School starts at 8:55am and children go straight to their classrooms for morning activities and registration. The school day varies in each phase but each class has a lunchtime break and at least one 15 minute break during the day. School ends at 3:30pm each day.
The school day is 6 hours and 35 minutes long and the total hours per week that a child will spend in school is 32 hours and 55 minutes, which meets the government's expectation that all children should receive 32.5 hours of schooling per week from September 2023.
Good attendance is essential in ensuring that children have every opportunity to enjoy school, do their best learning, establish, maintain healthy relationships and achieve their potential. We rely on parents to support this drive and over many years, we are very proud of the clear improvements imade in partnership with families. We believe that the vast majority of our families appreciate and value their child's education and are committed to ensuring their child attends as well as possible, only missing school for genuine reasons.
Please note that holidays are never permitted during term-time and, in line with the government's expectations, those which are taken are not authorised. Click on link below for this year's term dates.
Our school works hard to ensure that all children’s attendance is at least good. This is high on the Government’s agenda and Governors and staff are committed to ensuring that all children attend regularly.
To help you understand what we do to raise attendance and punctuality, the following information explains what is expected of you as a parent if your child is absent, late for school or is picked up late. We have also included some facts about how absence can affect your child’s attendance. I hope that this information helps you to understand why your child should be in school by 8.55am each day and attend for as many days as possible each year.
The school works hard to ensure that all children’s attendance is over 96%. We know that children are genuinely unwell however there are times when excessive absence or absence which suggest a recurring pattern will flag as a concern. We hope that by making you aware of your child’s attendance and our school target, we can work with you to ensure outstanding attendance. To help you understand more clearly, we categorise attendance in the following ways:
| 100% | Attendance is outstanding |
| Green zone - 96% or more | Attendance is very good, above school target and at national expectations |
| Amber zone - between 93%-95.9% | Attendance is monitored for improvement |
| Red zone - below 93% | Attendance is a cause for concern and we will work with you to bring improvement. We may, at this point, only authorise absences with medical proof. |
| Persistent Absence zone - below 90% | Absence is PERSISTENT and may result in the issue of a penalty notice. |
| Severe Absence zone - below 50% | Absence is SEVERE and may result in legal action. |
Please contact the school if you know your child is not going to come to school. You can do this by:
To clarify, if your child is absent we will:
We constantly monitor attendance and will regularly let you know which attendance zone your child is in and let you know if we feel your child’s attendance is in danger of becoming a concern. We will also:
To encourage good attendance we:
If your child is late at the start of the day.
Poor punctuality means that your child may experience a disorganised start to the day; they will miss important learning and disturb teaching and learning for others. It is very important that your child arrives at school before 8:55am each day to start learning promptly. The playground gates are open at 8.45am. Please make sure your child is in the school playground by 8.55am at the latest. If there are parents leaving the playground as you are coming to school, it means the bell has gone and your child is late. Please encourage them to hurry to ensure they do not miss their mark.
To help you understand more clearly punctuality is categorised in the following ways:
Gold zone – 0 lates in a term
Green zone 1 or 2 lates in a term
Your child’s punctuality is in the green zone which means that your child is received maximum teaching and learning time and has a calm, focused start to the first session. Please keep this up.
Amber zone 3, 4 or 5 lates in a term
Your child’s punctuality is in the amber zone which means punctuality is becoming a concern. Please ensure that they arrive at school on time so they can have a calm, focused start to the day. We hope that they will be in the Green zone next term.
Red zone 5 or more
Your child’s punctuality is in the Red zone which means punctuality is a serious concern. They are missing out on vital learning time in their first session of the day on a regular basis. Please ensure that they arrive at school by 8.55am so that your child can have a calm, focused start to the school day. We hope that they will be in the Green zone next term.
Please contact the school if you know you are going to be late. You can do this by:
If your child is late we will:
If you are late picking up your child
It is very disruptive to the running of the school if children are not collected promptly at the end of the school day. Staff have other duties to perform after 3.30pm and if you are late to pick your child up, they are unable to complete these tasks efficiently.
Please contact the school if you know you are going to be late. You can do this by:
If you are late we will:
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