Guidance states:
It is important to involve pupils in drawing up the agreement. If your school has a student council in place, you may find it beneficial to consult with this body when drawing up your home-school agreement.
Pupils are the key beneficiaries of the agreement. It is therefore important that they:
- fully appreciate the purpose of the agreement
- help to identify the expectations to be placed upon them (if any)
- are consulted on the suggested expectations that parents and teachers have of the agreement
- know which teacher to contact when an issue needs to be resolved in relation to the agreement.
Hallsville Primary School used Circle Time with its Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 pupils to discuss the introduction of the agreement. The outcomes of these discussions were then fed into a Years 2 - 6 pupil working party, which summarised and prioritised the contributions to the agreement.
The school also asked the pupil working group for their comments on the draft contributions from the parents and teachers.
Through such a process the pupils of this Newham EAZ school have achieved a considerable degree of ownership of their agreement.
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Such a process could be adapted for use in secondary schools, through either form tutor time, PSE lessons or the School Council.
| At Rossington High School, Doncaster, staff on a training day reviewed and then re-wrote the school aims, avoiding the use of educational jargon. These were then placed before a random selection of tutor groups, with pupils being asked to identify from within the context of the school's aims, the expectations to be placed upon the school, pupils and parents. Their views were then collated and presented to the Governing Body and used as a basis for the home-school agreement.
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If pupils are actively involved in drawing up the agreement, they are more likely to feel committed to it.
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