Thank you to everyone for such a FANTASTIC first day of the year, and a particular welcome to all our new families: what a wonderful community we have! 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 97% across the whole school which bucks the national trends. 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 and feel a greater sense of belonging in school. 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 for any length of time (but not medical appointments) require a Leave of Absence form to be completed. Please use the form on the school website or available at the School Office.
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/
Myself, Miss Harris, Miss Othen and Miss Jones are usually outside each morning or evening if you wish to speak with us about anything.
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 trip dates, etc. Please do check as it really is our virtual office; we post to the website daily.
To keep communication streamlined for parents we aim to send one weekly newsletter and any other letters each Friday so you are not overloaded with adhoc emails (apart from this one!). Teachers will use Dojo (Tapestry in EYFS) for any last minute messages and updates re: PE days or other tweaks to their timetables.
School Day Timings
The school day starts with the Daily Dash at 8:30am. This is an opportunity for children (and families!) to get an active start to the day with a refreshing run around our playground track, supported by our Sports Coach, Mr Halford. At this time, parents are still responsible for their children.
Please be mindful that space can be limited around the Year 1 doors, so please only enter the site if you are taking part in the Daily Dash.
The school gates open for all pupils and families at 8:40am and the school day officially begins at 8:50am when classes go inside for registration. EYFS and Year 1 children are able to enter through their classroom doors on arrival: all other years will line up with staff supervising. A swift drop off in encouraged so that we are able to get the site locked and secure ready for the start of the day.
For arrivals after 8:50am, 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.
EYFS and KS1 finish school at 3:10pm.
KS2 finish school at 3:20pm.
Last year, we were really grateful to everyone for clearing the school site quickly at the end of each 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.
School Street
We are fortunate to have one of the few operating School Street schemes. This means that Greyfriars Road is shut to traffic between Longden Coleham and Salters Lane each day.
- Start of the day: closed at 8:30am; reopened at 9:00am
- End of the day: closed at 3:00pm; reopened at 3:30pm
To keep this safe and smooth for our community, including our neighbours, there are some important points to note and remember:
- Please do not move the cones yourself to enter or leave the road, or to allow others to enter or leave the road
- Please do not drive out of the closed road until it is reopened
- Please do not use Salter’s Lane: several parents have blocked drives, lanes and houses which has caused upset and significant disruption
- Please pass this information on to any other adults that may collect your children
Allergens and food in school update
In line with current guidance, we have reviewed our allergen procedures. Our school catering team has a ‘no nuts’ policy. This means that our caterers have agreements in place with suppliers so we cannot order products that ‘contain tree nuts’ or ‘may contain tree nuts’ for school meals served at lunchtime.
There is no ban on any foods in packed lunches. We foster a culture of allergy awareness in school. Staff are allergen trained and we have safeguards and control measures in place to protect children with allergies and regularly remind children that they should NOT share food, and only eat the food that has been provided to them by staff or parents & carers.
Parents can help us maintain a culture of allergy awareness in school by:
- informing us of your child’s allergies and keeping us up to date with any changes
- regularly remind your child to not share any food you have provided in their packed lunch
- to only send in fruit/veg as a breaktime snack. (EYFS & KS1 children each receive a free portion of fruit at break)
We carefully control food coming into school for allergy and nutrition reasons, therefore we do not allow birthday treats to be shared with the class. Instead we recommend donating a book to the classroom book corner to be shared
I’ve really enjoyed the first day back: the children have been great and it’s been wonderful to see all the children again after a relaxing summer break.
We’ll look forward to seeing you on the September Social on the 13th September, and also our Open Classroom event on Monday 22nd September where you’ll have a chance to see your children’s new classroom and meet their teachers.
Yours sincerely,
Tom Larkham
Headteacher