Wearing school uniform is an integral part of our school community in promoting positive attitudes as well as high standards. We believe that our uniform represents the high standards of the school, and as such we would like students to take pride in their presentation.

Wearing school uniform is an integral part of our school community in promoting positive attitudes as well as high standards. We believe that our uniform represents the high standards of the school, and as such we would like students to take pride in their presentation.

Uniform (Compulsory)

The Head Teacher’s decision will be final in all matters relating to uniform, jewellery and hairstyles.

All NLS uniform can be purchased through Stitch-Tech Ltd based in Leamington Spa.

You can view our Uniform Policy here

We do receive some donations of uniform items. If you require assistance please email nls@northleamington.co.uk  

 

 

We are committed to working in partnership with you to ensure that your child has the best possible attendance at school. Good attendance is essential in supporting your child to achieve their academic targets and to assist their social development.

Any absence from school means that a learner is missing vital education; research shows that this has a negative impact on attainment. Under Section 444 of the Education Act (1996) it is an offence for your child not to attend school regularly. We have a shared responsibility to ensure that the law is upheld and that your child achieves their full potential.

To help support you and your child in making sure that they are able to maximise their opportunities with us, we have created a clear set of procedures.

General Absences

Please note: The decision to authorise any absence is at the discretion of the Head Teacher.

On the day of an absence

If your child is absent from school, please telephone us or email our Attendance Officer at attendance@northleamington.co.uk before 8.30am to explain why.

If your child is absent for more than one day, then please contact the school on each day of absence.

 If this contact is not made, you will receive a Groupcall message or telephone call requesting that you provide a reason as a matter of urgency.

 If the absence is for 3 or more consecutive days, you may be required to provide medical evidence in order for us to authorise the absence. If we are unable to make contact with you and/or your child’s attendance percentage has dropped to a concerning level, we may organise for a member of staff to conduct a home visit to you.

 You are requested to please make any medical appointments for your child outside of school hours wherever possible. If your child does need to leave school for an appointment, please provide evidence, e.g. medical appointment card/letter.

After an absence:

 If we do not receive a reason for absence from parent and carers, we will code it as unauthorised. Persistent unauthorised absence from school may lead to the involvement of the Warwickshire Attendance Service (WAS).

 

Persistent Absences

If percentage attendance has become a concern:

 We expect all students to achieve at least 96% attendance over the course of the academic year. 96% attendance equates to 7.5 school days absent per year.

 We will become concerned when a child’s percentage attendance drops below this.

 We will send you a letter informing you of our concern and asking if there are any ongoing medical issues that we are not aware of.

 We will have a discussion with your child in school to ascertain whether there are any barriers to them having good attendance and support them in overcoming these.

 Where a child has regular absences due to a confirmed medical condition, we will work with you to ensure your child has the appropriate support.

If percentage attendance does not improve:

 We will send a further letter informing you that we are increasingly concerned and that we will now require medical evidence in order to authorise any further absences.

 Your child will be put onto a Head of Year Attendance Monitoring Card and we may invite you to meet with school staff to discuss the reasons for absence.

 Failure to provide medical evidence for further absences will result in your child being referred to a pre-legal meeting with the Warwickshire Attendance Service (WAS). You will also be asked to attend the meeting so you can work with the school to improve your child’s attendance. Your child may be set a formal attendance target; failure to meet this could result in legal action, which could include a Fixed Penalty Notice.

Leave of Absence

The Supreme Court clarified has clarified the law on unauthorised leave, including holidays, during term time (Platt v Isle of Wright 2017). The Supreme Court has made clear that attending school ‘regularly’ means that the children must attend school on every day that they are required to do so. As such, the parents of any child who is absent from school without authorisation for any length of time are likely to be considered as committing an offence under s444 of the Education Act 1996.

The regulations regarding Leave of Absence (The Education (Pupil Regulations) (England) Regulations 2006 as amended by Education (Pupil Regulations) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2013.) advise

Head teachers shall not grant any Leave of Absence during term time unless they consider there are exceptional circumstances relating to the application.

If the leave is granted, Head teachers are able to determine the number of school days a child can be absent for.

