Message from the Headteacher
Dear Parent / Carer,
We are very excited to share our new website with you which we think will really improve our ability to communicate and share information with you. We are adding and updating information all the time so please have a look at the site regularly and let us have any ideas and suggestions about things we could add or areas we could improve.
The challenges that many people are facing with the cost of living continue into 2024, and, you will be aware that we have modified our uniform expectations. All students must wear a white shirt and tie (a student’s first tie is provided by the school on day 1), black trousers or skirt, either a Lyng Hall blazer or a Lyng Hall jumper, or both, and, plain black footwear. Trainers if worn must be plain black. No other footwear is acceptable.
We think that this is a very smart uniform option and is much cheaper that the expectation from some other schools so we will insist that students wear it and look smart. Sixth form students should also be dressed smart/casual as though they were going to work in an office environment. Students who turn up in denim or are otherwise unacceptably dressed will be sent home to change.
The high standard I am describing is the same across all schools in the Multi Academy Trust, it is important as there will be lots of opportunities for collaboration with students from the other schools.
You will be aware from recent letters that the school day timings have been extended slightly. The school day will commence at 8.50am with the end of compulsory lessons at 3.15pm. Wider Experience sessions will still run until 4pm each day. We are required by law to close our morning register at 9.15am which means that any student arriving after 9.15am will be marked as absent and this will count towards their unauthorised absence total.
Attendance continues to be a huge priority for us. Too many students are missing on average more that one day every 2 weeks which gives an overall attendance below 90%. The Government classes this as persistent absence and requires some further action. Please make sure that your children attend school every day and arrive on time. We are going to be sharing information with you each week about your child, if they are persistently late to school or lessons. We will tell you exactly how much time they have missed and how this can be made up. We are doing this because all the evidence shows that students who have an attendance below 95% are likely to fail to meet their targets. Obviously the lower the attendance the lower the grades a student is likely to achieve. We rely very heavily on you to make sure that your child comes to school every day and arrives on time for an 8:50 start.
Our phone policy will continue to be rigorously applied. Students must not have their phones out or be using them (including to listen to music) at any time during the school day, including break and lunchtimes. It is very clear that removing this huge distraction allows them to focus much better on their learning and removes the constant need to check their phones. Pupils who have their phone out will have it taken from them and they will have it back at the end of the day. If the problem occurs persistently, you will be asked to come in to school to collect the phone and we will put in place a plan moving forward.
There has been a lot of research published recently about the terrible impact that negative social media and messaging has on children’s well-being. If students send or receive unkind messages, we need you to act to stop it. If we find out about it at school, we will support you. If the problem continues we may involve our link Police Officer, or, we will give you the contact details of the parents of the child sending the messages, so that you can contact them directly. Too much of children’s time is being lost to unhappiness caused by negative social media.
The Pulse app which we introduced, which allows the students to share how they are feeling and to ask for help and support if they are worried about anything has been hugely successful. The app will also give students the opportunity to send positive messages to each other, to you, or, their teachers. The messages are selected from a menu, so can only be positive. We hope this will help students to see how you feel much better when you send and receive positive messages.
Our SENCo and Deputy SENCo do not have a teaching timetable and can work all day supporting the students. They have created a lovely space for the students they work with which has proved very popular.
Behaviour in school is very important and we spend a lot of time focusing on student’s attitude to their learning. I firmly believe that all students are entitled to be in lessons that are calm and purposeful and where they are not distracted by other students, or distracting themselves through the use of their phone! We have a simple set of classroom expectations that we use to measure student engagement with the learning. From time to time we may need your support to ensure that your children behave appropriately and do not disrupt their own or other children’s learning. We use a comprehensive system of codes to log positive and negative behaviour and we intervene to maximise the positive! You can check on your child’s conduct record using the MCAS app. Attendance, punctuality and homework are all also recorded on this app. If you have any problems with this, please contact the school.
The extension to the dining room is completed and we have a food servery in the covered courtyard. There will then be four places where the students can access food at break and lunchtime; it will make queues smaller and increase the options we can offer.
Students in the sixth form now have a dedicated area of the school for their lessons and their independent study; this year there will be nearly 200 students in the sixth form, many of them also providing peer mentoring for the younger students.
Please sign in to your My Child at School account and ensure that your child(ren) has logged in to the student portal. I have sent a separate communication with details about how to do this. It will enable you and them to be able to see the homework set, timetables and events etc.
Please discuss this information with the students so they are fully aware of what we all expect from them.
Thank you for your support
Best wishes
Paul Green
