School Opening Hours

Time of school sessions

School starts at 8.50am

School ends at 3.15pm

Total time this amounts to in a typical week:

32 hours and 5 minutes per week

Nursery (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday):

There are three sessions available for nursery on these days:

1) Morning session begins at 8:50am and ends at 12:00 noon

2) Morning session including lunch, begins at 8:50am and ends at 1:15pm

3) All day session, begins at 8:50am and ends at 3:15pm

There is up to 18.75 hours provision per week available to nursery children

Arrival at School and Home Time:

Children can arrive up to five minutes before the start of the school day.  A member of staff will be on duty from 8.45 am.  Supervision before 8.45 am is the responsibility of parents. The large, rear parish council car park is available for parking at the beginning and end of the school day. Parents are reminded that children should be accompanied to the playground in the morning and collected from this area at home time.  

Lateness:  

If your child is late arriving at school, please ensure you accompany him or her to the school office and sign the late book. The school administrator can then take your child to their class. If children are not in school by the close of registration, they are marked as late unless we are already aware of a reason why your child will be arriving late and the Executive Headteacher deems this to be a valid reason. Lateness is monitored by the Education Welfare Office. Persistent lateness will be followed up.

Absence:  

Schools have a legal requirement to record every absence and the reason for that absence.  If your child is absent from school, please could you telephone the school office on the first day of absence and follow this up with a letter when your child returns to school. We operate ’first day call’ whereby if we haven’t heard from you by 9.30am to say why your child is absent from school, we will telephone to check the reason for their absence.  This is also an important safeguard for our children. Parents should also contact the school on subsequent days of absence unless advised differently by the Head of School or Executive Head in exceptional circumstances such as hospitalisation of a child. 

Attendance

Beckbury CE Primary School is committed to a clear philosophy that regular attendance at school is a legal requirement and that unnecessary absence will be challenged and, where appropriate, unauthorised. An ethos designed to enthuse, encourage and foster self-esteem is a vital contributory factor toward the achievement of the school’s targets on attendance and punctuality.

The Law “The parent of every child of compulsory school age shall cause him/her to receive efficient full-time education suitable: a) to his/her age, ability and aptitude, and b) to any special need he/she may have …by regular attendance at school…” (Education Act 1996 Part 1, Section 7)

Our Attendance Policy outlines our expectations of both parents and pupils with regards to regular attendance as well as what parents can expect from school.

Leave of Absence Requests

Often one of the biggest adjustments for any family once they have children of compulsory school age is recognising that family holidays need to be taken within the school holiday period. In exceptional circumstances there may be times when leave of absence from school for reasons other than holiday needs to be requested. Holiday is not deemed to be an exceptional circumstance.

In exceptional circumstances parents/carers should complete a leave of absence in term time request, available from the school office, to request time away from school. We strongly recommend that you request permission before planning any leave of absence. The request should be made in advance by the parent or carer with whom the child lives. This is the case even where it is another person who wishes to take the child out of school.

If your child goes on holiday in term time or takes leave of absence for other reasons without permission from the Executive Headteacher, the absences will be marked in the school register as unauthorised absences and this may result in a Truancy Penalty Notice of £60 (rising to £120) per parent per child being issued by the local authority. In some cases, parents may be prosecuted for the offence of failure to ensure regular attendance at school. Parents/carers should never simply discount the amount of a penalty notice from the cost of a cheaper holiday, because this is a criminal offence and, when doing so, they are always risking prosecution.

The school has a number of initiatives in place to promote and reward those pupils who have consistently good attendance.

Early Intervention

We have an Early Intervention Practitioner, Mrs Tracy Phillips, working across The Trinity Federation. Mrs Phillips can offer parents advice and practical support with regards to school attendance, children's routines at home, children's behaviours and understanding their child's needs, as well as being able to signpost parents to other services within the local authority which may be beneficial to them or their child.

Mrs Philips is also a trained emotional literacy support assistant (ELSA) and can work directly with parents and deliver one to one and small group interventions to support children's emotional wellbeing; developing their self-esteem, building confidence and independence. Parents who have worked with Mrs Phillips speak very highly of her and the positive impact her work has had with their child and often their family.