17 Joining Booklet BEDFORD SCHOOL
Communication Communication between parents, boys and staff, both formally and informally, is valued and is seen as integral to each boy’s success at the school. We encourage you to develop strong relationships with your son’s Housemaster, Tutor and teaching staff, and to get in touch with any concerns, queries and, importantly, successes, both in and out of school.
Your key contacts Your Son’s Tutor Yours son’s Tutor is your first point of contact at the school. Your son’s Tutor will be in contact with you, by phone or email, at least once each half term to update you on your son’s progress and is happy to discuss any queries or concerns you may have. Your Son’s Housemaster Your son’s Housemaster is also a key contact within the school and is, likewise, happy to discuss your son’s progress and help with any queries or concerns you may have. NB: Please make a note of their email addresses in the Housemaster letters that will follow. Academic Year Heads Your son’s Tutor and Housemaster are the first port of call, and they will be keeping a close eye on your son’s wellbeing through regular Tutorials and House Meetings. In addition, our Academic Year Heads provide an additional support for boys. These members of staff have particular responsibility for monitoring the academic progress of boys in each year group. They work closely with Tutors to offer interventions to enhance academic performance, to help address academic concerns if they arise, and to encourage and congratulate boys whose academic performance is worthy of particular recognition. They also lead year-group specific academic assemblies, revision workshops and supervised preps and work groups.
There are Academic Year Heads for the Fourth Form, Remove Form and Fifth Form. In the Sixth Form, the Academic Year Head has particular responsibility for the A-Level boys, with the Director of IB undertaking this responsibility for those boys studying IB.
How we stay in touch School Website The parents’ pages of the school website host a wealth of useful information including notices, school policies, term dates, the school calendar, staff lists, parent letters, news and events, as well as links to our dedicated sports website, the secure parents’ portal and Firefly (e-learning site). The pupils’ pages of the school website include a similar selection of information tailored to their needs. Secure Parent and Pupil Portals We offer parents and boys online access to a variety of information via our parent and pupil portals. These portals are real time and cover such areas as reports, rewards and conduct, timetables, activities, exam results and detentions. We will write to you shortly before the start of term with details of how to selfregister for the parent portal. Boys are automatically granted access to the pupil portal through their school network account. Firefly (school e-learning site) The school has an online teaching and learning resource called Firefly, which can be accessed via the parents’ section on the website. Boys and parents will find details of each subject and year group’s schemes of work and other topic resources, as well as revision material. There is also information about the UCAS university application process, public and internal exam procedures, learning support opportunities and extracurricular details, amongst other areas of school life. Boys’ prep is also set via Firefly, and parents can keep an eye on the work their son is being set. Parents
