Welcome to New Parents at Leventhorpe
Welcome to All of our New Parents
Hopefully, you and your children are approaching September with a sense of anticipation and excitement. They (or even you!) might even be feeling a little bit nervous and that is understandable too. Don’t worry - here at Leventhorpe, we are certain that your child will find our school an inspiring place in which to learn and a caring and friendly environment in which every student is both academically challenged and carefully supported.
When your child joins us in September they will be placed in a form group within one of our eight houses. They will meet their tutor twice each day and a large part of the Form Tutor's role is to oversee their tutees’ individual pastoral needs throughout their time at school. We believe strongly that excellent communication is the key to developing good relationships between staff, parents and students. So, if you have any concerns please feel free to contact your child’s tutor in the first instance.
In addition to the Form Tutor, there is the important role of Head of Year. The Head of Year will be the main point of contact, after the Form Tutor, for pastoral matters. Your child's Head of Year will move up through the school with them to ensure that the principle of having one point of contact is maintained.
As a school, we are constantly seeking to improve. One of the ways we make sure that we keep on improving is to ask students and parents what they think of all aspects of the school so that we know what areas we need to concentrate our efforts on. Every two years we ask parents and students to complete a comprehensive survey on all aspects of the school. We would ask that you help us by completing this survey when the time comes. In the meantime, for those parents who may be a little anxious about their children starting secondary school, the comments made by parents in the last survey may set your minds at rest.
Here at Leventhorpe, we believe strongly that excellent communication is the key to developing good relationships between staff, parents and students. We, therefore, encourage all parents to become actively involved in their child’s education and development and to contact us if any issues arise.
We are really looking forward to meeting you in September. For your children there will be many new and exciting things to see and do, new friends to make, much, much more to learn and they will all settle in very quickly!
How New Parents Can Support Their Child’s Learning
No one cares more about the learning of a child than his or her parent or carer, but as a school, we know it can be hard to know how to help your child get the best from their educational opportunities. Below we have tried to give you a few ideas about what you might do and say to support your child as they learn with us at Leventhorpe.
The first thing to note is that we are trying to develop youngsters who are self-reliant and so parents can best help their child by encouraging self-reliance. Here are a few ideas that you might be able to use:
- Always express the view that it is how hard your child works that really matters. Any child will become complacent if you tell them they are clever without having to work hard at it. Learning is like exercise, it has to be a bit strenuous if it is going to be effective.
- Remind your child that going to an outstanding school creates a good environment for learning but that he or she is the person who actually does the learning. They will not progress as fast as they could if they are not working hard.
- Always express the view that your child is responsible for their learning and in control of it. Ofsted has told us that Leventhorpe is “outstanding” but that does not mean everything is perfect. If your child blames others or circumstances if things do not go so well, then they will drift into habits of not taking responsibility.
- Be conscious that the transition to secondary school is quite complicated. Your child will need some help at first with bringing the right equipment and being organised. In the first few weeks, this could include asking your child to show you what they have packed in their school bag for the next day at school.
- Ask and remind your child to get things ready, but do not do it for them. If you think they will find it hard, support them by seeing how they have managed when they have tried.
- Be aware that, compared to primary school, your child will meet many more adults during the week and that these adults will not always have a regular exchange of information. This means that telling one member of staff something will not mean that all staff hear it. If you feel you have an important message about your child that all staff need to be aware of, then please let your child’s Tutor know via email. Form Tutor email addresses can all be found on the website:
Staff Contact List - Support your child’s home study by providing the resources, such as books and equipment, and a quiet place to work. Do not help your child too much though. A rule of thumb might be to discuss and suggest, rather than telling or doing.
- Encourage your child to catch up on work missed if they have been away. Because teachers are teaching and preparing lessons for classes, they do not always have time to send work home to an individual child if they are away (the exception would be a serious illness or hospitalisation). For this reason please encourage your child to try to catch up by asking what they have missed.
- There is a clear statistical connection between good attendance at school and academic and career success. For this reason, do not take your child out of school unless it is unavoidable. Also, be confident and send your child to school if they just seem to be “off colour”. We have trained staff who can manage sickness and let you know later in the day if things get worse, so, if in doubt, please do send your child to school.
- Finally, do not put pressure on your child to attain high levels too early. Children achieve much better if they know they have the freedom to try and get things wrong at first. Be patient and let your child show us what he or she can really do in their GCSEs and A-Levels.
