor or respond to emails out of their normal working hours (including weekends and published school holidays).  Whilst parents may compose emails at all sorts of hours to suit their own needs, we would ask that emails are not normally sent outside of a member of staff's normal working hours. Mobile phones and other electronic devices that enable staff to access their school emails when away from school can make it difficult to ‘ignore’ a message from a parent, leading to unnecessary worry and anxiety on the part of the staff. 

5. Whilst this is rare, if a member of staff receives an email which is of an aggressive tone, sets unreasonable demands or could otherwise be interpreted as harassing, they will refer this to a School Leader, who will decide if consideration needs to be given to dealing with further communication under the Complaints Procedure (Guidance on dealing with Serial, Persistent, Unreasonable and Vexatious Complainants).  

In recent years, communications between home and school have shifted quite dramatically from pen and paper to email, with email becoming the preferred and predominant mode of communication.  

Email provides us with a quick, cheap and easy means of communication. As a result, it is used for such a wide range of communications, it has also become increasingly difficult to distinguish between formal and informal communications.  The ease of communication via email has many advantages but there is an increasing expectation for almost instantaneous reply.    

As a school, our first priority is to deliver high quality teaching and learning. On any one day a teacher will have a plethora of demands on their time including up to five hours of teaching (and lunch/break duties and activities, after school practices and clubs and meetings). Teachers cannot and are not expected to monitor and manage their inbox during lessons or or carrying out school duties. 

Whilst administration staff, support staff and School Leaders may be able to access emails more routinely, their primary function is to support teachers and children. Constantly monitoring and responding to email leads to what is commonly referred to in the aviation industry as ‘task fixation’.  In aircraft terms, this leads pilots to be so fixated on the task in the flight deck that they forget to look out of the window. Whilst less dramatic, in a school it leads to staff focusing on the immediate task of responding to an email instead of concentrating on the delivering and supporting teaching and learning. 

The school works hard to provide parents with timely and informative information concerning their child’s progress throughout the year. Staff may also telephone, write or email a parent to inform them of a serious incident or serious ongoing concerns about a child’s behaviour or attitude to learning. 

Other things to consider 

When communicating with the school, please bear in mind that a great many staff are working extremely hard in trying to help our children achieve well. We would never wish to discourage parents from communicating with staff, establishing a relationship and working together. Parental communication is essential; we do not always get it right and we need your feedback to help us to continue to improve. 

Many of you will be facing the same challenges in your own workplace from an increasing expectation of anytime, anywhere communications. Some readers may be of the view that this is simply the way the world works now. However, the school has a duty of care to staff, as it does to children. This includes a responsibility to ensure that the staff workload is manageable and does not unreasonably intrude in to their private life. 

Finally 

It might be interesting to note that even Ofsted have acknowledged the increasing demands on teacher time and the impact that this is having on the profession. 

Our staff go over and above every day and we want to keep them in a profession they are fully committed to.  Unreasonable workloads are contributing to the national recruitment and retention crisis in our profession.   Thank you for your contribution in supporting a sensible approach to staff workload and staff well-being. 

E-mails (September 2024)

Class emails are available for you, however please can emails only be used for issues that you do not need a response for the same day.  Teachers will not be checking their emails during the school day, so if you need a response on the day, for example an arrangement has changed for the collection of children at the end of the day, please call the office.

Use of social media

I would like to take this opportunity to remind parents/carers about the use of social media, including WhatsApp.  Whilst WhatsApp groups are very useful for sending out reminders etc., if you have any concerns or queries they should not be shared on such platforms. 

Unfortunately, like other schools, we have seen an increasing number of inappropriate comments shared through WhatsApp being brought to our attention by our parents who are unsupportive of such comments being made.  If you have a concern about something school related, please raise your concern with the school (see steps below), rather than on a WhatsApp group.

Using WhatsApp as a way to discuss school related concerns, or worse, to discuss individual members of staff or children is not appropriate and impacts those staff/parents who are working hard to ensure that the children have the best possible outcomes and experiences.  It is not appropriate to put comments about children or staff on a WhatsApp group.  I would like to remind our parents/carers that all staff whilst working at Whiteheath should be treated politely, respectfully and with kindness.  We have a Parent and Visitor Code of Conduct, which is available in the School Policies section of the school website.

Raising concerns

If you do have any concerns, you should first raise this with your child’s class teacher.  If you feel the matter has not been resolved after a meeting with the class teacher, then you should contact your child’s Year Group Leader.  Year Leaders can be contacted via the office.  Year Group Leaders are:

Year 3 - Mrs Manfredi

Year 4 – Mrs Mendez

Year 5 – Mrs Prioli

Year 6 – Miss Lawrence

If you still feel that the matter has not been resolved after a meeting with Year Group Leader, then please email the school office and the matter will be dealt with by the appropriate senior leader.

Thank you for your ongoing support.