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Supporting Your Child
Ways in which you can support your child at secondary school:
Work in partnership with us
Support your child’s physical and mental health and wellbeing
Show your child you value education and their achievements at College
How do I know what my child is learning about in school?
- We have annual face to face meetings with parents/carers where we explain the curriculum, how it is taught and assessed, how students can get unstuck when they are unsure and how and what to revise. Click on the link below if you would like the presentations from your child’s most recent Together To Achieve Evening:
Together To Achieve Parents’ Evenings
- We have full details of what is taught and when on our Curriculum pages. You can view them by year or by subject:
Curriculum information for each year group
How do I know what their strengths and areas for development are and what are the next steps they should be taking in their learning journey?
Every student in Year 7-11 has a Digital Learning Organiser. Every student must share this with their parents/carers. It is vital that each parent sets aside 10-15 minutes each week to review the Learning Organiser with each student; it is full of very useful information.
My Ace Learning Organiser Contents:
- ME: A self reflection about personal learning habits, effective strategies to support students’ regulation, and links to emotional and wellbeing support.
- MyACE: Materials and activities which develop students’ character (integrity, curiosity, resilience, kindness, aspiration and self-regulation), and a log for students to track their progress towards the Resilience Award (Years 7 and 8). Each term, students collate their ‘Most Memorable Moments’ here to capture and celebrate their best pieces of work, the most interesting things they have learnt and their proudest moments.
- My Mentoring: A mentoring conversation record (targets and support). Students also keep a record of any additional provision they have access to and the strategies which support success.
- My Academic Achievement: Students reflect on each of their reports (three per year), set themselves academic and attitude to learning targets and reflect on their level of participation inside and outside the classroom.
- My Subjects: PIN feedback (see below for more details), Personal Learning Checklists (see below for more details), links to the essential equipment list and a link to the KS4 Revision Hub.
Academically More Able and Talented
What is PIN feedback?
This is how we give students feedback on their work. P = Positive, I = Improvement, N = Now.
Positive - This praises what is excellent about this work and what features the student should replicate in future work.
Improvement - This explains what areas need to be addressed towards further improving the quality of the student’s work.
Now - This is what the student resolves to do in response to the teachers’ guidance.
PIN feedback will be given to students approximately once in nine hours of teaching or once every half term in subjects that only have one lesson or less a week.
On each students’ PIN Feedback document located in their digital Learning Organiser, students will also include an ‘Ask Me About’ entry that parents/carers can use as a way of discussing a piece of work, topic or concept at home.
How can my child develop Enterprise and Confidence?
Through:
- Reading.
- Making use of our comfortable, cosy, quiet and imaginative Reading Room.
- Checking out our recommended reading list
- Exploring our Reading Hub
- Literacy. Checking your spellings and checking your punctuation and grammar. There is lots of support for this in the Digital Learning Organiser.
- Oracy. Taking opportunities to speak in:
- lessons
- Deep Learning Days e.g. Model United Nations General Assembly, Speak Out day
- Super Curricular activities e.g. Arabic club, Debating club, Cerebrum club, Erudite club, the Female Lead Society, Drama clubs, Poetry by Heart club, Sports Leadership club and Dragon’s Den club
- Personal Development Time. All students have two Oracy sessions in a fortnight where they discuss current issues of the day, supported by articles from ‘The Economist’.
What are Personal Learning Checklists (PLCs)? These are lists (in each subject) of all the key knowledge, skills and understanding that students need to know in order to succeed. Staff and students will judge how strong each student is on a particular aspect of the curriculum e.g. ‘able to interpret data from graphs’. They are rated Red (not well understood yet), Amber (partially understood) or Green (fully mastered). Where students are red or amber on a topic, there are links from PLCs to support / revision materials. The next step for each student is to follow the links from each Red and Amber area for development and do further work and revision on them. Maths and English PLCs are shared with all students on Google Classroom. Other subjects have them in electronic Learning Organisers. It is great practice when parents regularly discuss PLCs with their children and what they are going to do next with any red or amber areas.
What should a student bring to school? Student personal organisation is critical. ‘Fail to Prepare’ means ‘Prepare to Fail’. Every student needs to be ready to learn:
- A positive and growth mindset
- A curious mind
- The right equipment (Essential Equipment List)
- A charged chromebook
- In the correct uniform reflecting the fact that each student is here to work
- The correct PE kit
- Parental controls must be installed and active on any mobile phone a student has. Any student mobile phone must be switched off and away at the bottom of a bag at all times in and around the school.
