Your questions, comments or concerns are often answered in our communications. We have different ways to communicate for different purposes…

Anything urgent (such as the cancellation of an after-school club) or a quick reminder about something (like the photographer being in school) is sent by text. If you have the School Gateway app, it might be useful to set it so you receive notifications of messages. Texts are automatically sent to your app.

Our emails are usually for a longer message about one specific thing. Please try and check your emails daily, so you don’t miss anything important.

Our Weekly Messages usually contain more general information – you’ll find them on the News page along with other, occasional messages. They might include reminders, such as for forthcoming events or policy details, but will mainly consist of other information that you might find useful. (These are published on the websites and emailed out on Fridays.)

For anything relevant to your child’s class, please check the Class News pages (we recommend doing this at least once a week).

Finally, we have Facebook. Messages on here are usually repeats of other communications, such as our Weekly Messages. Nothing urgent or particularly important will be posted only on social media because we know that not everyone accesses these things.

At Scholes (Elmet) Primary, we’re always keen to hear your views – they help us to keep getting better and better. Here are a few ways you can express your views…

After various school events across the year, such as a Watch Us While We Work open session, we like to gather your views on how the session went with a short online survey.

Towards the end of each school year, we invite you to take part in a longer survey, too. We ask your views on various things, sometimes general and sometimes specific to a particular aspect of school, and there’s typically a final question or two which are more open-ended so you can comment on anything you like. The surveys are online, but you can ask for a paper copy to complete if you prefer.

We also ask new parents of Reception children to complete a mid-year survey. This helps us to review our provision for children in their important first year with us.

Don’t wait until these surveys, though! If you’ve got some feedback for us, we’d like to hear from you. You could send us an email (scholesoffice@spherefederation.org) or simply have a chat with your child’s class teacher or one of us at the start or end of the day at the school gate.

Parent-teacher meetings are held twice a year – once in the Autumn term and another in the Spring. However, it’s natural you may need to speak with us more than this with any questions, comments or concerns. It’s nearly always possible to speak with the class teacher for a moment or two before or after school, and a longer discussion can be agreed within a day or two. These meetings can be arranged if you have specific concerns or would like to know more about how to support your child. For example, following your child’s Annual Report, which is sent home a few weeks before the summer holiday, you might like to arrange a meeting with your child’s class teacher to discuss some of the content of the report and how you can help your child over the long summer break.

In the first instance, it’s usually better to speak with your child’s class teacher. However, from time to time, you might have a question, comment or concern that you feel is better responded to by our Head of School, Miss Hague, or our Deputy Head of School, Mr Catherall. We’ll treat all conversations sensitively and appropriately, and we’ll always try hard to resolve any problem that might come up.

Parent View gives you the chance to tell Ofsted what you think about Scholes (Elmet) Primary School. It asks for your opinion on 14 aspects of school, from the quality of teaching and personal development to how well we respond to concerns or communicate about the curriculum. Ofsted uses the information you provide when making decisions about which schools to inspect, and when. By sharing your views, you’ll be helping us to improve – we’ll aim to keep doing the things you praise and sort out the issues you raise. However, please remember that if your feedback is specific to your own child, it might be better to contact someone at school so we can respond quickly and specifically to help your child.

At the Parent View website, you’ll also be able to see what other parents have said about Scholes (Elmet) Primary School (and, if you want to, view the results for any school in England).

At Scholes (Elmet) Primary, we’re always happy to hear your questions, comments and concerns. That way, we can avoid problems escalating into something more serious. Because of this, complaints are rare at Scholes (Elmet) Primary. However, all schools are required to have a complaints procedure in place. Check out the Policies and Other Points page to read more about our complaints procedure (look for the Complaints section). The policy also contains a form which you may find helpful to use to submit your complaint.