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Posted on November 22nd 2016
Letter to Parents from the Principal
Dear Parent/Carer
I hope that you had a restful break with your daughters at half term. This letter comprises information about the academy’s policy for lateness and contains an important leaflet to support you in the area of e-safety.
There is nothing more important for us as a school than keeping your children safe, and it can be a real challenge to keep up with changes in technology and know how to keep your daughter safe online. The internet and social media provide us with many wonderful opportunities but there are dangers. Our safeguarding page contains important information and some links to help you access further support. Should you ever have concerns, please do let us know at the academy. You can contact your child’s Head of House or Chris Lamb, our safeguarding officer if you need support. Your daughter can use the SHARP system on our website to let us know of any problems and also has regular access to her coach, the Heads of House, the House Assistant Principals and the safeguarding officer if she is worried about anything.
Lateness
Please can I ask for your continued support in getting your daughters to school on time? As the weather worsens and the nights draw in, public transport is often less reliable. Can I ask you therefore to be vigilant in ensuring that your daughter is ready for school promptly and leaves with plenty of time to spare in getting to school? We are very concerned about the impact that lateness can have on pupils’ progress. Lessons start at 8:40, so if your daughter is late for school, she misses important learning. In order to support our drive for 100% punctuality, we will have punctuality prize draws for those with 100% punctuality and letters home.
To sanction those who are late to school or late to lessons, there will be a one hour detention set each Thursday for girls who have been late 3 times in the previous week. This includes late to lessons as well as late to school. You will be informed of these detentions by text, so we do ask you to ensure that we have up to date contact details for you. Please do let us know if there is a valid reason for your daughter’s lateness, such as a medical appointment. Be aware also that we make home visits with our safer schools police officer and refer to social services where we are very concerned about lateness to the academy.
Homework
Homework sanctions will continue as last year, with 3 missing homeworks triggering a one hour detention where girls will be expected to complete all the missing work. Non-attendance or non-completion of further homework will result in a longer detention of up to 2 hours. We really want to ensure all independent learning is completed as it is such a valuable addition to the limited time we have with your daughter in the classroom and really enables us to assess how she is progressing.
I thank you for your continuing support of your daughter and the academy. Please do let us know if you have any queries or concerns.
Yours sincerely
Mrs Carrie Senior
Principal