Our Manor 27 November - 1 December 2023

Progress reports

A reminder that progress reports were sent out last week. If you have not already watched the linked video, please do watch as it explains in detail the data included on the reports and what it represents.

If you have queries about your child's report, please contact your child's form tutor or class teacher in the first case. Remember that all staff email addresses can be found on our website under Contact Us.

In order to support your child's attainment and progress we encourage parents/carers to:

1. Check their child's progress on Tassomai
2. Ensure that their child is completing the homework assignments set via Arbor in the 'assignments that are due' section
3. Support and encourage your child to read regularly

We are also working to publish the entire school curriculum mapping later in the academic year, alongside specific guidance for students and their parents/carers about what they can do at home to help improve their outcomes.

Lateness to school and lessons

Punctuality to school and lessons is important as it sets the tone for learning. Currently, lateness is logged by teachers when students arrive to sessions and school late. This can be viewed on the Arbor parent portal.

As of Monday 4 December, the following procedure will be in effect:

• At the end of each day, students will be issued with a level 0 behaviour point each time they are late without a valid note containing a reason from a member of staff. This in itself does not trigger any sanction.
• Parents/carers will receive an email every time a student has been late three times.

From Monday 11 December, the following will also occur:

• As well as receiving an email to inform that students have been late three times, an automatic lunchtime detention will be issued for the next school day.

Please support us in encouraging your child to attend school and lessons punctually to engage fully in their learning.

Staff absence and cover lessons

We understand the importance and value of high-quality teaching in the classroom and work hard to ensure that we are fully staffed with subject specialists throughout the academic year. Unfortunately, there will be times when staff absence is unavoidable, often due to temporary or short-term illness. Managing staff absence, as in any organisation, can be a reactive activity, but we are working hard to be proactive where absence may continue for longer than we would ideally like. In these cases we have already and will continue to do the following:

• Protect examination groups as far as possible by rotating specialist teachers or senior leaders for all of their lessons. This has already happened this year in maths and science.
• We will ensure that all classes receive specialist input by balancing the loads of subject specialists across all teaching groups. This is often necessary because of the first priority which is protecting the examination groups above.
• Seeking support from agencies for short-term cover from subject specialists.

There will be occasions of short-term or unavoidable emergency absence where these plans above may not be possible, but we will always make the best decision based on the availability and need daily.

In addition to managing longer term absence as described, we are working hard to manage short-term absence by:

• Providing additional training and support for supply teachers working with us from teaching agencies.
• Advertising for and recruiting permanent Manor Staff to work as cover supervisors.