Dear Parent/Carer,
I’m writing this week to welcome you all back to the new academic year. We’ve had an incredibly busy week at Thrybergh and it’s been such a pleasure to welcome back all of our students. I would like to extend a warm welcome to the parents of all of our new Y7 students. They have had a wonderful start and have settled in very well.
This week, we’ve combined the new school year with Covid testing and our staff have done a fabulous job in testing the whole school twice in two days. The students who were tested were polite, patient and courteous. They demonstrated one of the core school values – we are respectful and we listen to others. I can’t emphasise enough how proud I am of how they handled this.
It’s a pleasure to see the school operating as normal as possible again. As you’ll know, we no longer have bubbles and are not operating staggered start/finish times. The buzz around school is exciting and the staff and students are very happy to be working in a ‘normal’ environment again.
One of our key focuses for this year is attendance and punctuality. We all recognise the importance of being in school every day and of being here on time. I have set all students an attendance target of 97% this year. I accept this is a challenging target and it is one I think we can all achieve. To achieve it, we will need your help. It’s vital that all students should be in school if they possibly can be, so if they have a headache or are feeling tired, they still need to come into school. They should only ever be absent if they absolutely have to be.
The school day starts at 8:35am, so all students should be in school by 8:30am to ensure they are not late. Any students who arrive in school after this time will be placed in late detention and will lose one of their breaktimes. Students who arrive after 8:55am, must report to main reception to get their present mark before they go to lesson. Schools are required legally to close their register sessions and our morning session closes at 10:30am. If a student arrives after this time they will be marked late and this will be recorded as absent for the morning session.
Our detentions system has also changed slightly. After school detentions will now be 30 mins long, from 2:55 – 3:25pm and will happen on the same day. If your child has a detention, you will be sent a message informing you of this. There will be no exceptions for any student who has disrupted learning. If a student misses a detention, they will be in our isolation room the following school day.
Next week I will bring you exciting news about changes to our rewards system and what that will mean for your child. It will ensure that students who do everything they should – day in, day out – will be rewarded. Those who attend regularly, and demonstrate the values of The Thrybergh Way will be celebrated and rewarded as they should be.
Finally, we will be holding our Y6 Open Evening – for prospective children and their parents – on Thursday 14th October. I’m incredibly excited to say that we will be able to welcome guests into school to look around and experience some of the subjects we offer. We welcome any prospective parents from the local area and beyond to come and see Thrybergh for themselves.
Yours sincerely,
Mr Burnham
Headteacher
