We have adapted our privacy notices in order to provide parents and pupils with clearer and more specific information regarding the processing of personal data.

Our new privacy policies

Welcome to the Parent Info newsletter. 

Some conversations with young people are not easy. We know that.  

Finding the right way to enter into discussions – to share important and clear messages and to encourage them to open up to their own views and concerns – requires not only a considered approach, but also a knowledge and understanding about the topics being discussed. 

In this newsletter, we have four new articles which can empower you for some of the more difficult topics you might talk about with young people. 

The Dove Self Esteem Project's article on positive body image explores the pressures of appearance on young people, while the Home Office's Disrespect NoBody campaign covers the issues of consent, sexting and spotting signs of abusive relationships. 

We hope you find them useful. 

Read our latest advice

Conversations about positive body image

Our latest article from the Dove Self Esteem Project offers support and guidance for when you need to initiate difficult discussions about pressures to look a certain way.

Talking to your teenager about consent

The Home Office Disrespect NoBody campaign offers advice on harmful teenage behaviour, including understanding consent, sexting and abusive relationships.

Dear Parent/Carers

We have the pleasure of welcoming HeadStart Kent to our Parent Forum meeting tomorrow (Wednesday 18 April 2018). This will be held in the library from 7pm-8pm if you would like to attend.

The idea of the session is to share information on resilience and how parents can support their children through stressful times as they are growing older and pressures begin to increase.

Kind regards

Mr Cregeen
Assistant Headteacher

ParentPay is the new form of payment at Westlands school.

What does ParentPay do?

• Enables you to pay for trips, clubs and other items such as music tuition fees.
• Offers a highly secure payment site.
• Gives you a history of all the payments you have made.
• Allows the creation of a single account which you can add all your children to, even if they attend different schools (as long as the school subscribes to ParentPay).
• Shows you all items available for payment relevant to each of your children.
• Emails a receipt of your payment to the email address you register.

How does ParentPay help you?

• Gives you the freedom to make payments to school whenever and wherever you like.
• Stops you having to write cheques or search for cash to send to school.
• Gives you peace of mind that your payment has been made safely and securely.
• Helps with budgeting; payments are immediate, there is no waiting for cheques to clear.
• Payments for many of the larger trips can be made by instalments up to the due date.
• ParentPay is quick and easy to use.

How does ParentPay help our school?

• Reduces the administrative time spent on banking procedures.
• Keeps accurate records of payments made to every service for every pupil.
• Payments do not bounce.
• Reduces paper ‘waste’.
• Allows for easy and quick refunds to be made back to the payment card.
• Improves communication between the school and parents concerning payments.
• Offers a more efficient payment collection process, reducing the amount of money held on school premises.

How do I get started?

Over the next few days you will receive an activation letter to enable you to setup your ParentPay account.

The activation letter will contain a personal activation username and password to enable you to login to ParentPay. During the activation process you will be guided through changing your username and password to something more memorable; you can also merge your accounts if you have more than one child at Westlands School or children who attend different schools (as long as the school subscribes to ParentPay).

ParentPay will not cover payments for school meals at present, but will be introduced at a later date, to be confirmed.

Please do not hesitate to contact our Finance team at [email protected] or 01795 426091 option 2 if you need assistance. 

More Information can be found on the ParentPay website www.parentpay.com

Dear Parent/Carer

As you are aware, the recent bad weather has played havoc with pupil's education. We are particularly concerned to make sure that both Year 11 and Year 13 are given as much support as possible to make up for lost time between now and the public examinations. Over the coming days I will write to you again setting out how the school will provide additional teaching for pupils in these year groups to help secure the best possible outcomes for this summer.  In the meantime please make sure your child is available to come into school, as normal, on the Staff Development Day, Thursday 29 March 2018.

Yours faithfully

Mr Cox