Not surprisingly, almost all questions, with the exception of drama (2.82) and music (2.87) received an Importance Score ranging between 3.00 and 4.94. This clearly demonstrates that parents regard almost every aspect as important, at least. The satisfaction scores ranged between 3.02 and 4.00, indicating satisfied to very satisfied, with the exception of catering (2.18) and music (2.94).
The aspects of school life judged to be most important were:
|
Batley Grammar School |
|
Priestley House |
|
|
Quality of teaching |
4.94 |
Quality of teaching |
4.84 |
|
Discipline in school |
4.78 |
Behaviour of pupils |
4.74 |
|
Behaviour of pupils |
4.72 |
Pupil/teacher relationships |
4.60 |
|
Pupil/teacher relationships |
4.16 |
Sizeof classes |
4.52 |
The highest scores for satisfaction were:
|
Batley Grammar School |
|
Priestley House |
|
|
Pupil/teacher relationships |
4.00 |
Quality of teaching |
3.95 |
|
Opportunity for extra curricular |
4.78 |
After school care |
3.92 |
|
School uniform |
3.81 |
Before school care |
3.91 |
|
Communication to school |
3.74 |
Pupil/teacher relationships |
3.79 |
For each section of the school “quality of teaching”, “pupil/teacher relationships” and “behaviour of pupils” appears in the list of the four most important aspect of the school experience. “Pupil/teacher relationships” appears, for both schools, as one of the highest satisfaction scores, as does “quality of teaching provided” in Priestley House. “Quality of teaching” scores 3.64 for Satisfaction in Batley Grammar School and “behaviour of pupils” scores 3.60 in Batley Grammar School and 3.59 in Priestley House. All scores, for aspects of school life seen by parents as “most important”, score closer to “very satisfied” than “satisfied”.
These scores are particularly pleasing as the personal and social, as well as the academic, development of our pupils are central to the philosophy and aims of the school.
The following aspects were amongst the lowest satisfaction scores in relation to importance of provision:
Catering (Satisfaction Score 2.14 in Batley Grammar School and 2.43 in Priestley House)
We do recognise that the quality of school lunches is an important issue for both parents and pupils. We have been working closely with the Catering Team in school to look to improve the variety, quality and portion sizes for lunches. School lunches have to meet the Government nutritional guidelines and we continue to offer a range of options including hot main courses with Halal options, a salad bar, hot or cold sandwiches made to order and a variety of hot and cold deserts daily, including fruit. The recent introduction of the daily “specials” board has been a popular move in senior school. In addition we are reviewing our catering equipment/resources in the serving area. We are keen to constantly strive to provide good value school lunches so would welcome your continued feedback in this area.
Careers Guidance (3.02 in Batley Grammar School)
As holders of the Kirklees Quality Standards Award for Careers Guidance and Education we have always prided ourselves upon the quality of our careers guidance. We do recognise that the majority of opportunities for careers guidance is in Years 11, 12 and 13 (which were amongst the lowest numbers responding to our survey) so we intend to extend our provision and also increase parental awareness of the important work done in this area. We are looking to develop a careers section of our website to inform not only the pupils, but to keep parents up do date with developments. We are including a careers awareness and guidance section, in the Key Stage 3 PSE scheme of work, to involve pupils from a younger age; currently we have only covered this in KS4 PSE. Last year we started teaching the LMU Careers Progression Module which proved very beneficial for our Lower Sixth students; an added advantage of this was the pupils, who had completed the module and its associated assignments, each received 30 UCAS points. We shall monitor our improvements in this area and indeed our three yearly Quality Standards Award inspection will be due towards the end of this term.
Satisfaction with some other aspects of school life can be seen from the table below which suggests that in these areas the school is performing very well.
|
|
Batley Grammar School |
Priestley House |
|
Happiness at school |
4.28 |
4.14 |
|
Relationships with his/her teachers |
4.05 |
4.02 |
|
Academic progress |
3.91 |
3.88 |
|
Friendships at school |
3.74 |
3.72 |
The vast majority of parents think that the homework set is “about right” and in the senior school when asked about the length of the school day, 90% of parents thought that it was “about right”.
87% of parents in senior school and 89% of parents in Priestley House considered that the school provided good value for money. School fees are always a sensitive issue and, as we have mentioned in school communications in the past, we strive to ensure that our tuition fees remain very competitive in the Yorkshire area.
Overall satisfaction for both sections of the school is at a high level with the score for Batley Grammar School being 3.84 and for Priestley House being 3.72.
Parents at Batley Grammar School are generally happy with the amount of information they receive from school about their children’s progress, but some would like to receive more information.
In response to this we have reviewed our communications and reporting procedures to report to parents at an optimum time in the academic year for their son’s or daughter’s particular year group. We have also included more information in both our short reports , which have replaced the monitoring, and our full reports, which now are presented more succinctly. In addition we have extended the target grades to all pupils in Years 10-13 and it is our intention to extend this to include Key Stage 3 during the next academic year.
We are hoping to improve general communications to parents by making greater use of electronic communications facilities via text messaging or e-mail and are investigating a system for facilitating this. Such a development will make communicating with parents, particularly at short notice, for example in the event of school closure or last minute change to arrangements, much more efficient.
Where parents had had a concern about their child’s education, which they had taken up with the school (38%), their concerns had been dealt with sensitively (score 3.93), quickly (score 3.40) and effectively (score 3.60).
When asked if they, as parents, had sufficient opportunity to be involved in the life of the school, 91% replied affirmatively.
The most frequently occurring one word/phrase answers being used to describe the school were: excellent, friendly, caring, small classes, family, warm and welcoming.
There were a variety of different suggestions, from individuals, for improvements which we will take on board and look at in our development planning. Two recurring themes were catering and communications, as mentioned above. These and other opportunities for improvement we aim to address in the short to medium term whilst others are longer term initiatives which will require a more strategic solution and potential investment.
We have an Open Door policy in both sections of the school and welcome your comments on any aspect of school life. Given the positive response to this first Parental Survey, we will be looking to repeat the initiative in the Medium Term, to gauge how well we have addressed issues raised in this survey.
September 2009
