Consultation – adjustments to the school day

Many of the enrichment activities after school will be open to students across different year groups, so students will be able to socialise with friends who aren’t in the same group during the day.

Yes, but this is not connected to the changes to the school day timings.Many of you will be aware that, in previous years, students in Year 11 have been able to leave the site at lunchtimes. In response to safeguarding advice, this won’t continue for future years. This decision is unrelated to the changes proposed above, although we do hope that the earlier finish of the teaching day and the offer of a range of clubs and intervention and revision activities after school will give students flexibility about how they use their time and help make their final year as successful and enjoyable as possible. We will be consulting with our current Year 10 students to consider ways we can improve their experience at social times in Year 11.

There will be a range of enrichment activities available after school every day, so if you prefer, your child will be able to stay in school and remain supervised until 3.25pm every day

We would be delighted to hear from anyone who would be interested in helping with enrichment activities. Just contact the school with your ideas and we’ll take it from there. We would complete a DBS check for all volunteers before they started.

This is a relatively small change – just 15 minutes earlier – so students should be able to adapt without too much difficulty, as they do after school holidays and/or the clocks change by an hour.

There is research that suggests that students are more likely to recognise the value and importance of a taught lesson, as opposed to form time, so this encourages them to arrive at school on time and miss less learning. Having stationery/equipment available for students at the ‘shops’ by the two gates means we can help get them ready for learning as soon as the school day starts.

We’ve checked the time against all our regularly used bus routes and the new start time works just as well (better in some cases). We acknowledge of course that bus times change on a regular basis and this is beyond our control. We would ask that any families with concerns about a particular bus route get in touch with us to discuss.