Dear Parents/Carers,
The recently published Department for Education White Paper sets out the governmental expectation that all state funded schools will be offering a minimum of a 32.5 hour week for all children. The expectation is that this will be met as soon as possible.
As you know we put forward a proposal that we are confident would be the least disruptive to parents and of course, the most favoured as far as children’s learning is concerned.
We understand that we are stuck between a rock and a hard place as we cannot put into action something that will please everyone. If we bring forward the start time, some parents will find that tricky and if we extended the end of the day some parents will find that tricky. We have looked carefully at the small number of responses we had and shared those with our Governors. We all know that children learn best when they are fresh in the mornings and less so when perhaps they are tired in the afternoons. As we already open the doors at 840 am and the majority of children are in at this time, we felt this would be the most favoured option for our school.
We are bringing this into action from Monday 6th June straight after half term. We will follow this pattern:
- 8.30 a.m. Open gates
- 8.35 a.m. Open classroom doors
- 8.40 a.m. Take the registers
Teachers already use this 8.40 am until 9.00 am slot to deliver intervention and ‘catch up’ activities. They are planning on developing this use of time from the beginning of the half term, in accordance with having a full class ready to learn at this time.
Like with any change, we are expecting a few teething issues that we will adapt to over time. We are lucky that we have a Breakfast club and After School club in our school that already accommodates a very significant number of children.
Many thanks for your support.
Miss Cook
Headteacher
Newdale Primary School and Nursery
