Executive Principal’s Blog – 11.2.22 ’A Great School; a Great Community’
When I arrived at work on Monday morning this was the beautiful sight that greeted me at the newly designed front entrance to our wonderful school. It reminded me that we do have a fantastic school community here and one that has once again shone brightly throughout this half term.
Thousands of reward points have been earned by our hard-working students, hundreds of students have worked hard to achieve their potential, participating in a rich curriculum within and beyond normal lessons, valuing their dedicated and talented teachers and very committed Learning Assistants who support them in their studies each and every day and who are so well supported by our outstanding Associate Staff.
Our school community is also very blessed by the hugely positive body of parents and carers who form an integral part of our ongoing success journey here at Bushey Meads. As a school we are always incredibly grateful for your support and encouragement.
Two years ago, a global pandemic hit our shores and we are still recovering from the massively challenging effects caused. In spite of this Bushey Meads School never once closed its doors and, compared to the majority of schools in the local area and indeed across the country, continued to support hundreds of students throughout that period; this was only possible because of the immense sacrifice made by BMS staff and the strong moral purpose that underpins everything we do.
With that in mind, it is extremely disappointing when I hear of (admittedly a very small minority of parents and carers) who behave in unacceptable ways. Unfortunately, this small minority of parents let the side down and do not uphold our values of Respect, Responsibility and Relationships and our mantra of ‘Having a Mind to Be kind’.
Some parents:
- drop off their children in the morning at the front gate of the school, blocking the entrance and causing a danger to our students
- park across our neighbour’s drives to drop off and pick their children up in an extremely thoughtless and selfish manner
- turn around their vehicles on Coldharbour Lane, causing a traffic jam at peak times, rather than driving safely round the block
- are extremely rude to our amazing and helpful Reception Staff, or very dedicated Pastoral Team and have raised their voices regarding their child’s detentions which have all been appropriate and in line with our clear consequence ladder
- fail to understand that we are a mainstream school with appropriate expectations in line with any school in the country and think it’s acceptable for their children to refuse to follow simple instructions given by staff or even support the extreme rudeness and defiance demonstrated by their children to staff who are simply trying to keep the well order school safe
- refuse to understand and acknowledge the way the school is structured and organised and unreasonably expect and demand to see certain staff when other much more appropriate staff are already dealing with them in a positive way
- send email communications to the school that contain large red font or capital letters designed to intimidate
- think it is acceptable to shout at staff in meetings, designed to support the positive reintegration of the children into school following an exclusion or incident
- one family have literally bombarded the school with emails on a daily basis, sending nearly 400 emails to the school during the Autumn term alone, demonstrating a wholly unreasonable attitude, almost vexatious in nature
- one parent has even filmed a member of staff without their permission on the school site, completely breaking all safeguarding protocols
The vast majority of parents will be completely shocked by the list above and would never dream of behaving in such a way. Whilst we have a clear Parent and Carer Code of Conduct Policy available via this link: Parent and Carer Code of Conduct Policy they would never ever need to read, or even refer it.
Most parents and completely supportive and hugely encouraging of what we are all striving to achieve. Just one example of this was an email received after our superb enrichment day that took place last week:
Good evening Mr Turner I hope you are well and looking forward to the weekend.
I wanted to drop you a quick note to say thank you for the enrichment day, I always have a number of conversations with the children about what they want to do moving forward and we discuss options. My son was so enthusiastic when he got home and wanted to telephone his relatives (one of whom runs their own business) to tell them how much he loved the introduction to Business Studies; he explained how long the course was and what he would learn.I can imagine it’s difficult to engage our ‘tough’ teens sometimes and I don’t envy your team! But this has been a really important day, it’s really made him think about things and focus on ‘what could be’ after the tough couple of years we have all experienced. I loved his excitement and enthusiasm tonight; the Enrichment day made sense to me and I realise how important these days are. Thank you and enjoy your weekend
Year 9 Parent
Without a doubt, it has been an incredibly challenging two years and we all need to continue to be kind to the staff at Bushey Meads who are frontline workers doing their very best for the children in their care. In line with the vast majority of hugely positive and encouraging parents, do continue to show your appreciation for all they do.
With best wishes for a lovely weekend and a good break next week. As always, do click on the link to read this week’s BMS News.
Jeremy Turner
Executive Principal
