Dear Parents/Carers                                                  

Student Absence

We want to tighten up the processes around how student absences are reported. Although bus escorts are able to pass messages on to us and vice versa, these messages are often misconstrued or relayed in a way that the initial sender did not intend.

We would ask that if your child is absent for any reason that you phone school directly in order to pass this message on. If you could do this prior to 8:45 this will allow us to have a list of who will not be in that day. We have now changed our school answering system to allow you to leave your child’s name and the reason for absence.

If a child is off school and you have not left a message on the school’s answering system we will follow this up with a welfare phone call. We want to move away from messages being passed on via bus escorts.

Please can you support this process by ensuring all absences are reported appropriately; this will reduce the need for a member of staff to be ringing to check why students are not in school.

If your child is off for longer than a day you only need to report it on the first day, although we may phone up to check everything is ok if the absence is extended.

Cost of School Dinners

The cost of living crisis is impacting on everyone. We have tried to shield parents from any price increases in relation to school dinners. However, the reality is that school are heavily subsidising the price of school dinners, this then impacts on the school budget and what we are able to spend on the children. As such, we have reflected on the price of school dinners and will be introducing a very slight increase in the cost of school dinners starting in September. We currently charge £2.20 for Primary students and this will increase to £2.30 per day (or £11.50 each week). Secondary and FE students pay £2.30 for dinners but this will increase to £2.50 per day (or £12.50 each week). It is worth noting that dinners for older students are a larger portion than that offered to primary students. Students who receive a free school meal will not be affected by this price increase. I am sorry if this causes any concern for you as a parent and it is not a decision that we have taken lightly.

School Uniforms

We have previously had different coloured uniforms for primary and secondary students. However, this became quite confusing for parents when we have had mixed primary and secondary classes. We will be looking at the uniform policy in the near future, but in the meantime, I wanted to reassure you that you do not need to purchase new uniform for the new academic year unless your child specifically needs it. We are happy with children wearing primary uniform, secondary uniform or indeed their own clothes no matter what department they are in.

Thank you for your continued support

Yours sincerely

Paul McLean