2 years ago
Posted on 01st Jul 2024 by Mrs Millington

Penalty Notice Fines For School Attendance Is Changing

Please find below information which has been forwarded from the Telford & Wrekin attendance support team.

From August 19^th 2024 the Government have introduced a new ‘national framework for Penalty Notices’. (in Telford & Wrekin the changes apply from 1^st September 2024).

There are significant changes that parents need to be aware of:

If your child has 10 sessions of unauthorised absence in a 10 school week rolling period, you may be issued with a Penalty Notice. These 10 sessions may include any unauthorised absence, including leave in term time and do not have to be consecutive.
Penalty Notices are increasing to £160 from September 2024. This can be reduced to £80 but only for the first Penalty Notice issued, if paid within 21 days – this reduction does not apply to any subsequent Penalty Notice.
Any 2^nd Penalty Notice, to the same parent for the same child, issued within three years of the date of the first Penalty Notice will be charged at a flat rate of £160
A third Penalty Notice will not be issued within a three year rolling period, to the same parent for the unauthorised absence of the same child, – alternative action or legal measures will be utilised for subsequent offences.
In some circumstances a ‘Notice to Improve’ may be issued – However, a Notice to Improve will only be used in cases where support is appropriate. They will not be issued in cases of unauthorised leave in term time for holidays, where information for parents is included on schools website or a simple warning by the school that a Penalty Notice could be issued if unauthorised leave in term time is taken will suffice.

‘Parents should always apply to the Headteacher for any request for leave in term time by completing a request form available from school. (DfE guidance states schools should not authorise leave retrospectively so any leave in term time taken without a request being submitted will be unauthorised absence)’.

In developing and publishing the new national framework, the Government has renewed appeals to parents not to take their children out of school during term time. The Governors and Headteacher of this school support this and students will only be given permission to take leave in term time if there are exceptional circumstances. The DfE Guidance Working Together to Improve School Attendance (Feb 2024) states that: Generally, the DfE does not consider the need or desire for a holiday or other absence for the purpose of leisure and recreation to be an exceptional circumstance. (Paragraph 38.)

Each application for leave in term time will be considered and if it is agreed and authorised the Headteacher will determine the duration of any leave. However, if the application is not agreed and the absence occurs the dates will be unauthorised. Parents will be notified of any decision in writing. This notification may be hand delivered directly to the parent or posted to the parents’ home address.

As a school we are asked to inform you that in line with Telford and Wrekin Council Policy, if your child is absent for 10 school sessions within a 10 week rolling period and that absence is unauthorised, you may be subject to a Penalty Notice fine, criteria is as detailed above.

2 years ago
Posted on 27th Jun 2024 by Mrs Millington

Staff Leaving

Dear Parents/Carers,

It is with sadness that I must inform you that Mrs Maddock will be leaving Year 4 in July. She has worked tirelessly as a class teaching assistant for the majority of this year and has worked with our After School Club too.

Mrs Maddock, of course, will be sadly missed by everyone.

I know you will join me in wishing her the very best of luck.

Kind regards,

Miss Cook

2 years ago
Posted on 25th Jun 2024 by Mrs Millington

Parking

Dear Parents/Carers

We have received complaints from local residents concerning parking by parents/carers whilst dropping off and picking up children from school. Please be considerate to our neighbours as they have advised us of instances where they have been late for work due to their cars being blocked in. We understand space is at a premium for parking but if you are able to find an alternative mode of transport, such as walking or cycling that would have benefits for all.

Thank you for your ongoing co-operation in this matter.

2 years ago
Posted on 13th Jun 2024 by Mrs Millington

Arthog Hoodie’s

Please click on the below link for information on ordering Arthog Hoodies. Please ensure you have competed all relevant information on the order form on ParentPay.

Deadline for ordering is Monday 15th July.

Arthog_Leaflet_2024

2 years ago
Posted on 21st May 2024 by Mrs Millington

RHSE Update

Dear Families,

In our curriculum, we continue to use PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic) programmes across our school called 1decision and Respect Yourself, a programme devised by the curriculum committee of Shropshire Council. These programmes include elements of Relationships Education, Health Education and Sex Education. We shared our policy with parents and carers in the Autumn Term of 2022 and adjusted it according to feedback.

