St Thomas of Aquin’s RC High School
Communication protocol
St Thomas’ shares information with pupils and parents in a variety of mediums. The school updates its website regularly for parents and pupils. The Acting Headteacher uses the school’s twitter account to celebrate good news on a weekly basis. The school has moved to emailing information to parents and the Acting Headteacher emails parents a weekly school update. St Thomas of Aquin’s has an open and transparent communication protocol to support pupils and parents.
Contacting the school:
Address
2-20 Chalmers Street
Edinburgh
EH3-9ES
Tel: 0131-229-8734
Email: admin@st-thomasaquins.edin.sch.uk
School Website: www.st-thomas-of-aquins.org.uk
At St Thomas’ we understand that out with the designated Parents’ Evening and Parents’ Information Evenings there may be times when you would like to speak to us about your child’s progress or wellbeing. We want to be as supportive as we possibly can and the following guidelines will assist you in your communication with the school.
You can contact us by emailing or phoning the school office. Your enquiry will be directed to your son /daughter’s Pupil Support Leader.
Integrated Support Team members contact details:
Contact Details:
Pupil Support Leader St Andrew’s House – Mrs Stark
Pupil Support Leader St Patrick’s House – Ms C Kelly
Pupil Support Leader St Margaret’s House – Ms Taylor
Support for Learning Leader Mrs C Bendall
The Pupil Support Leaders and the Support for Learning Leader have wide-ranging remits that include a significant pupil caseload, a teaching commitment of approximately 10 hours, and whole school responsibilities in the improvement agenda at St Thomas’. If the appropriate Pupil Support Leader or Support for Learning Leader is available, then they will be happy to discuss your concerns with you.
If they are not available, the office administration team will send an email to the appropriate PSL or SfLL, either outlining your enquiry, or asking them to contact you. The Pupil Support Leader or Support for Learning Leader will get in touch with you within 3 working days to discuss whatever concerns you may have.
Once a member of the Integrated Support Team is aware of your concerns, they will liaise with the most appropriate person to learn what they can about you Son/Daughter’s progress or wellbeing. Depending on whether this is a pastoral or curricular concern, the most appropriate Integrated Support Team Leader or Curricular Leader will contact parents within 5 working days with the necessary information.
If you feel that it might be necessary for you to have a meeting with a member of the Integrated Support Team and your son/daughter to put in place an appropriate strategy to support them in the light of what their teachers have said, then this can be arranged.
Depute Head Teacher Details
S1-S3: Mdme Jean-Pierre
S4-S6: Ms Mariani
St Thomas has two Depute Head Teachers and both have wide-ranging school improvement remits, line-management roles, Year Head responsibilities for 3-year groups, and approximately two hours of teaching commitments. If you wish to discuss your son’s/daughter’s progress or wellbeing with a Year Head then please email the school using the admin@st-thomasaquins.edin.sch.uk. The Depute Head Teacher you wish to liaise with will get in touch with you within 3 working days to discuss whatever concerns you may have.
St Thomas of Aquin’s RC High School 2018 text message communication
To further support school-parent communication, St Thomas will be trialling a text message procedure by Curricular Leaders. The school will introduce the text message procedure on 1st March for a temporary period up to June 1st. An evaluation of the new system will take place in June.
The text messages will support school-parent communication regarding targeted support, positive recognition of work, detention dates and times, and pupil monitoring sheets.
The texts are for parent information only and do not require parents to reply. Your child’s name will be added to the text.
If parents do wish to contact the school about the texts, then phone calls are to be directed to Curricular Leaders.
Curricular Leaders have a limited amount of management time to communicate directly with parents and a return phonecall may take up to 5 working days.
