Lunchtime Arrangements

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Lunchtime works on a rotational basis and we have now added in one year group eating packed lunches in class every day. Children are never rushed to eat in the dining hall and have plenty of time to eat. All children are in the hall by 12.45 and lunch finishes at 1.10pm – but even then we would always allow children to finish eating if there has been a delay. With five days and four year groups, one year group does have to be ‘last’ into lunch twice a week, but we change the order every half term. 

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Club Bookings/Extra-Curricular Activities

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Our clubs are extremely popular and they sell out within minutes, especially if there are only a small number of places available due to space. Booking letters for clubs are sent at 5pm, as requested by the parent council.

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We monitor the attendance and uptake of the clubs we run in school and rotate the places on a termly/half-termly basis to try and ensure access for as many children as possible. We are unable to do this for clubs provided by external providers – they are not run by the school and have their own booking systems. 

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The club timetable is on the website and this is regularly updated. 

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Clubs run by staff are done so through goodwill – unfortunately we receive numerous complaints regarding clubs and places available. Please try to bear in mind that we are doing our best to provide a wide variety of clubs and extra-curricular activities but this will only be the case if parents try to understand our restrictions and how we try to mitigate against them.

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Quality of Hot Dinners

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Please direct all comments and complaints regarding hot dinners to Ms Froydenlund – we have no influence over the hot dinners. Bigger portions are offered to the junior children.

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Access to Drinking Water

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Children have access to their water bottles during the day as well as the water fountains on the playground. We do not stop them from drinking.

 

Air Up Bottles

 

Air Up bottles are not allowed in school because they often leak. Children fiddle with the pods and this causes leaks within the classroom, sometimes damaging work. 

 

ParentPay Communications

 

ParentPay issues must be reported to the school office - office@wljs.porticoacademytrust.co.uk

The site sometimes crashes, but this is not our fault. The office staff work as quickly as possible to stop problems.

 

Swimming Lessons

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Swimming is part of the National Curriculum so all schools would provide swimming lessons in some form. We are fortunate to have a swimming pool on site, meaning that we can provide above and beyond the minimum requirement for swimming. Our children spend half an hour in the pool each week, ensuring that they leave the school as confident swimmers. A recent survey suggested that we charge less than a third of the average cost of swimming lessons. We do have to charge in order to cover the cost of our swimming teachers, maintaining the pool and paying for heating and lighting. If too many parents choose not to pay we cannot keep the pool open.

 

Goggles are both dangerous and distracting when children are learning to swim. Furthermore, our ethos is that the children should learn to swim confidently in any situation. Therefore, only children who have achieved their 100m badge are able to wear goggles for their swimming lessons. 

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Communication

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We have to balance advanced warning and sending information too early that parents forget the message! This is a tricky job and we do our best to get it right. We try to keep communications timely and limited. As is the nature of a busy school, sometimes things do change, but we try and put all updates and changes on the weekly newsletter, so please read that carefully each week.

 

Sports Teams

We take part in more sporting events than any other local school – as recognised by our recent prize for participation. Our PE and Sport lead carefully monitors the attendance of children who represent the school. We also take part in a wide variety of sporting events that are based on enjoyment and participation rather than elite competition. This ensures that many children get the opportunity to represent the school throughout the school year. We encourage all the children to try everything they can and we will always take as many additional teams as we can for the different events.

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Emptying Rubbish from Lunchboxes

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The reason we send rubbish in lunchboxes home is twofold – firstly, we just do not have the room for all of the rubbish that this would produce on a daily basis! Secondly, it is very important that parents are able to see what their child has/has not eaten – as shown by the recent incident where a child was throwing away their whole lunch, which we were able to track and inform parents. If yoghurt or drinks are leaking, we suggest providing a sandwich bag in which to put the rubbish.

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Returning Lost Property

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Named items are returned to classes by our monitors. 

 

Earrings for PE

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Earrings cannot be worn or covered for PE – this is a policy found in all schools. Medical advice confirms that any jewellery worn in physical education lessons is an unnecessary risk and should be avoided at all times. Serious accidents have occurred as a result of contact between pupils wearing earrings or studs and other pupils or equipment, thus damaging the ear, or where items of jewellery have caught in apparatus and torn the ear lobe. The taping of jewellery can create a perception of safety and is not permitted. Tape can often fall off and does not reduce the risk of compression injury.

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Newly pierced ears can take a period of up to six weeks before sleepers and studs can be removed. We do remind parents and carers that ears should be pierced at the start of the summer holidays to allow sufficient time for earrings to be safely removed.

 

PE Kit

 

The PE days can be found on the school website under the year group pages and within your child’s communication book. If your child wears PE kit on a day that it is not their day for PE by mistake, it will not matter. However, we are unable to phone home for PE kit if your child does not wear the correct kit when required.

 

Cancellation of PE

 

If outdoor PE has to be cancelled due to poor weather, we do our best to carry out the lesson indoors (however, this is not always possible due to limited hall space). If we have to make changes to the timetable due to activities such as trips to the woods or beach, we always try to make up for missed sessions. Some trips to the woods and beach form part of our PE Outdoor and Adventurous Activities curriculum.

 

PE Trainers

 

These must be fully black, with no white sole. They are now a part of our uniform and it is important that we eliminate the need for children and parents to feel that they must follow trends and buy particular expensive brands or styles. 

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Reading and Spelling

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For more information about the school’s approach to these areas, please visit the relevant web pages here

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COVID - 19

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As we enter the colder months when coughs and colds usually emerge, we wanted to clarify the school's approach to COVID-19.

 

In line with NHS guidance, we recommend that children stay home from school if they have a high temperature or feel too unwell to carry out their normal routine. Once they are better, they should return to school. If your child has mild symptoms such as a runny nose, sore throat or mild cough, and they feel well enough, they can come to school.

 

Children are no longer required to do a COVID-19 rapid lateral flow test if they have symptoms.

 

However, if a child has a positive COVID-19 test result, NHS guidance suggests they should try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for 3 days after the day they took the test, if they can. After 3 days, if they feel well and do not have a high temperature, the risk of passing the infection on to others is much lower.