Staying safe in school
Changing schools is a big move and, although it’s a time of uncertainty and, possibly, worry, we want you to feel safe and to know where to go for help if you, or your child, are worried.
We take our in loco parentis responsibility very seriously at Valley Park and want you to feel confident that our safeguarding and welfare measures are robust.
Here is our Safeguarding & Child Protection Policy.
This is regularly reviewed and updated as required.
We have an effective Safeguarding Team, coordinated by Mr Perry as Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL); our Heads of Year have also undergone enhanced safeguarding training, and all colleagues at Valley Park update their safeguarding knowledge regularly. Whenever there is a change to the Safeguarding Team, the policy will be updated so you have an up to date list of contacts.
If you are ever in the situation where you need to raise a safeguarding concern, the contact details for the safeguarding team are as follows:
Our contact information is here, however we have provided the details below for your convenience. We have included some helpful areas of our website, too, which you may find useful both now and in the future.
Valley Park School
Huntsman Lane
Maidstone
Kent ME14 5DT
Phone: 01622 679421
Please use this email address to contact us. It's monitored daily and emails are redirected from this central point to the relevant colleague(s) who can answer the query and/or act on the information you have supplied. This allows us to manage email traffic for any colleague who may be away from school at the time of your email.
We will always endeavour to respond to communications as soon as we are able, but we do ask parents to understand that volumes of email traffic are high, so we do have to prioritise those that need an urgent response.
You can read our current policies here.
As mentioned in Mrs Gunn's welcome message, you can find a News page – use it to find out what we've been up to! You can also find information about Free School Meals, travel passes, our governance arrangements… In short, we hope it tells you everything you need to know but, if not, let us know!
Our Reception is staffed between the hours of 8.30am and 4.30pm, when the switchboard is operational, too. Please do contact us in advance either by phone or the central email address (see above) if you would like to make an appointment; the vast majority of colleagues at Valley Park have timetabled teaching commitments, which means they may not be able to see you if you just drop in, so making an appointment will save you an unnecessary trip.
We have a very active Valley Park School Twitter feed, a new Instagram feed, and we also have an official Valley Park School Facebook page. Please do follow us!
What should I do if my child is ill?
If your child is unwell, or is unable to attend school for another appropriate reason, please contact us via the dedicated attendance channels. If your child is ill for a number of days, please call us on the morning of each day of absence.
Phone: 01622 656162
E-mail: attendance@valleypark.viat.org.uk
As part of our rigorous safeguarding measures, we will contact you if we are expecting your child to be in school but they do not arrive.
Your child will need to bring a written absence note into school, stating the reason for absence, when they return to school. There are absence slips provided in your child’s planner, which can be detached from the planner and used for this purpose if you wish.
How will I find out if the school is closed?
We recognise that some students have to travel in order to reach school, and therefore we always endeavour to make decisions about school closure as early in the morning as we can.
When adverse weather is forecast, keep an eye on our social media channels and on the home page of our website, where the closure information will be published. We will also contact you electronically, using our GroupCall email-messaging system.