Letters

As we have now completed the first fortnight in school, the students have now had the opportunity to have a full run-through of their timetables.

The last eighteen months have brought such a variety of challenges and disruption for everyone and so it is more important than ever for us to recognise the need for all of our students to be in safely in school learning.  Getting our school environment right depends on everyone working together with collective responsibility in a supportive and positive way.  To support this, our team of dedicated tutors have continued with their regular contact with home, established during the lockdowns, into our day to day work.

Every child in school starts their day with their tutor who will check in with them to see they are OK, help them get into the correct uniform, prepare for the day and spend time going through our planned tutor time programme.  We take pride in our students looking smart in their uniform and we know that you as parents go to great effort to maintain this appearance.  We encourage correct uniform all through the school day and speak to students about it if we need to.

Our tutor programme is an important part of their wider education covering some incredibly important topics from careers guidance, community responsibility and how to stay safe online to advice on topics of the day such as those highlighted in the Review of Sexual Abuse and Sexual Harassment.

The schools Care, Support, Guidance and Behaviour Policy sets out how we as a school promote exemplary behaviour through a supportive and nurturing environment.  The trust values of Kindness, Ambition and Responsibility are echoed throughout our policies to ensure that our students are ready to learn, respectful of others and safe.

We recognise that many parents feel reassured that their child has a mobile phone with them in secondary school.  We support that but also recognise the often-damaging effect that misuse of phones and social media can have on the mental health of our students.  We ask that phones be switched off during the school day and if you do need to contact your child to call in on the main school number.

We always aim to give students the chance to do the right thing and fair warning of any sanction.  We include restorative conversations in every step of our work to help to maintain positive relationships.  For the vast majority of our students this is enough to ensure that they are able to avoid any further intervention, but we recognise that mistakes are sometimes made and if this does happen we need to learn from the mistake and move forwards.  We also recognise that we need to work with you to ensure the best results.

Where sanctions happen, we will contact you in some format.  For disruptions in class this may be via email or a phone call from your child’s class teacher.  Your child’s Tutor will keep an eye on any worrying patterns in behaviour should they occur and may use their welfare check in call to about this if the need arises. 

Where more serious sanctions need to be applied its best to meet face to face and we’ll support these sorts of meetings wherever we can do that safely.  We are extremely thankful for your support whenever these meetings happen as it helps to bring about the positive result that we all wish for, to ensure that all of our students can get the very best out of their time with us in school. Likewise, when we would like to praise your child for something positive that they have done, we will make direct contact with you.

We would like to thank you for your continued support.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs. de Sousa                                                              Mr. Wallace                           

Headteacher                                                               Assistant Headteacher