Parents' Documentation

►IMPORTANT! Road and Bus Safety Information.

►Admissions

►Induction of new pupils

►Personnel and their induction responsibilities

►Heads of Department

►Head of Special Needs

►Community Liaison Officer

►Personnel and their induction responsibilities

►Form Tutors

►Induction procedures and parents

►Admissions Limit

►IMPORTANT! Road and Bus Safety Information.

Pupil arrival time in the mornings is very busy and potentially hazardous. Parents are asked to remind their children of the basic rules of road safety. In particular, pupils should be reminded that WHEN DISEMBARKING FROM BUSES, GET WELL CLEAR AND ALLOW THE BUS TO LEAVE BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO CROSS THE MAIN SCHOOL DRIVE. WHEN CROSSING, TAKE CARE AND LOOK OUT FOR OTHER VEHICLES, WHICH MAY BE USING THE DRIVE.

Parents who bring their children to school by car are respectfully asked not to drive on to the school site between 8.00 and 8.30 am (or between 2.45 and 3.15 pm) in order to minimise the risk of accident. Please drop off your children outside the school gates. If you have occasion to drive on to the school site at other times (for example, when visiting staff) please DRIVE DEAD SLOWLY.

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►Admissions

FOR ADMISSION TO THE SCHOOL PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU MUST:

Fill in the Application Form 1S, which is inside the Admission to School Advice For Parents booklet which has been given to you, and return it to your child's current primary school. Back to top

►Induction of new pupils

THE WILLOWGARTH PYRAMID LIAISON PROGRAMME
The heads (or their representatives) of all the schools in the Willowgarth pyramid meet at least once every half-term to discuss those policies in which it is desirable to achieve consensus in the interest of all their pupils. Establishing, maintaining, developing and improving the procedures which secure the smooth transfer of pupils from the primary schools to Willowgarth is of paramount importance in these meetings.
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►Personnel and their induction responsibilities

(before admission)

Mr. Reed meets pyramid staff and year 5 and 6 pupils - sometimes in large groups, sometimes in small groups and sometimes individually - throughout the school year, paying particular attention to the anxieties that usually accompany transfer - how will I find my way around? Will I get bullied? What if I miss the bus? etc. They devote as much non-teaching time as possible to year 6 pupils during their final half-term in their primary schools, paying particular attention to the transfer of academic records and to the assimilation of personal/social information - eg pupils who do not work well together, pupils who are a little timid - which helps determine our pupil grouping arrangements and how we accommodate the requirements of some individual pupils.
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►Heads of Department

Heads of Department liaise with their counterparts in the feeder schools on curriculum continuity and, with their departmental colleagues, plan and deliver 'taster' programmes of lessons which incoming pupils (and their parents, if they wish) are invited to sample during year 5 and 6 visits to Willowgarth. Back to top

►Head of Special Needs

The Head of Special Needs establishes early contact with both pupils and parents of pupils with special needs during year 6 and arranges any additional features of the pupil induction programme - eg individual visits to Willowgarth's Special Needs Suite, meetings with parents and other professionals involved with the child etc - which are necessary to make transfer painless to this potentially vulnerable group of pupils.
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►Community Liaison Officer

Community Liaison Officer constantly reviews our procedures with a view to improving them. This Officer communicates with parents of all children in our feeder - schools. Back to top

►Personnel and their induction responsibilities

(after admission)

Mr. Reed and Mr Rooke maintain overall responsibility for ensuring that our School arrangements are achieving the intended outcome - a happy Year 7 with pupils confident in their ability to cope with what may at first seem like very complicated organisational arrangements.
The layout of the buildings is explained patiently over and over again and Year 7 children are trained and rehearsed in all the key features of the school organisation - one way systems, what to do if they arrive at school late, dining room and school bus procedures etc. To avoid problems with the two latter, for example, Year 7 pupils are accompanied early both to dinner and to buses by a team of teachers led by Head of Lower School until we are confident that they can cope without help.
Particular attention is paid to whether or not our pupil grouping arrangements are working out well - NB. they can be altered where it is clearly in the interests of any of the pupils to do so.
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►Form Tutors

Form Tutors play the key role in assimilating information about all their pupils from all those who have contact with them and in alerting Head of Lower School/Year 7 Tutor wherever there is cause for concern.
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►Induction procedures and parents

(before and after admission)

Effective co-operation between parents and school is always vital to children's educational success but is especially important when transfer from one school to another takes place. It is for this reason that, in addition to providing parents with literature about Willowgarth through the feeder schools and inviting them to take part in the pupil visits to Willowgarth during Year 6, we also offer a personal interview with a senior member of staff prior to admission. This provides an opportunity to focus our minds exclusively on any problems of particular concern to the parent and/or child and to make doubly certain that these are not overlooked.

Similarly, about the mid-point of the first term in Year 7 we compile a simple 'settling-in' report on each child and invite parents to an evening where they have access to their child's own form tutor. Later in the year we compile a full progress report - academic and social - followed by another parents' evening.

Finally, at all stages - both before and after admission - we welcome contact from parents, asking only that, if a meeting rather than a telephone call is preferred, we be given a little notice.
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►Admissions Limit

The school's annual admissions limit is set at 183 pupils.


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