The School Day

The school gates open each morning at 8.40 am. This is where you leave your child for the school day, staff supervise pupils as they arrive. Messages, if needed, should be written in the school planner.

The school day starts at 8.50 am and ends at 3.20pm for all children (32.5 hours per week).  Gates are opened at 3.20pm for collection of children.

There is a morning break of fifteen minutes for all classes.

Children have a break of one hour for lunch, these are staggered, starting at 12.00 pm for the youngest children and ends at 1.20 pm for the oldest children.

Afternoon breaks for FS & KS1 are planned at the teacher’s discretion.

We would be grateful for your co-operation in ensuring good attendance and punctuality. Good attendance and being punctual are critical to ensure that children get the most out of what school has to offer.

Punctuality

It is important that children arrive by 8.50 am to ensure a punctual start to lessons. After this time adults should bring their children into school and sign the ‘late log’ in the office to avoid confusion with class registers. Please ensure you give a reason for why your child is late.

Registers are taken at 8.50am.  Children arriving after registers close will be marked as ‘late’ and this will be reflected in attendance figures.

School Attendance

Absence

An important part of the parental partnership with school is ensuring children are in school and receiving lessons.  In all cases of absence, the school must have an explanation from parents.  Parents should register the absence using the Studybugs app to inform the school if their child will not be attending on that day.  If the child does not appear, and no explanation is received, the secretary will telephone the child’s home to ascertain the reason for their absence.  This is because, on rare occasions nationally, children have gone missing when both school and parents presume that the child is with the other party.

Written confirmation of the child’s absence and the reason for it must be sent in on the child’s return to school.  This applies to every period of absence, even when a verbal explanation has previously been received.  Registering the absence on Studybugs  provides this and avoids the requirement to provide further written confirmation.

Please note that if a child has vomited or has had diarrhoea they cannot return to school until 48 hours has passed since the last incidence.

Holiday Absence Requests

There is no entitlement for parents to take their child out of school during term time, however, you may apply to the school for leave of absence if you believe there are exceptional circumstances.

From 1st September 2013, education regulations prohibit headteachers from granting leave of absence to a pupil, except where an advance application has been made by the parent with whom the pupil normally resides and the headteacher considers that there are exceptional circumstances relating to the application.

Requests for absence should be made on an official form which can be downloaded (below) or a paper copy collected from the school office. A covering letter, giving the reasons why the absence is exceptional is also required.

A penalty notice may be given in cases where unauthorised absence has been taken.