Contacting Staff

Effective communication between you as parents/carers and the school, is an essential part of supporting your child in their progress. Whilst there are set dates in the school calendar for you to come into school to meet your child’s teachers, there will also be instances outside of these times, when you may wish to make contact with an individual member of staff or a department within the school. To support you in being able to do this effectively, we ask that you follow the simple guidance below.

Who to contact

With almost 200 members of staff at the school, sometimes it is difficult to know who to contact.

If your query relates to an academic issue, we ask that you contact your child’s subject teacher in the first instance. Your child’s subject teacher will be able to liaise with the Head of Department for that subject if this is necessary. On rare occasions, it may be appropriate to contact the Head of Department first, rather than the teacher directly, however, this will not normally be the case.

E.g. If you have a query about your son/daughter’s progress in English or if you have a query regarding the homework set by your child’s mathematics teacher, you should contact your son/daughter’s English or mathematics teacher directly, as necessary.

If your query relates to a non-academic issue, we ask that you contact your child’s tutor, who is the first point of contact regarding any pastoral issues. Your child’s tutor will be able to liaise with your child’s Head/Assistant Head of Year if this is necessary.

E.g. If you have a query relating to a change in home circumstances that you wish for us to be aware of, you should contact your child’s tutor.

There are a very small number of students for whom the first point of contact should be our Student Support Team. (Mrs Lloyd – year 7-9 or Mrs Dixon – year 10-13). If this is the case, this will have been previously agreed between the parent/carer and the respective member of staff.

If for any reason you do not know the name of your child’s teacher and would prefer not to ask your child, please look at their timetable on ParentFrog or call Reception (see below) who will be happy to help.

How to contact

There are a number of ways that you can make contact with a member of staff. Given the size of the school, our preferred method of initial communication is through email.

It is perfectly acceptable to email a member of staff. If you wish to do this, please see the list of staff emails below.

Email

We ask that you only send the email directly to one person, although in some cases you may wish to copy (cc) another member(s) of staff so that they are aware of your contact. All emails received will be responded to within 2 working days. If you have a query that will take longer than this to respond fully to, you will receive an initial response within 2 working days and then a fuller response in due course. This response time may be slightly longer in the case of part-time staff.

Staff emails are not monitored outside of school hours and whilst some members of staff may choose to respond to emails outside of school hours, this is actively discouraged in order to promote a healthy work/life balance for our staff. Any emails addressed to staff should be written in a polite and respectful manner, as will always be mirrored in our response to you as parents/carers.

Telephone (01242 235555)

There may be some instances when you may prefer to speak to someone directly. Our School Reception telephone line is active between 8:00am and 4:30pm (Monday to Thursday) and between 8:00am and 4:00pm (Friday). Please be aware that if your query is not a ‘general’ query and the member of staff at our School Reception is unable to respond fully to your query, we will provide you with the option of leaving a voicemail for the respective member of staff, which will be sent to their email account. As above, these messages will be responded to within 2 working days.

Letter

If you wish to write to a member of staff by letter, please address your letter as follows:

MEMBER OF STAFF
Cheltenham Bournside School and Sixth Form Centre
Warden Hill Road
Cheltenham
Gloucestershire
GL51 3EF

Letters will be responded to within five working days of receipt of the letter.

In person

There are times when you may value the opportunity to have a conversation in person with a member of staff. If this is the case, please use one of the above forms of communication to request a meeting. Given the number of students at the school, it is highly unlikely that if you arrive in Reception without an appointment that you will be able to see the member of staff whom you would wish to.

Emergencies

In the case of an urgent message needing to be relayed to your child or a member of the school’s Senior Leadership Team, please telephone the School Reception as above.