The development of our new Home School Agreement is going well. As part of the process we consulted with pupils, parents and staff. We had some great feedback from parents:

'I think that it clearly defines everyone's role.'

'Overall, a good set of points which sum up curriculum, pastoral and social issues.'

'As this is not legally binding, how can it be enforced?'

'I particularly like the way it includes the children's agreement as well as parents, as I personally would read this to my children and explain what is expected of them.

The pupils were positive about it and staff felt that it reflected our ethos and aims. The agreement specifically mentions the school developing personalised information about each child (a one page profile) and reviewing progress (using working and not working).

So where now? We will produce a paper A5 size 'booklet' with changes as a result of the parental comments - the main change that we have made is moving the Golden Rules to the back page in a section of their own. This will be introduced to new parents in July and again in September. We also have had poster versions of the agreements and golden rules for each classroom, the offices and corridors, and a smaller laminated copy will be given out to each pupil to be kept in book bags. Sharing the information is the first step, and building long term strategies to keep it 'live' is vital.

I produce a termly newsletter which will have a section devoted to the work on the Home School Agreement, and also the other work on Person Centred approaches within the school in the summer term edition. We will then have monthly updates, featuring one of the 'agreements', what this means in practice in the school, and giving a 'progress report' on how things are going. This will be in our regular weekly newsletter. We are building in a way to review how the Home School Agreement works in practice from the perspectives of the parents, pupils and staff each year, using the person centred thinking tool 'Working and Not working from different perspectives.'

I will keep you updated on how this goes. Please let me know if you have other ideas or experiences to share about how we can keep our Home School Agreement live.