We give notice to families each year that the RSHE lessons will be taught during the Summer Term. We let you know so that if children want to talk to you about what they have been learning, you are ready to set aside some time to listen to their thoughts and feelings and help them to understand.

In every year group, the theme includes two or three lessons to help children understand the human body, including the changes that take place during puberty, and how human reproduction happens. There is a very serious safeguarding aspect to this work and obviously the younger year groups are not looking at these issues directly and explicitly but rather learning correct terminology for body parts and doing the foundation work for later year groups. Upper Key Stage classes look more fully at puberty and human reproduction.

We hope you will agree that this work is vitally important for children, that it needs to be done age-appropriately and that the 1decision and Respect Yourself programme gives us a secure framework in which to do this.

It is your legal right to withdraw your children from Sex Education that is outside of the National Curriculum for Science. Relationships Education and Health Education is statutory for all primary schools.

You may be aware that the government are consulting on changes to the statutory guidance on teaching relationships and sex education, and Health education. This may affect the delivery of our programme next year and we will keep you informed. There are no changes to our programme this year.

Please talk to us if you have any questions.

Yours sincerely,

Miss Cook

2 years ago
Posted on 16th May 2024 by Mrs Millington

World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development

On Tuesday 21st May we will be celebrating the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development.

As part of these celebrations, we would like to invite your child to share their culture, religion or beliefs with us. This can be in the form of traditional dress, articles of faith, books or food (please ensure a clear ingredient list is given and speak to your child’s teacher if you are concerned about allergies), a presentation they have created about a religious event or any other relevant items.

If your child would like to share any such items with their class, please prepare them for sharing by ensuring they know clearly about the item as we are sure there will be plenty of questions as we all will want to know more.

Thank you, Mrs Churm.

3 years ago
Posted on 22nd Apr 2024 by Mrs Millington

Attendance

Dear Parents,

We wanted to remind you how important being in school each day really is for your child.

Every lesson counts, and each lesson builds upon the previous one. We know children can become poorly, but every day missed can lead to gaps in learning and difficulty for a child to understand and therefore progress well. It can also lead to anxiety for a child who can feel they have missed out.

School is more than simply learning, it is also a place where children develop vital social skills, build friendships, become independent and learn how to deal with their emotions. Research consistently proves that children who attend school regularly perform better academically. Just a few days missed can impact overall achievement.

In addition, school is a community where its learners gain a sense of belonging. A teacher’s ability to personalise support and assess a child’s understanding can only be achieved at its best in the classroom.

It is not just missing days that can have a negative impact, but late arrival too – learning starts straight away each morning. Without a clear morning routine, perhaps a missed breakfast or being late into the middle of a lesson, children can lose confidence.

For these reasons, please remember that leave of absence in term time cannot be sanctioned for reasons such as holiday. We want to ensure that every child thrives. Only very exceptional circumstances will be considered. We do quite understand that holiday companies charge significantly more during school holidays. However, we are hoping that holidays will alter over the next few years which should make them more accessible for everyone, whilst not disrupting the education of your children.

Do contact our pastoral team or office should you have any concerns about attendance, so we can support you and resolve any issues quickly.

Please remember that every day in school is an investment in your child’s future. Working together to prioritise this can only support them to succeed.

Kind regards,

Miss Cook

Headteacher

Newdale Primary School and Nursery

3 years ago
Posted on 26th Feb 2024 by Mrs Millington

World Book Day Swap Shop

Thank you to all of the parents who have donated to the World Book Day Swap Shop.

We are all set up and ready to go!

Please come to the Den with your tickets at 8.35 or 3.10 on the following days:

Reception/ Year 1 – Tuesday 27^th February

Year 2/ Year 3 – Wednesday 28^th February

Year 4/ Year 5 – Thursday 29^th February

Year 6 – Friday 1^st March

Please use the door pictured below to enter the Den.

3 years ago
Posted on 11th Jan 2024 by Mrs Millington

Site Health & Safety

Dear Parents/Carers,

Health and safety when moving around our site is extremely important. Unfortunately, our school grounds were designed in such a way that it is impossible to keep traffic and pedestrians totally separate. Since September we have had several ‘near miss’ incidents involving pedestrians and vehicles on our site, and we continue to see pedestrians walking through the car park where cars are reversing, rather than keeping to the pathways.

