At Woodside we are keen to work in partnership with parents in the best interests of their children right from the start and throughout their time at the school. Prior to joining Woodside we encourage parents to view the school at work and meet the principal. Once parents have been notified they have a place for their child they are invited to a special meeting prior to our induction week.
There are consultation evenings in the autumn and spring terms and a more informal "exhibition evening" in the summer term. We run a free creche for younger children during consultation evenings, concerts, class assemblies and any other events so parents can easily attend. We send parents a Curriculum Letter to explain what children will be studying at the beginning of each half term and have termly year group meetings where teachers explain the curriculum for the term, and weekly class assembly when children present their learning to parents.
There are also meetings on specific topics such as phonics, mathematics or children's online safety. Woodside staff are friendly and approachable and it is usually possibly to speak to senior staff at the beginning or end of the day without appointment and to class teachers after school.
Parents are very welcome to assist us with activities from reading to swimming and encouraged to get involved in volunteering with school trips.
Please find some links for resources for parents below. Other links can be found on the class pages.
At Speech and Language Link, they understand that supporting your child’s language learning, alongside everything else that life demands from you, can be challenging. The Parent Portal provides ideas and advice, information and activities for developing your child’s understanding, talking and listening in a way that works for all of your family.
Please visit the Parent Portal, an award-winning speech and language support website for parents, carers and families.
This series of articles aimed at parents gives advice on how you can help your child in positive ways and how to support them in their education. The articles have an emphasis on encouragement and show how learning activities can be fun.
Online Safety
Concerns
If you or your child have any concerns regarding online safety please save any evidence you may have and contact Mrs Keeley, Ms Wing or Ms Ryder.
Alternatively, please pop in to the school office and we'll arrange for you to see a member of staff that can help.
Conversation
The NSPCC website offers great advice on how to approach your child with regards to online safety.
It states that regular and open conversation is the best way to keep your child safe when online.
Talk to your child about what 'personal information' is - such as email address, full name, phone number, address and school name - and why it's important. A frightening statistic of children did not realise that informing people of their primary school classed as personal information.
Explain simple ways to protect privacy. For example, avoiding usernames like birth dates or locations that give away too much information.
Discuss images and photos, and what might be appropriate. Help your child understand how photographs can give people a sense of your personality, and that sharing the wrong kind of image can give the wrong impression.
Explain that it isn't easy to identify someone online. People aren't always who they say they are, so don't share personal information. If it's someone who genuinely knows your child, they shouldn't need to ask for personal information online.
Tell your child that if they're in any doubt they should talk to you first, or failing that, a member of staff.
Parental Controls
Parental controls can be used to block upsetting or harmful content, control in-app purchases or manage how long your child spends online.
Innocent searches sometimes reveal not so innocent results. So if you’re worried about what your child is searching for online, who they’re talking to or what they’re seeing, please visit this link to help set up parental controls on your computers/devices.
Apps and Websites
The best advice we can give to parents unsure of the apps and websites their children are using is, without a doubt, NetAware (in association with 02 and NSPCC). This website reviews all social networks, apps and games that children are using including age restrictions and also gives ratings from other parents.