Dear Parents/Carers,
Thank you to everyone for such a FANTASTIC start to the year! We always appreciate our families’ support with keeping Coleham running smoothly and you have all done a great job at helping us out with these three important things:
- Showing up to school
- Being on time
- Wearing the right uniform
These are three simple things, but they go a long way to helping school remain orderly and calm which in turn allows us to provide your children with the best possible school experience.
Attendance
School attendance at Coleham was particularly excellent last year – almost three-quarters of the school had above 95% attendance. Encouraging strong attendance is not about school data: we don’t praise 100% attendance as if avoiding bugs is some kind of skill, but we do know that children with higher attendance often do better in the long-run. If your child is unwell and unable to come into school, we trust you to make the right call. If you are unsure or would appreciate some guidance, please get in touch with us. Occasionally, children can become poorly during the school day if this were to happen, we will get in touch with you to make arrangements for them to go home.
Our Trust’s attendance policy, with specific information relevant to Coleham Primary School, can be found on our school website by clicking on the following link:
Attendance Policy & Appendices – Coleham Primary School
Below are some highlighted details you might find particularly useful:
Leaves of Absence
Any requests for an absence from school (but not medical appointments) require a Leave of Absence form to be completed. The form has been updated for this year, so please use the form on the school website, this can be found via the link above and a copy of it is also enclosed with this letter.
Medical appointments
We understand that it can be very difficult to get medical appointments at convenient times in this day and age, but if possible, appointments outside of the school day are very helpful. Please email the absence email address to let us know of upcoming appointments.
Reminder from the School Office
If your child is unable to come to school, please email us each morning before 9:00am. The policy says to do this by 9:30am at the latest, but knowing before registers are taken is very helpful. Please use the absence email address below, and also tell us some details. We are held to account for absences, so we need to know what the illness is.
absence@col.318education.co.uk
If your child is struggling to attend school for any reason, please get in touch so we can help. When attendance goes under 90%, we may get in touch with families to offer any support that may be appropriate, and we will always get in touch after 5 days of continuous absence to be compliant with our safeguarding obligations.
Contacting Us
Please keep talking to us; tell us if we have done a good job or how things could be better! Let us know if there’s anything we can support with: if you are experiencing any worries at home, or as a family, please talk with class teachers or our Pastoral Lead, Mrs Nash. Details of who and how to contact us are on our website:
https://colehamprimary.co.uk/home/about/find-us/
Our website is live and up-to-date and the first port of call for any query you may have. The Parents’ Area section contains all Letters Home, Weekly Newsletters, Term Dates and a Calendar of events; and the Classroom pages show you staff working with your children, trip dates, PE dates etc. Please do check as it really is our virtual office, we post to the website daily.
School Day Timings
The school gates open at 8:40am and the school day officially begins at 8:50am when your children’s teachers come out to collect the classes for registration so please ensure your children are ready to enter the classroom at 8.50am.
After 8:50am when the children have gone into class and the site starts to be secured for the start of the day, your child will need to enter through the main front door. Here they will be greeted by office staff who will assist them to sign in electronically. This sign in is required as it feeds into our registration system. We record a Late mark from 9:00am to 9:15am and if you arrive after 9:15am, this is recorded as an absence for the morning session. If you are finding being on time a challenge, please get in touch and we can offer some support.
We have been really grateful to everyone for clearing the school site quickly at the end of the day. For safeguarding reasons and security of after school clubs, we must have the site locked up by 3:30pm and the road opened to traffic, so please do remind your children not to stay and play for too long on the equipment.
Without Mr Jones opening and locking the site, we have been incredibly grateful for your help these first few weeks so that Miss Othen, Miss Turner and I can do those jobs and get back into school for the day as quickly and efficiently as possible. The start and end-of-day routine has been a DREAM so far.
I’ve really enjoyed the first few weeks of school: what a community we have. We couldn’t do the things we do without your help. Thank you!
Yours sincerely,
Tom Larkham
Headteacher