How do I know what homework there is and whether my child has done it? Parents and carers should be signed up to either daily or weekly summaries of what homework is expected (this is on Google Classroom, for more information click here: Link to Homework & Google Classroom page). Please ensure your child sets aside time each day to complete homework and they have a suitable space and table with no distractions to enable them to concentrate. If parents are unable to supervise homework (whether busy elsewhere in the home, at work or away abroad), a useful method is for the student to share the google doc they are doing their homework on with the parent, who can see progress to completion as they write.
For students who prefer to complete their homework at school in a quiet, calm working environment, we offer a homework club before school, at lunch and after school every day.
What can I do to help my child embrace all their challenges?
- Great Physical Health. Teenagers go through extraordinary physical developmental changes of their brains and their bodies; they require high quality, healthy and well balanced nutrition. Ensuring:
- at least 1 hour of physical activity (walking included) per day
- no more than 2 hours screen time
- at least 8 hours sleep are essential.
- Strong Mental Health and Well-Being. We promote 6 important ingredients for maintaining good mental health and well-being:
- Connect (include everyone in our social community, listen, be there, be a good friend)
- Give (time, your presence, your thanks, volunteer)
- Take notice (watch out, notice others and be kind / caring, remember the things that give you joy, notice nature)
- Keep Learning (be curious, think hard)
- Be Active (exercise, go outdoors)
- Find your purpose (you will make the world better in their own unique way)
There are more details and a huge range of support for students’ mental health and well-being here.
What is My ACE?
Students in Years 7-11 all keep a record of their achievements in their Digital Learning Organisers. This record is called My ACE and students record how they are demonstrating that they are Uckfield ACEs (A = Academic Achievement, C = Citizens of our world with good character, E = Enterprising and confident.
Students record, review and improve their ‘academic achievement’ through
- My PIN Feedback
- My Aims and Ambitions
- My Most Memorable Moments
- My Report Self-Reflection
- My Learner Profile
Students record, review and work towards being ‘citizens of our world with good character’ through:
- Student Leadership
- Community actions
- Charity support
- Achievement points
Students record, reflect on and work towards becoming ‘enterprising and confident’ through
- Super-Curricular Activities
- Educational Trips and Visits
- Deep Learning Days
- Careers
In the Sixth Form students work with our Aspirations Leader and use their My ACE and their achievements in Sixth Form to create a professional LinkedIn profile.
The A = ‘Academic Achievement’ section records:
- UCAS
- My Aims and Ambitions
- My Proud Pieces
- Academic Profile Review
The C = ‘Citizens of our world with good character’ section records:
- Social actions
- Leadership
- Charity support
- Achievement points
The E = ‘Enterprising and confident’ section records:
- Super-Curricular Activities
In the Sixth Form students work with our Aspirations Leader and use their My ACE and their achievements in Sixth Form to create a professional LinkedIn profile.
The A = ‘Academic Achievement’ section records:
- UCAS
- My Aims and Ambitions
- My Proud Pieces
- Academic Profile Review
The C = ‘Citizens of our world with good character’ section records:
- Social actions
- Leadership
- Charity support
- Achievement points
The E = ‘Enterprising and confident’ section records:
- Super-Curricular Activities
My ACE and LinkedIn profiles are brilliant collections of all of a student’s successes and parents / carers should always have a hugely enjoyable time looking at their child’s My ACE three times a year.
How else can I support my child?
- Rather than sending multiple emails home, we collate all the messages / information for parents into weekly notices. It is vital that all parents / carers read this each week and respond where appropriate.
- Always read their Reports and discuss their strengths, successes, progress and the targets they will be working on over the next few months. It is also helpful to look at previous Reports to track your child’s progress over time and see whether they are improving.
- At the same time that Reports are being shared with parents / carers, the Director of Year is looking carefully at each individual student’s progress and then sends letters and certificates home which will pick out all the students’ who have:
- Improved
- Achieved very well
- Engaged well and tried very hard
- Deteriorated
- Underachieved.
If the letter you receive is a) or b), then this is a cause for celebration and if letters are d) or e), then parents/carers can support by helping the student to improve (e.g. be better organised, get homework done to a higher standard etc.)
- Always attend Parents’ Evenings.
- Celebrate their Achievement Points. They are always emailed to you.
- Support any sanctions. If there is uncertainty in the student’s mind as to why they have a punishment, they should go and see the member of staff. It is important that students develop that responsibility and independence. It is only if there is still a problem after there has been dialogue between the student and the member of staff setting the detention that a parent should get involved. Staff do not always have all the information needed to make a decision and so, on rare occasions a sanction will need reviewing. However, staff always endeavour to set sanctions in a fair way and the default position should be to trust that staff have judged things fairly.
- Spend some time each week reading together as a family.
- Discuss the news and current local or global issues with your child each day. This will really help students develop good oracy skills and be citizens of our world with good character.
