Newsletters

Message from Mrs Birch

This week has been a busy one for our children in upper Key Stage Two. Our Year 6 children have been pushing themselves outside of their comfort zones and trying new activities either away at their residential or here in school with a visit to Phasels Wood. We are really proud of how the children have shown resilience and perseverance – two very important aspects of our school vision.

Meanwhile, our Year 5 children had the opportunity to attend Laureate Academy to try out some secondary school Science in the labs there. It was a real pleasure to hear how well the children represented our school and engaged in the activities.

Sharing Assembly

Many thanks to Team Emerald for a fabulous sharing assembly yesterday. We now look forward to hearing about the learning of Team Amethyst on Thursday 28th November at 9am.

Bikes and Scooters

I would like to remind all parents and carers that bikes and scooters are not to be ridden on the school site before and after school. This is due to the number of people moving around the site and the possibility of an accident or injury taking place. Please do supervise your children and support us with this. Scooter and bikes that are brought into school are left at your own risk in the scooter pods please.

Unauthorised Absence

As we have widely documented through our newsletters and the sending out of our school policy, the rules around term time holidays / absence have changed significantly this year. This is national legislation that has been brought in by the Department for Education. If a child has 10 or more sessions (5 days) of unauthorised absence in a ten week period, then a fixed penalty notice may be issued by the Local Authority.

I draw your attention to the list below, from our school policy, that are some reasons for unauthorised absence:

Unauthorised absence includes, (however this list is not exhaustive):

· parents/carers keeping children off school unnecessarily e.g. because they had a late night or for non-infectious illness or injury that would not affect their ability to learn.

· absences which have never been properly explained.

· children who arrive at school after the close of registration are marked using a ‘U’. This indicates that they are in school for safeguarding purposes, however, is counted as an absence for the session.

· shopping trips.

· looking after other children or children accompanying siblings or parents to medical appointments.

· their own or family birthdays.

· holidays taken during term time, not deemed ‘for exceptional purposes’ by the headteacher, including any arranged by other family members or friends.

· day trips.

· other leave of absence in term time which has not been agreed.