It is very evident that we need to alter the current arrangements in place as the risks are too high. Yesterday, the police joined me in assessing the busiest times of the day to look at ways in which we could improve safety.

We are not classified as public highways and instead are classified as private property. As such, we can decide who has access to our site at all times. This access does include blue badge holders. It is worth noting that the vast majority of schools across Telford do not allow any access to their site other than for staff and visitors.

From Monday we will be completely stopping all vehicle movement during our most busy times. The main school gates will be locked to parents each morning between 8:30 and 8:40, and again between 3:10 and 3:20. The pedestrian access will not be affected in any way.

Should you already use the school car park as you hold a blue badge and this has been agreed, you are still welcome to drive onto the site before each of these periods. As the classroom doors open at 8:35 and again at 3:10, this simply means being here five minutes early if you have need of the car park, and not moving your vehicle at all until the children are safely in the building in the morning and off site in the afternoon. In this way, we can ensure that pedestrians at those busy times can safely walk through our site.

We are trying to avoid completely preventing access as we really do want to support families as much as we can, but I hope you can see that the safety of everyone must be paramount. We will monitor how this improves the situation over the rest of this half term.

Kind regards,

Miss Cook

Headteacher

3 years ago
Posted on 19th Dec 2023 by Mrs Millington

Message from Miss Cook

19.12.23

Dear Parent/Carers,

As I hope you all know, we very much take on board the views of all our children and parents. These views are regularly shared with the Newdale teams.

We consult with pupils through every Governor meeting, and phase leaders/subject leaders also carry out additional pupil voice regularly over the year.

We believe that school and home very much need to work in partnership, with children being at the centre. There simply must be a two-way feeling of trust between school and home, along with open, honest lines of communication.

I have always prioritised having a school ‘open door’ policy where we offer many different ways of communication for parents to use, including a class email address, many staff on duty am and pm (including senior managers), office staff and home school communication books to name a few of these. The hope is always that if parents do want to relay any messages, that they can easily and rapidly.

Thank you to the 19 parents that have already filled in our request to complete Parent View this academic year.

We would very much appreciate it if many more parents would complete this survey so we can gain a fuller picture of your opinions of Newdale.

https://parentview.ofsted.gov.uk/login?destination=give-your-views

We have already begun looking carefully at the small number of responses. I understand that we cannot please everyone, but I can reassure you that all teams certainly try so hard to do just that. I am lucky enough to visit very many other schools, and I know as fact that Newdale goes above and beyond in its offer for the children we have. This is regularly verified by external visitors including our School Improvement Advisor, Local Authority quality assurance visits, safeguarding audits and of course our Ofsted visits. We are incredibly proud of the Outstanding Ofsted result which we gained in May 2023. There are only a very small number of schools across the entire country that manage the ‘double outstanding’ judgement. I hope this is external reassurance that our school continues to be operating at a very high level.

Unfortunately, some parents who have responded on Parent View so far are clearly not happy with Newdale and this is personally upsetting to me and also affects the feelings of the teams that work so hard every single day. I was surprised to see that we have parents who would not recommend us to another parent. I am keen to hear from those parents who have put ‘disagree’ or ‘strongly disagree’ as a response so any concerns you may have can be clarified/sorted. I would also very much like to talk to any parents who are not happy with our offer to see if we can improve the vital partnership between school and home.

As stated, I am under no illusion that we cannot please everyone, however, that does not stop us from trying to. I would also just like to remind all parents to be mindful about how messages are worded in reading diaries and how the Newdale team are spoken to, just like we are requested to do in other public sectors. Our teams want the very best for your children. We are all on the same side and should be focussed on working together to support children to be the best they can be.

As ever, we are keen to hear what you have to say, but there needs to be an understanding that we are partners with you for the children and not working on different sides.

That said, I would like to thank the vast majority of you who really are so supportive of our school. We would be most grateful if you could also spend a few minutes completing the Parent View online form. Your views really do count, but we cannot support any of your specific concerns without knowing how.

As a highly regarded school, we have many families desperate to get their children into our provision. I spend a lot of my time fighting appeals to keep our numbers manageable so as to keep the quality of education as good as it can be for your children.

Thank you for your support in ensuring our school continues to grow in a positive way for all of our children.

Miss Cook

Headteacher

Newdale Primary School and Nursery