Parent Information
Student Support
Our Student Support Team is a key part of our work in ensuring our students are provided with relevant support or signposted to agencies if required.
The Student Support Team focus on breaking down barriers to attendance, safeguarding issues and the overall wellbeing of the students. There is a member of the student support team attached to each house.
Mrs W Burton: Home-School Link Worker
I have worked with children and families throughout my working life both in the educational setting and more recently within the School Nursing and 0-19 service for the NHS. I worked within the School Nursing Team for fourteen years and thoroughly enjoyed every minute! This was where my interest in adolescent mental health began.
My area of specialism is with Health & Wellbeing.
It is a privilege to be able to support children in their secondary school, offering help, guidance and reassurance, to enable them to reach their potential. Emotional wellbeing is a crucial part of growing up and I look forward to working alongside your children to make school a happy and fulfilling place to learn.
Mrs M Hassell: Safeguarding Officer
For the last fifteen years I have worked in many fields within the education sector: these include teaching, SEN, intervention and planning, teaching, and evaluating various family learning workshops. Treating parents as partners is a value I am extremely passionate about. Parents are the ongoing and most important educators of their own children. Parents as partners is proven to improve schools, strengthen families and improve all round academic achievement.
Our local offer for Special Educational Needs and/or Disability
Student Support
At Home
At John Taylor Free School, we do not underestimate the importance of positive impact parents have upon their child’s learning. As a research informed school, we draw on John Hattie’s extensive research frequently: “Parents can have a major effect in terms of the encouragement and expectations that they transmit to their children.” It is, therefore, essential that communication between school and home is timely, effective, and done with trust; we have a range of ways in which we can communicate effectively with parents, depending on the need.
Keeping in Contact
It is vital we have up to date, accurate details on record for your child, to ensure you receive all school communications and avoid delays in contacting you. You can update any changes on the Data Collection Form section on MCAS or email data@johntaylorfreeschool.co.uk.
MCAS provides parents with a wealth of information on your child’s school life. You can view child’s Timetable, Attendance, Behaviour, Detentions/Reflections, Homework, Reports, book Student Led Consultation (Parents Evening) appointments. In the coming months we will begin migrating our payments from ParentPay to MCAS, further information will follow soon.
MCAS can be downloaded via the App Store or Google Play Store. Messages will be received by email, and push notification on the MCAS App, as well as SMS for more urgent messages. All communication with parents will be made via MCAS to the contact details that you have provided us with and that we hold on our system, therefore it is vital the details we hold are accurate (see ‘Contact Details’ above).
The parent newsletter is emailed to parents every Friday. It contains a wealth of information on what has been happening in school, special events, key dates for your diaries as well as general useful information.
How to Contact School
Our communication policy is to respond to all calls and emails within 48 hours of receipt. If you have not had an acceptable response, please use the following points of contact to escalate your issue:
To report your child absence from school, please call the school number (01283 247823) and choose option 1 or email attendance@johntaylorfreeschool.co.uk. If your child has a medical appointment, please email evidence to the attendance team using the same email address. Please note that we require an email or telephone call on the morning of each day that your child is absent from school.
For general questions or enquiries, please use the following:
Contact Us Form
This sends an email to the office team who will respond to your question. If you use this method of communication and want your question to go to a specific person, please make this clear in the first line.
General Direct Emails
- office@johntaylorfreeschool.co.uk This goes straight to our office team and is suitable for general questions relating to school. Again, if you want your query to be passed to a specific person, please make this clear in the subject line.
- transport@johntaylorfreeschool.co.uk School Transport queries
- visits@johntaylorfreeschool.co.uk Visits, Events and Trip queries
Phone calls
The main school number is available from 8:00am – 4:30pm from Monday to Thursday and until 4:00pm on Friday. If the receptionist is already on the phone, the answer service is available for you to leave a message. This is checked regularly throughout the day and messages are passed on to the relevant person. If staff are unable to take your call, they will endeavour to phone you back at an appropriate time as detailed above. We are not able to pass messages on to students unless in an emergency.
If you have any concerns about your child, or questions relating to your child’s learning or progress in lessons, please email their Personal Tutor. The Personal Tutor has an overview of all subjects and will be able to deal with any questions regarding your child and their learning. Please be aware that the Personal Tutor will be teaching for much of the day and so may not respond immediately.
Depending on your query, they may need time to investigate or speak to colleagues, therefore you may not receive a response on the same day. In order to ensure the staff are able to manage their planning, preparation and marking effectively, please not do not expect them to reply to emails out of hours, however you should receive a response within 48 hours.
If you are not satisfied with the response from your child’s Personal Tutor, please contact the appropriate Progress Leader:
Charnwood (Orange)
Mrs Challis- charnwood@johntaylorfreeschool.co.uk
Kingstone (Red)
Mrs Squire – kingstone@johntaylorfreeschool.co.uk
Marchington (Yellow)
Miss Hill – marchington@johntaylorfreeschool.co.uk
Needwood (Blue)
Mr Cornell – needwood@johntaylorfreeschool.co.uk
Rosliston (Purple)
Mr Conlon – rosliston@johntaylorfreeschool.co.uk
Sherwood (Green)
Mrs Haslam – sherwood@johntaylorfreeschool.co.uk
For more serious matters, please contact a member of our Senior Leadership Team:
Headteacher, Miss Atkinson Via Mrs Byrne, Headteacher’s PA – s.byrne@johntaylorfreeschool.co.uk
Deputy Headteacher, Mr McAusland – s.mcausland@johntaylorfreeschool.co.uk
Deputy Headteacher, Ms Pugh – e.pugh@johntaylorfreeschool.co.uk
Assistant Headteacher, Mr Bithell – t.bithell@johntaylorfreeschool.co.uk
Assistant Headteacher, Mrs Broughton – c.broughton@johntaylorfreeschool.co.uk
Assistant Headteacher, Mr Davis – m.davis@johntaylorfreeschool.co.uk
Assistant Headteacher, Mr Johnson – k.johnson@johntaylorfreeschool.co.uk
Assistant Headteacher, Mr Warner – a.warner@johntaylorfreeschool.co.uk
If you do contact another member of staff, you can expect that the query will be directed to your child’s Personal Tutor to deal with in the first instance. If you do need to meet with or speak to me, please contact my PA Mrs S Byrne to make an appointment, using the contact details above.
Please ask for Mr West, Business Manager (da.west@johntaylorfreeschool.co.uk)
