Dear Parents,

School Hours
You will remember me writing to you to ask you to complete a survey about proposed changes to school hours. A huge thank you to the 123 families who responded – a large percentage of our school community. We have now had time to analyse the results.

It was clear that you like the current ‘soft start’, (gates open 10 minutes before school starts and children come straight into school). 96% wanted this to continue. 87% wanted the change of times to be made from September 2022 instead of waiting until later in the year. The proposed times were more difficult to decide upon. 50% of you wanted to start at 9:00am and finish at 3:30pm. The other 50% wanted to start earlier and finish at the same or similar time to now.

It is clear then that we cannot please everybody with this decision! Therefore, we have decided to go with the middle of the 3 options given. We feel that this is best for the children. From September 2022, school will start at 8:50am and end at 3:20pm for all children, with gates open from 8:40am.

59% of you asked for the additional 15 minutes to be used for social time, meaning 41% wanted more lesson time. We have read and listened to your comments and also spoken to the children. As a result, we have decided that we will extend children’s eating time in the hall at lunchtime by a few minutes and use the remaining few minutes to slightly extend the afternoon lessons.

Some parents felt that children were in school for long enough and didn’t want us to change hours at all. This isn’t a choice that we are making, but a decision made for all schools by the Department for Education. What is important is that we use it in the most appropriate way for our children. We feel this gives us a good balance and reflects opinions of all concerned.

To summarise: School hours will be 8:50am – 3:20pm for all children from September 2022. The ‘soft start’ will continue and gates will be open from 8:40am with children being able to come straight into school.

Parents Questionnaire
I know I have asked you to complete several questionnaires in the past few weeks – this really will be the last one! It is really important that we hear your views on school so that we can continue to improve. I would be really grateful if you could click the link below to complete the questionnaire that will help us with school improvement planning for next year. It is very easy and will only take a few minutes. Obviously, the more voices we hear, the better. Thank you for your support with this.

TO COMPLETE THE QUESTIONNAIRE, PLEASE CLICK HERE.

Thank you for your ongoing support.