Parent Council

Birchwood's Parent Council is made up of 1 parent volunteer for each year group. Once every half-term a meeting is scheduled, which is attended by Mrs Davies, Mr Hosking and each year group rep.

The role of Parent Councillor is to:

Work in partnership with the school to decide on the key priorities to take forward;
Provide a voice for parents in their class on issues that are important to them;
Improve the school’s understanding of how to engage parents in their children’s learning and in the life of the school;
Support the school to continue to develop strong home/school partnerships;
Communicate regularly with the cohort parents to both hear their views and keep them informed;
Support improvement by discussing the school’s strengths and areas for development from a parental perspective;
Help make links with the wider community;
Capture the unique and varied skills, interests, knowledge and experience that parents can offer.

The Parent Council 2022/23 feel their work and feedback has been instrumental in:

Advance notice of the next term’s extra-curricular clubs to allow parents to plan / budget for these activities;
List of key dates shared with more notice;
Text / short email reminders for school events;
Clarity on first week of term uniform / club / masterclass expectations;
Informative letter from each year group at the start of term featuring a chart of need-to-know info (e.g. forest school & PE days, library days, clarinet lessons);
Signposting parents to different areas of the school website in the newsletter’s ‘tab of the month’ section;
Reintroduction of lunchtime playground music;
Wider range of extra-curricular clubs;
Replacement of individual year group WOW homework launch sessions with whole school learning together afternoons;
Mrs Davies and Mrs Phelan (or other staff members) on gate to welcome children and parents every morning;
Conversations opened up around uniform.

If you would like further information about the role, please speak to us.

It is of extreme importance to us to gain parents' perspectives and work together to ensure that Birchwood is the best it can be for, most importantly, the children in our care and also all of our stakeholders. We are deeply indebted to our dynamic Parent Council for their tireless commitment and dedication to enhancing learning for all our pupils.