Prior's Court is committed to developing good relationships with parents and carers, and good communication is key to achieving this. This section describes the principles of communication we will abide by and the methods of communication available.
Our principles when communicating
1. We are committed to providing the highest quality of care and learning for our young people and value the partnership we have with our parents.
2. We are keen to have a close relationship with parents to ensure there is clear communication about all aspects of their child’s life at Prior’s Court.
3. We welcome parents contacting Prior’s Court and we will do all we can to assist with enquiries and questions.
4. We view all feedback from parents as an opportunity to improve what we do.
5. We will treat everyone with respect and be polite and courteous in all communications and maintain a professional relationship with parents.
6. We will establish clear methods of communication and, unless there is an urgent need, we ask that these channels of communication are used, so we avoid, as far as possible, impacting the staff’s ability to support the young people.
7. We will communicate with parents to recognise and celebrate each young person’s individual needs and successes and report regularly on each young person’s progress.
8. We will be open and honest with parents about events and incidents and where we are unable to share information. We will be clear about why this is, for example, a police requirement to keep details confidential to avoid potentially compromising the case in any way.
9. We will listen to all parental feedback and respond, within set standard timescales, with appropriate actions.
10. We will actively seek parental feedback about how well we communicate with parents.
Processes of communication - general Prior's Court updates
There are a variety of opportunities for parents to receive general news and information about events from Prior’s Court. Specifically these include:
Non-public facing, parent/ carer specific general updates about Prior's Court are sent to parents via:
11. The six-weekly - filled with recent updates, upcoming events, recaps of ParentMail updates and more
12. ParentMail - an email update service thorugh which formal messaging is sent
13. The - for more informal updates such as event feedback surveys, upcoming local road closures, parent interactions
14. Parent Forum - held approximately every six weeks. These are held virtually on weekday evenings and last approximately 90 minutes.
The objective of the meetings is to facilitate positive and effective two-way communication between all parents and Prior's Court, providing a channel for communication, feedback and suggestions for improvement.
The meetings will usually be hosted by the Director of Care and the School Principal, often with a guest speaker to talk about a particular area of work or a project at Prior's Court.
Invitations with the Teams link for the meeting will be issued via ParentMail.
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Communicating news about individual young people
Prior’s Court commits to providing the following “Standard” communication opportunities to parents/ carers about their child:
15. Weekly call from Learning Specialist.
16. Weekly call from key worker (or other member of the residential team).
17. Access to sleep, nutrition & behaviour data (as requested and agreed).
18. LAC review (where relevant for children within the school).
19. Annual report and review (also known as Person Centred review within the Young Adult Provision).
20. Additional regular opportunities for young people to have contact with parents/ carers will be supported (for example a weekly phone call or video call).
21. The parent portal on Prior Insight enables you as a parent/carer to access information (called ‘Core Reports’) about your child for the following areas: food and drink intake, behaviours and incidents, seizure activity (if applicable), toileting information, and accidents and injuries. Each of the reports will be a summary of the previous 14 days. The portal also has regular photo and video updates about your child.
22. We recognise that there may be times when there is a requirement for other regular communication plans to be put in place between parents and Prior’s Court. This may be required during the first few weeks of the young person’s time at Prior’s Court or during a period of time requiring particular attention. These communication plans will be put in place, together with a date at which Prior’s Court and parents will review whether they are still meeting the need set out, and whether they need to be amended, or removed.
Communicating about specific incidents or events involving a young person
We recognise that there may be times when information needs to be communicated to parents as a matter of priority and outside of regular communication methods.
In these situations, we will be proactive with communication and provide information to parents as soon as practicably possible. We will be open and honest and share key information. Parents will be updated with what has happened and, where relevant, what will be happening next and when they will be updated.
Parents will be provided with key points of contact should they wish to discuss the communication further.
Parents will be notified as a priority in the event of any of the following involving their child:
23. An incident where there is the potential for significant impact on the young person, staff or environment (including a ‘very severe’ incident rating).
24. Incidents which involve one young person with another young person.
25. Incident directed at a member of the public.
We will be open and honest with parents about events and incidents and where we are unable to share information we will be clear about why this is.
We review all significant incidents and events with the aim of learning from these and putting in place relevant actions to minimise the risk of similar events occurring again (for further information please see the safeguarding policy).
Raising a concern or formal complaint
We want to hear about any concern you may have about the way Prior’s Court is doing things and how that may be affecting yourselves or your children.
We want to know because that allows us to take steps to improve what we do.
Our objective is to be able to resolve all concerns on an informal basis but we recognise that in a few instances this will not be possible and a formal complaints process will be followed.
The principles we work to:
26. We are committed to providing the highest quality of care and education to young people with autism.
27. We recognise that things do go wrong and seek to resolve any issues in a professional and timely manner.
28. We aim to make the process of raising a concern as easy as possible.
29. We aim to have excellent communication with all parties involved with our young people and actively seek to discuss matters before they become concerns.
30. We aim to resolve all concerns informally ahead of resorting to formal complaints process.
31. We view all concerns and complaints as opportunities to improve what we do.
for the flow chart which sets out the steps for raising a concern and how it will be dealt with.
Recent newsletters
Published: 14th August, 2025
Updated: 23rd September, 2025
Author: Bethany Daley-Franks
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