Parental Communications

There is a LOT going on at Pennthorpe, and it can be difficult for parents to get a handle on what they need to know, and when they need to know it! Each week, on a Friday, the school sends parents headline information via email, to help them navigate to the important elements that they should be aware of.

This is where parents will find:

Important messages from the school, such as your child’s Class Teacher/Form Tutor
Reminders for the week ahead, such as changes to pick up/drop off times, reminders about dress up days, details about events taking place etc.
Information about up-coming events and trips, including consent forms which parents need to complete
Highlights of the week at school – to help give you a little insight into the life of that child who reports they’ve done ‘nothing’ every day!

Letters and documents referred to within these weekly headlines will be linked to directly, giving parents the information at their fingertips from their mobile. Additionally, all documents and emails are stored in the Parent Portal, which acts like a ‘library’ of communications and can be accessed by parents on any day and at any time. Hint: refer to the Portal User Guide for a quick tour of the most valuable functionality in the Portal.

Other Places to go for Information

Parent Portal – Pennthorpe’s Engage Parent Portal is used for sharing pupil progress reports, timetables, medical incidents, emergency contact information, day-to-day email messaging, booking before and after school activities (including wraparound care), fee delivery and more. It is in effect a ‘library’ of all important communications and can be accessed by parents on any day and at any time. Hint: refer to the Portal User Guide for a quick tour of the most valuable functionality in the Portal.
Social Media – our official Facebook page (@PennthorpeSchool) gives updates of upcoming events and provides the headlines of what we have going on in school. We’re also on Instagram (@PennthorpeSchool), which captures images of daily life at Pennthorpe. Our ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) feed (@PennthorpeSch) keeps people up-to-date with the milestone highlights of what’s going on. We’re on YouTube (@PennthorpeSch), where we store videos of daily life at school, and the Pennthorpe profile on LinkedIn is where we share updates, job opportunities and thought pieces.
Individual Emails and Phone Calls – Of course, there will always be a need to contact individual parents, or small groups, in which case we will use email or give parents a phone call, in the first instance. Please make sure to whitelist noreply@pennthorpe.com, so that school email will not end up in your spam folder!
Face to Face – There is no substitute for meeting face to face, and so this is something we encourage whenever possible. You can usually catch your child’s Form Tutor/Class Teacher at the end of the school day, but if you would like to arrange a specific meeting we will try our best to accommodate it. Feel free to contact the person you wish to meet directly, or come through the Front Office Team, who will do their best to help. If you’re unsure of who to speak with, our infographic flow may help.
Website – The school website has a handy Parents’ Area, which includes a Popular Parent Requests page to help direct parents to answers to the common questions.
WhatsApp – Whilst children are on trips and residentials we keep in touch with parents via WhatsApp broadcasts, which are one way communications that ensure each participant’s privacy is maintained. To receive these broadcasts parents must have the relevant Pennthorpe Trip mobile numbers stored in their contacts, so please do talk to the Front Office if you are unsure of the correct numbers. Additionally, our Friends of Pennthorpe have handy WhatsApp groups to keep parents in each year group in touch with one another.
Black Boards and Notice Boards – You will find boards around the Pennthorpe site, to try to give parents sight of important pieces of information. The blackboard on the school gates at the front of school gives a heads up on things for that day (or the following day in the evening). There is a noticeboard at the front of the main school building, which is kept up-to-date with items such as school menus etc. Teams sheets are displayed on the notice board by the Sports Hall, and many of our Pre-Prep classes have a notice board that they put out at the end of the day, for parents to see when they collect their child.
Blog – our blog is updated with news stories as and when they come in. The stories tend to be short and snappy, and filled with photographs for parents to enjoy. There are handy filters to enable you to refine the stories that are displayed, either by year group or type of story.
Calendar – Our busy calendar is available on the web here and in the Parent Portal, and all parents are also given a pocket sized booklet at the start of each term. Events can be downloaded into your personal electronic calendar either on bulk or item by item. Hint: If you access the calendar via the Parent Portal you can filter it to just include events that are relevant for your year groups of interest.
Paper Letters – we rarely use paper any more to communicate with our parents. When it comes to conveying messages, young children can be unreliable, so we don’t want to put them in charge of delivering important information to parents. We can’t be certain that pieces of paper given to the children will actually make it home, so our preference is to send everything directly to parents electronically. There are certain situations, however, when signatures on pieces of paper are a legal requirement, and so if we need to get your autograph, for example, to consent to your child going away from home on a residential, then we will revert to paper in addition to electronic versions. Copies of these paper versions will always be available from the Front Office, so if your copy doesn’t make it home, please pop in to ask for another.