Charlton School

8^th September 2022

Dear Parents and Carers

Welcome back, I hope that you have managed to have a more normal summer break for the first time in a couple of years, and even perhaps managed a holiday.  There has been a positive buzz in the school this week, staff and students appear refreshed and ready to excel again this year.

I would like to start by acknowledging the amazing results our 2022 leavers achieved in their GCSEs.  We have achieved our highest ever results as a school, despite the challenges the students faced over the last few years.

Whilst it is certainly not all about the students who achieve the highest grades, I would like to mention Erin, Tilly, Alicia and Louis who all achieved grades 8 and above in all of their subjects, a phenomenal achievement.  They were amongst 20 students who averaged grade 7s (old A grade!) in all their subjects.  I am also particularly proud of our students with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, they made excellent progress and many achieved grades well above their predicted outcomes.

We have a number of new staff members starting with us this term, I am sure you will join with me in welcoming them to Charlton School.  Joining the Senior Leadership Team, we have Mrs Prosser Assistant Vice Principal for Inclusion (SENCo), and Mr Thomas (our Head of PE) as an Associate Senior Leader for Vocational Education.

Joining the teaching staff: Mr Ellam (Head of Computing), Mrs McKevitt (English), Mr Baro-Thomas (Maths), Mrs Walker (MFL), Mrs Ghosh (Maths), Miss Gibb (Technology and Art) and Miss Fozzard (Science and PE).

Starting with us in support roles: Miss Tipton (Behaviour Support Worker), Mrs Kinsey (Safeguarding Officer), Mrs Cunningham (Safeguarding Officer), Miss Blythe (Librarian), Mrs Beach, Mrs Tarsitano and Mr Munt (Teaching Assistants), and Mr Sharpe (IT Technician).

We have invested heavily over the summer to make the school environment and IT equipment better for our students.  We have a new canopy outside of the dining room to provide additional covered seating at breaks and lunch, new fencing around the sports hall for additional safety and we have refreshed a large amount of out student IT equipment, with many new laptops throughout the school and a new fixed computer suite in ICT1.

Please can I also take this opportunity to remind you and the students of some of our expectations, we have extremely high standards and make no apologies for this.  Please discuss and share the following information with your child.

Uniform

We expect all students to take pride in their uniform and appearance, including PE Kit, and we would like to thank parents for their continued support regarding our high expectations of uniform. Most students have returned to school smartly dressed and remain so throughout the academy day.

We believe that uniform plays a valuable role in contributing to the culture of our school, setting an appropriate tone and instilling pride in our students.

The uniform also plays an important role in:

• Supporting positive behaviour and discipline, encouraging identity with, and support for, the school ethos
• Promoting a strong, cohesive school identity that supports high standards and a sense of identity among students
• Ensuring students of all ethnic and religious backgrounds feel welcome
• Protecting children from social pressures to dress in a particular way

Our uniform items are available from Bakers and Sons (in Wellington or online) and uniform guidance can be found at the link here: http://charlton.uk.com/parent-student-information/uniform

Required Equipment

We strongly recommend that a school bag is brought into school every day and be large enough to carry the basic equipment, exercise books and A4 documentation. Every student is expected to bring the following basic items of equipment for every day:

A black or blue pen, red pen, pencil, ruler and PE kit (required as timetabled)

Attendance

We know that absence due to illness is unavoidable, but we also know that absence is proven to have a significant negative impact upon a child’s educational attainment and further education.  Regular attendance is not only a legal requirement but is essential for children/young people to maximise their educational opportunities.

Any absence affects the pattern of a student’s schooling and regular absence will seriously affect their learning. Student absence also disrupts teaching routines so may affect the learning of others in the same class, as well as the student themselves. If a student’s attendance drops below 90%, the student will have missed over 95 lessons in a year, significantly impacting their potential to learn.

Ensuring students attend regularly at school is a parent/carer’s legal responsibility.

