Home School Communication Policy v1 2023-24
Parent and Carer code of conduct 2024
The school gates open at 8.30am each day for all children between Reception and Y6. Children should arrive in good time for the register which is taken at 8.40am each day. All Reception and Year 1 children should be brought to the KS1 gate on Hunloke Avenue. Y2, Y3 & Y4 children enter through the main gate on the corner of Central Avenue & Hunloke Avenue. Year 5 and Year 6 children enter at the KS2 gate on Central Avenue.
All the gates are manned by Designated Safeguarding Leads or members of the Senior Leadership Team. They are very happy to answer any questions or queries you may have.
If your child is late for school (after 8.40am) they must come to the main gate and down through the front door so we can take a record of what time they arrived for school.
If you are anxious about leaving your child for any reason, please feel you can phone the front desk. We are always happy to check and report back to you.
The school day finishes at 3.10pm each day, total hours 32.5 hours per week. The children will leave through the same gate as the start of the day. Only junior children are allowed to walk home alone. All others will only be released to a known adult that we are expecting, so please make sure you keep us informed should anybody other than the parents/ carers be collecting your child. You will also need to make sure your nominated person is on our list of ‘approved people’ that you as a parent have chosen and that they know your unique password. If your child is not picked up for any reason we will keep them safe until you arrive.
It is really important that we keep the area around school as safe as possible so we would ask that you park your cars responsibly. Don’t double park or park up on the pavements.
We are now running morning, afternoon and all day sessions in our Foundation Unit where we have combined our Nursery and Reception children. The morning session times are 8:30-12:30, afternoon session times are 12:00-15:00 and all day runs from 8:30-15:00. Children should enter through the KS1 gate on Hunloke Avenue. If you are late to a session you will have to come through the main gate and take your child along the top path to the Nursery garden entrance. They should be collected from the same entrance.
Please phone the school office (01246 234 626) at the first opportunity to let us know if your child is going to be either late or absent from school. You will need to ring each day your child is away from school. If you’d prefer, you can message us on Parent Hub or email Miss Mark on Joannemark@williamrhodes.derbyshire.sch.uk
If you do not contact us, your child will be marked as having an unauthorised in the register and we may do a home visit as part of our safeguarding procedures.
Nursery & Reception children are in The Foundation Unit
Year 1 children are in Hedgehogs Class
Year 2 children are in Foxes Class
Year 3 children are in Jays Class
Year 4 children are in Kingfishers Class
Year 5 children are in Nightingales Class
Year 6 children are in Woodpeckers Class
We always serve cereal and bagels and sometimes serve a hot meal such as beans or spaghetti rings on toast. We open the doors between 7.45am & 8.00am and children can always have a delicious, healthy meal with their friends each morning. All nursery and reception children are offered free milk each day and infant children are given a free piece of fruit or a vegetable at first break.
At lunchtime, we buy our school meals from Parkside which serve healthy hot meals every day at a current cost of £3.25. Many children are eligible for Free School Meals and we would encourage you to ask in the office as it’s very easy to apply. A ‘Universal Free School Meal’ programme began in September 2014 and all infant children are provided with a free school lunch even if they don’t meet usual Free School Meal criteria.
If your child will be having a packed lunch, it can be safely stored on our trolleys outside the classroom.
The children are able to access fresh water at any point during the day from the sinks or water coolers in the classroom. We encourage children to bring their own bottles which we ask are regularly taken home and thoroughly washed. We do have some spare cups in the classroom so that no-one is thirsty. We do allow children to bring well-diluted juice or squash as it’s important that they are well-hydrated throughout the day.
If any child brings any food to share with other children (cake on their birthday, for example) these must be left with the teacher as some pupils have a restricted diet and mustn’t eat certain foods. Please ensure anything brought in has a clear and accurate list of ingredients to satisfy Natasha’s Law.
Please make sure we have all the medical information we need about your child e.g. if they suffer from asthma. If they are ill and you are unsure whether to send them to school please ring and ask for advice. Some relatively minor illnesses such as diarrhoea or vomiting need a couple of days off school to ensure a tummy bug is not being unnecessarily spread about, but it’s always worth checking as good attendance is really important to us and we don’t want children missing school unnecessarily.
If your child needs medicine whilst at school e.g. completion of a course of antibiotics you need to complete a ‘medicines administration form’ available from the school office or on the school website. All medicine is kept securely in our First Aid Room, with the exception of asthma inhalers which are kept easily accessible in an unlocked teachers drawer in the classroom.
If your child has an injury whilst at school, we will administer first aid. We will contact you immediately if is anything more serious. If they have bumped their head we will text you and issue a bump note which has advice on the back about possible signs of concussion.
We do not allow children to bring toys into school as things sometimes get mislaid or damaged causing unnecessary upset.
All children, even those in the early years, have some tasks to complete at home each week. In the infants these will include reading, learning tricky words such as ‘the’ and ‘of’ and a range of counting and number activities. In the juniors a piece of homework is set for each night of the week and will include reading, spellings, times tables, an English and a maths activity. If your child would like extra books to read at home, books can always be borrowed from our class by arrangement with the teacher or from the school library which the children visit regularly.
Please share any concerns you may have about any aspect of your child’s schooling with the class teacher in the first instance. If it is of a more serious or confidential nature, then please speak to the headteacher directly. Should you wish to make a more formal complaint, which you don’t feel could be resolved by the headteacher, please speak to our Chair of Governors, contact details available in the school office. You may also contact Ofsted to make a complaint to the regulating authority on 0300 123 4666 if it’s a general complaint about the quality of education or safety of children. Ofsted do not investigate complaints about individual cases. If you have worries about malpractice at the school, please see the Whistleblowing Policy on our website.
All staff are very happy to answer any of your questions at the beginning or end of each school day. Further information on dates, policies and procedures are available either on the school website or by request from the school office.
