Parent Questionnaires

Our school staff and governing body are continually looking for ways to improve and make the educational experience for your child/children the very best it can be; therefore we sent out a questionnaire in February this year based around the Ofsted Parent View questions with a few of our own added.

The questionnaire was anonymous however we offered parents the option of adding their details if they wished for a direct response. Thank you so much to the 66 parents who completed the online form.

Please see the results of the questionnaire below along with the responses from the school and governors.

Sports Facilities

We are continually striving to improve our sports facilities and do have a wide range of equipment. The children have been incredibly patient during the building work which has limited our outside space. We are members of the North Norfolk Sports Partnership programme which has enabled us to take the children to tournaments across North Norfolk. We will continue to work with other schools and community groups to build on the sports opportunities open to our children.

More science, ICT and STEM opportunities.

Science and ICT are regular parts of the curriculum for all year groups. We hope to be able to add more STEM opportunities to our curriculum offer. For more information please look at the topic webs on your child’s class page and please do speak to your child’s class teacher before or after the school day.

It would be good to have more information about topics being studied but without this becoming a burden on staff time.

We will ensure parents are made more aware of the half termly topic webs on the school website.

More school trips

We would love to do this! And hopefully we can now organise more that Covid regulations have lifted. We did have a year 5 and 6 residential trip in the autumn term as well as the sports trips and new trips are being booked up for the summer term.

More playground back for the children.

Not much longer now, thank you so much for your patience and accommodation. There will soon be more space for all children both inside and outside the school.

Communicate with parents more when possible more gardening and baking.

We hope to communicate as effectively as time will allow, but are continually looking for ways to improve this.

Cooking is built into the curriculum as often as we can and we hope to have a gardening club starting up soon.

Nothing. Nursery is fantastic.

Thank you!

More equipment for them to play with at lunchtime.

We are consulting with the children as to what new equipment they would like for lunchtimes. Once the new early years area is complete the current reception playground will be a chill out area for lunchtimes with outside tables, this will allow the playground to be a clearer space for sporty games.

We receive regular feedback and there is visible progress in literacy however we feel that communication over mathematics and other areas is poor. We have little understanding of progress being made in mathematics in particular. We regularly hear about when Numberblocks has been on the tv so it’s hard to gauge progress and content being covered based on this. We understand depth in numbers is important at this age, but we also understand that it is also valuable to allow children to also develop a wider range of numeracy and we are interested to understand how this is dealt with relative to the children’s development level within classroom activities.

Thank you for this feedback, we hope the recent maths in early years meetings we arranged following this comment were useful.

Access to learning an instrument and swimming

The children start with learning percussion instruments in school and move on to recorders and we hope to have regular ukulele lessons again.

We are currently in communication with the High School about using their swimming facilities, we see this as an essential part of their educational journey.

I’d like to see more stability with teaching staff

We do appreciate there has been greater staff turnover than normal recently. Unfortunately due to changes in family circumstances and the impact of covid, this has been unavoidable. We endeavour to look after our staff well-being so they feel supported in our school. At the start of the summer term we had a special Retreat Well-Being Day organised by Aylsham Parish Church, we was a tremendous boost to moral.

We do believe we have a strong staff team and St Michael’s now and have appointed a fabulous new teacher to increase our school family for September.

Parking

This is unfortunately an ongoing concern and we appreciate the difficulties of finding a space and the problems caused by dangerous parking. We are constantly working to find a positive solution to this and appreciate parents help with this.

Speaking to parents if their child is being unkind to another

We have a very clear behaviour policy which all staff in the school follow. If you feel a situation isn’t being addressed please do come and speak to us so we can help.

Just think the staff are very professional and it’s supportive of all the children

Excellent staff

Their nurturing way of the school and its staff, the children’s happiness comes first

The caring nature of the staff, the children’s happiness comes first

Family attitude and atmosphere. Genuine interest in and care for the whole child

Mr Neenan

It’s proactive, supportive and inclusive approach to SEND and neurodiversity

That my child feels valued

Great staff. Always open and communicate well. Mr Neenan is really approachable and sort problems quickly.

Emily and June, they are fab

Mr Neenan is available to talk whenever we have needed him. Fiona is also kind and helpful. Great school.

I would like to thank Mr Neenan for the support he has shown to my son with regards to his dyslexia and the extra work the school has put into him through extra work/specialist reading books, which has enabled him to regain his confidence and he is really starting to flourish! Thank you

Visibility of staff, ability to email staff and their willingness to reply. Thank you for all your hard work.

Close links with church and seemingly nice cohort of pupils

Their all inclusive and very nurturing approach to education. The staff cannot do enough to encourage the children in terms of supporting both their education and their personal development. I love that the school celebrate the differences in people and encourage the children to do the same . This approach has been led by Mr Neenan, who is visible to both parents and children and clearly knows them well. I cannot fault him or his staff.

I think my children get a great quality education in a happy, friendly and supportive environment.