Start and finish times

School starts at 8.30am each day for all children between Reception and Y6. Children in Nursery start at 8.40am. Children should arrive in good time and the gates are opened at 8.30am. All infant children should be brought to the gate door by their parents/ carers. Reception & Nursery, Year 2 and Year 3 children enter through the main gate on the corner of Central Avenue & Hunloke Avenue (Nursery at 8.40am). Year 1 children enter at the KS1 gate on Hunloke Avenue. Year 4, 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 more than 10 minutes 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 AJ on the front desk. She is always happy to check and report back to you.

The school day finishes at 11.40am for Nursery and 2.50pm for Reception children. All other children finish at 3.00pm each day. 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. 

Absence reporting

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 AJ on info@williamrhodes.derbyshire.sch.uk

If you do not contact us, we may do a home visit as part of our safeguarding procedures.

Attendance and term time holidays

Good school attendance and punctuality is really important to us. Our target is for 96% attendance as a whole school. Government legislation means we can only authorise time out of school in ‘exceptional circumstances’. Authorisation is rare and only given for a genuine emergency. All planned holiday should be booked within the 155 days of school holidays. If you do have to take your child out of school, you must notify us at least 2 weeks in advance using the ‘exceptional leave of absence request’ forms from the school office or on the website. Family holidays will not qualify; therefore these will have to be marked on your child’s record as unauthorised. If you do decide to take a family holiday in term time you are very likely to receive a penalty notice. If you take a holiday without informing us or pretend your child is ill, you will always be issued with a penalty notice.

Clothing

Our school uniform comprises of a Forest Green sweatshirt or cardigan with the William Rhodes logo embroidered on to it; white polo shirt or white school shirt; black jogging bottoms or black leggings and sensible black school shoes or black trainers. If your child is wearing a skirt or dress, they should have leggings or shorts rather than tights underneath so they are ready for PE without needing to get changed. In the summer, green gingham dresses are allowed. Some parents buy the unbranded Forest Green sweatshirts or cardigans from the supermarket and this is fine.

All children need named black pumps for PE. These will be kept in school.

It is vital that any items of school uniform are named as it’s impossible to establish ownership without.

Please ensure children have the clothes they need for the day e.g. a waterproof coat or a sun hat if necessary.

How the classes are organised

Nursery children are in Owls Class

Reception children are in Rabbits Class

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

Who’s who and who does what

Meet the teams

Senior leadership team

Rachel Purvis – Headteacher (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday)

Jayne Jackson - Deputy Headteacher & SENCO (and Acting Co-Headteacher on Thursdays & Fridays)

Rachel Cass - Early Years leader 

Zoe Farrow -Acting Deputy Head (Thursdays & Fridays)

James Benn - School Business Manager

Teaching teams

Y6 Woodpeckers

Zoe Farrow- Y6 Teacher

Sandra Gregson – Y6 Teacher

Ben Thompson – Y6 Teaching Assistant

Y5 Nightingales

Hannah Burgess (standing in for Saira Ibrahim)- Y5 Teacher

Andy Brown - Y5 HLTA

Y4 Kingfishers

Amanda Elliott - Y4 Teacher 

Lisa Sparrow - Y4 Teaching assistant

Y3 Jays

Katie Newman - Y3 Teacher

Dawn Jones - Y3 Teaching assistant (am)

Mel Pizer – Y3 Teaching Assistant (pm)

Y2 Foxes

Rachel Cass - Y2 Teacher

Sue Slater -Y2 Teaching Assistant

Joanne Dudley (pm) - Y2 Higher level Teaching Assistant

Zoe Titmus – Academic Mentor

Y1 Hedgehogs

Dawn Harris – Y1 Teacher

Sofia Ibrahim Hall –Y1 Teaching assistant

Ellen Batteson – Academic Mentor

Reception Rabbits

Julie Brookes - EYFS Teacher

Danielle Raybould - Early years educator 

Nicci Boler - Reception teaching assistant 

Nursery Owls 

Joanne Dudley - Nursery Leader 

Mel Pizer - EYFS Learning Support Assistant

Cover Nursery Nurse - Early Years Educator

SEND team

Jayne Jackson - SENCO

Lisa Sparrow - individual & group SEND work 

Kerry Watkins - individual & group SEND work

Cover SENTA - individual & group SEND work

Cover SENTA – individual & group SEND work

Children & family support team 

Rachel Purvis - Headteacher & designated safeguarding lead

Jayne Jackson-Deputy headteacher & designated safeguarding lead

Joanne Mark - Family Worker, deputy designated safeguarding lead & emotional support assistant

Office team

James Benn – School business manager

Ailsa Hiscocks - School business assistant

Megan Cook - School business assistant

Breakfast team

Linda Grattage - Breakfast club leader

Joanne Mark - Play leader / Breakfast service

Kerry Watkins - Play leader / Breakfast service

Lunchtime team

Janet Batterson  - Lunch service

Mel Hamilton - Lunch service

Suzanne Cook - Midday supervisor

Linda Grattage - Midday supervisor & first aid

June Lawrence - Midday supervisor & first aid

Paula Duckmanton – Midday supervisor

Elisha Henman – Midday supervisor

Susan Bunting - Midday supervisor

Yvonne Shedwick - Midday supervisor

Cleaning & caretaking team

Alan Twigg - Caretaker

Linda Grattage - Caretaker & cleaner

Elinor Bannister - Cleaner

Mel Hamilton -Cleaner

Elisha Henman - Cleaner

Yvonne Shedwick - Cleaner

Food and drink

We offer all children (from Reception-Y6) a free daily breakfast (please just book in with AJ in advance). We always serve cereal and toast 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 £2.20. 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 (buns 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.

Home/school communication/ organisation

We know how important good home/ school communication is and always want you to feel listened to and to have your questions answered. Teachers are available at the end of each school day to talk to if you have a concern about your child. The Headteacher and Deputy Headteacher can also be found at the beginning of each day manning the gates.

The school website is a great source of information and has all the calendar dates and other important information on it, including current and past newsletters.

When we do give out letters for children to take home, we encourage them to share them with you, but it’s helpful to check their bags on a daily basis as we sometimes find them in a crumpled heap in the bottom of their bags.

If you want to get directly through to the Headteacher, you can ring 01246 234 626 and ask for Rachel Purvis or email her on headteacher@williamrhodes.derbyshire.sch.uk on Thursdays and Fridays please email Jayne Jackson (Co-Headteacher) at JJackson1@williamrhodes.derbyshire.sch.uk

Illness, medicines and injuries

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 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 accessible in the classrooms.

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.

Toys in school

We do not allow children to bring toys into school as things sometimes get mislaid or damaged causing unnecessary upset.

After school clubs

After school clubs are paused at the moment as children's mixing is limited to their bubble.

Homework

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 high frequency words 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 each fortnight.

Concerns

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 (name and 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 ‘Confidential reporting Code’ procedure on our website.

Further information

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.