We are proud to work with our community and value the two way partnership that we have built with families, local residents, partner schools, local businesses, the police, Braintree District Council, and other local groups. We believe that involving everyone in the work that we do allows a better quality of life for all those concerned and benefits us with the imagination and energy of local people.
We aim to keep families of our students as involved in their child’s education as possible as parent/carer engagement is proven to raise grades, increase attendance and encourage a lifelong passion for learning. We do this by communicating as best as we can via letters, phone calls, text messages, emails and face-to-face meetings as well as keeping our school website up-to-date. We also produce a regular newsletter which features important dates, an article from the Headteacher, articles from students and photographs from recent activities. In addition to this we encourage parents and carers to join forums to discuss issues and new ideas within school, become a governor.
We strive to be good neighbours to local residents by actively trying to minimising traffic, litter and unnecessary noise from the school site. We work alongside the police to educate our students about respecting others and having a healthy respect for the area.
The relationship that we have with our main primary feeder schools (John Ray Junior, Notley Green Primary, White Notley, White Court, Rayne and Terling) is one that we value highly and we work together with all these schools to support them by offering specialist activities and equipment. We also have a comprehensive transition programme to make the move up to secondary school as smooth as possible.
We also have an excellent relationship and work closely with the other secondary schools in the area; Alec Hunter Academy, Tabor Academy and Honywood Community Science School. Braintree Sixth Form was established through the learning partnership held between these schools.
We are always keen to engage with local businesses as we want to ensure that we are equipping our students with the most favourable skills for future employment. We really appreciate local businesses that are able to come in and share their expertise with us and support us with more practical approaches.
We work closely with the local team of PCs and PCSOs to provide our students with various opportunities to become more involved with their local community. When Braintree District Council offers workshops for our students on topics such as underage drinking and drug use, we always strive to take full advantage of these opportunities. In addition to this we are also in the process of developing a youth forum as part of the council so that students can have a say in the changes to their local area and gain an insight into how the council operates.
As you can see, we have some great relationships in place and we value each and every one very highly. We are always keen to be involved with new community groups, local businesses and other groups so if this is something that interests you please contact the school on 01376 556300.