Qu – 1, What are the rules governing when a child is allowed out of school on their own without handing them to a parent? What is the official school policy?

Qu 2 – Concern about child welfare in the home?

Issues raised: What should friends and neighbours do if they suspect or know of abuse? Parents asked to raise awareness of contact numbers, posters to be displayed around school and in local medical surgeries.

Qu 3 – In the light of the school’s excellent OFSTED report how can we highlight the need to read at home. What happened to our Reading Club? How can we make everyone aware that reading is important for the child’s future?

Response – The school regularly promotes the importance of reading. We have a superb library to endorse reading matters. However, we know that some children do not read as often at home as we would like. We will talk to the parent about our concern and usually we plan how we can help the family. At the moment, we have a small group of children who come for early morning reading and they are helped by some older pupils who are the school’s Learning Mentors. We also have numerous volunteers who help with individual reading through the week. We have stickers, visiting authors and run competitions to promote reading. This Thursday, for example, we are celebrating World Book Day and we are paying for an author to visit the school to talk about her books.  Our Reading Club is now called Library Club and club members meet every Wednesday. Reading is a strength of the school but I agree with the parents who raised this, we must keep promoting the importance of reading at home. Thanks.

Qu 4 – The role of the Staff Parent Association?

Response: - It is agreed that the SPA is not a legal body but an informal group of willing volunteers who give their time to meet and plan fund raising activities. The school is a member of The National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations (NCPTA) which is a national charity. The school has elected to be a member of this charity to keep up to date on news and to have chance to access grants.

Qu 5 – I have heard that arts funding in schools has been cut by the Council. Will this effect the activities our children get to do, and how?

Response:– The school promotes the Arts. We have a Gold Arts Award from the Arts Council. We were saddened to hear about the cuts, as were other schools in York, so the Headteachers voiced their concerns. In response, the Council are continuing with the scheme until the end of 2011 but the schools have to pay a fee to keep the service running. Clifton Green has agreed to do this. The Council will decide how they propose to run the service from 1 April 2011.

I received a letter about the need for all pupils being treated equally and fairly. I was disappointed to

receive this letter. The school works hard to ensure equality of opportunity for all pupils. We teach pupils about world wide diversity of society and cultures beyond their local community, and develop their understanding of their place in it. We encourage self respect, positive self-images, and attitude towards issues of gender, race, disability and disadvantage. We teach the children to recognize and avoid stereotyping. We do not run a two tier system, as the letter stated, but respond very personally to the needs of each individual child, recognising that at times some of our children need more pastoral support than others. It is a pity that the parent had to write this concern but I hope this has explained the school’s position sufficiently for the parent to feel satisfied. Please, if there remains a concern, then perhaps the parent can meet me with me to talk about it. Thank you.