For our students to gain the greatest benefit from their education it is vital they attend school regularly. All students should be at school, on time, every day the school is open, unless the reason for the absence is unavoidable.

We know that there continues to be many challenges for families and students regarding attendance to school; families continue to be impacted by COVID-19 illness, and we know that some students will be anxious about attending school after the summer break.

At Charlton we have a wide range of staff available to help support your child with good attendance and if you require support, I would ask that you first make contact with their Head of Year or Pastoral Manager, who will then be able to direct you to the necessary support needed.

Punctuality to School

We have a small number of students who are late to school. From Monday, any student who arrives after 8:50am will receive an automatic break detention on the same day.  Frequently, children who are late are dropped off by parents, please ensure you have dropped your child off on site by 8:40am.

Punctuality to Lessons

As part of our drive to continually improve the standards of behaviour around school, students are deemed as truanting if they arrive to any lesson more than 5 minutes after the scheduled start time (this includes students returning from any break or lunch slot).

If a student arrives to lesson more than 5 minutes late, they will be placed in the Behaviour Recovery Room (BRR) for the following day.

We are extremely proud of the high expectations and standards at our school, and we know that only a small number of students fail to arrive to lesson on time. We value learning time at Charlton and therefore we want to maximise any lesson time by ensuring students move with purpose to arrive as quickly as possible to their next lesson.

We also want to ensure that corridors are cleared as quickly as possible to reduce the risk of any unacceptable behaviour occurring, as students are at their best when supervised by their teacher in class.

In addition, we want to reassure parents/carers that when there is a legitimate and reasonable reason for a student arriving late to lesson no student will be unfairly sanctioned.

Mobile Phones and Headphones/Pods

A reminder that mobile phones are to be switched off and away during the school day. We would very much welcome your support with the policy and would ask that if you need to contact your son or daughter you do so through reception. A reminder that any student found to have their phone out during the school day will have their phone confiscated until the end of the day on the first occasion. Any subsequent confiscation will require the phone to be collected by a parent/carer.

Students must also remove headphones (including wireless pods) at the gate.

Sanctions

To ensure high levels of behaviour for learning within the classroom we have three levels of detentions at Charlton:

• C1 detention lasts for 10 minutes and takes place with the member of staff who has issued the C1
• C2 detentions are 30 minutes and take place in the Media Open Classroom with a member of the senior leadership team. If students are issued a C2 the detention will take place the next day and it is vital that students attend their detention to stop it escalating to a C3 detention
• C3 detentions last for 60 minutes and are also held in the Media Open Classroom by a member of the senior leadership team. Failure to attend a C3 detention will lead to an internal exclusion in our Behaviour Recovery Room.

End of School Day

We would like to highlight the provision that is made for students at the end of the school day. As you are aware, the school day finishes at 3.10pm and students are always encouraged to attend supervised extra-curricular activities.

At the end of the school day, some students are waiting outside the building unsupervised for long periods of time. Even though there are some staff patrols at this time, the students are not supervised and as such they can cause a disturbance and pose a risk to those drivers entering and exiting the school premises.

We request that, unless students are in a supervised club at the end of the day, your children are collected in a timely manner from the school premises, or that they make their own way home promptly.  Failure to do this puts your child’s safety at risk and, if conduct is poor or unsafe, then the risk of sanctions being imposed increases significantly.

Meetings with Staff

As a polite reminder, parents/carers visiting the school will only be seen where they have a pre-booked appointment with a member of staff or where a safeguarding concern needs to be shared with a member of the Safeguarding Team.  We cannot guarantee to meet parents who arrive unexpectedly in reception.

Keeping routines and familiar systems in place for students, where we can, will continue to be our priority. High standards and expectations at the school underpin our key focus of providing high quality teaching and learning in the classroom and embedding a positive community culture. Thank you so much for your continued support in helping us maintain our clear standards and high expectations.

We look forward to working together to ensure your children thrive at Charlton this academic year.

Yours faithfully

Mr A McNaughton

Principal