It is for the Head teacher to decide what is ‘exceptional’ and it is at their discretion if the circumstances warrant the leave to be granted. When making an application for Leave of Absence in advance parents are advised to give sufficient information and time to allow the Head teacher the opportunity to consider all the exceptional circumstances and to notify parents of their decision. It is advised that if the resident parent has not received notification or a response regarding the leave of absence application, it is their responsibility to ascertain if the leave is authorised prior to the start of the leave.

The school can only consider Leave of Absence requests which are made by the ‘resident’ parent ie the parent with whom the child normally resides.

Where applications for leave of absence are made in advance and refused, the child will be required to be in school on the dates set out in the application. If the child is absent during that period, it will be recorded as an unauthorised absence, which may result in legal action being taken against the parent(s), by way of a Fixed Penalty Notice.

Where a leave of absence is requested, but additional days taken either prior to or after the request may be considered as part of the leave of absence and could result in a Fixed Penalty Notice being issued to the parent(s). Each application for a leave of absence will be considered on a case-by-case basis and on its own merits.

Leave of Absences which are not made in advance cannot be authorised in line with legislation. This will result in the absence being recorded as ‘unauthorised’. This may result in legal action against the parent, by way of a Fixed Penalty Notice. All matters of unauthorised absence relating to a Leave of Absence will be referred to the Warwickshire Attendance Service, part of Warwickshire County Council.

It is important to note, Fixed Penalty Notices are issued to each parent of each absent child, (for example 2 children and 2 parents, means each parent will receive 2 invoices in the amount of £120 each, totalling £240 for both children, this is reduced to £60 per child if paid within 21 days).

Where a Fixed Penalty Notice is not paid within the required timeframe as set out on the notice, the matter will be referred to Warwickshire County Council’s Legal Services to consider instigating criminal proceedings under S444 Education Act 1996.

Fixed Penalty Notices are issued in accordance with Warwickshire County Council’s Code of Conduct for Penalty Notices.

Your child’s progress academically as well as socially is our shared priority.

Requesting absences during term time:

For all leave of absence requests during term time, you will need to complete an application form giving us at least six weeks’ notice (except in the case of a genuine family emergency). The forms are available from Reception and should be returned there for the attention of Mrs Shelley Griffith, Attendance Officer.

To complete an application form, you must have parental responsibility and be the parent / carer with whom your child usually lives.

 Parents do not have any entitlement to take their child on holiday during term time. Only cases where there are exceptional circumstances will be considered and at the discretion of the Head Teacher.

 If your request for leave of absence is refused and your child is still taken out of school, this will be referred to WAS and may make you liable to a Fixed Penalty Notice. Punctualit

 

Arriving to school:

The first lesson of the day starts at 8.45am and students are expected to be on site at 8.30am so that they can be in their classroom on time, ready to start their day promptly and smoothly.

All gates at the rear of school will be locked at 8.40am and students will need to enter through the Late Gate at the front of school where a senior member of staff will log their name and issue a break time detention for the same day. If students fail Warwickshire School pupils recorded 96,366 half day sessions of absence due to holiday in the Academic year 2021/22. to attend the break time detention, they will be required to attend an after-school detention.

We need your support in encouraging your child to be here punctually so that they don’t miss valuable learning time and instructions.

 

Students who are late:

If your child arrives to school between 8.40am and 9.15am, they are marked with a late mark (‘L’).

If they arrive after registers close at 9.15am, and there is no valid reason, they are marked with ‘U’. This mark will affect their attendance percentage which may trigger a referral to WAS.

Students late to any lessons during the day, without authorisation, are required to make up the time during social time.

 

Students who are persistently late:

 On the third episode of lateness, with no valid reasons, students are required to attend a detention after school.

If your child is persistently late to school and/or fails to attend the after-school punctuality detentions, we will send you a letter explaining our concern and informing you that we will be monitoring your child’s punctuality for a set period; your child will be placed onto a Punctuality Target Card.

If no improvement is made during this time, your child will be invited to a Punctuality Panel and/or an interview with WAS which could result in a formal target and, if this is not met, a Fixed Penalty Notice.

These procedures are designed to support parents, students, and the school, by providing early intervention. The law requires schools to be open to students for 190 days each year, and every day is important. Please help them not to miss any of this valuable time.

If you would like to discuss your child’s attendance, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s Form Tutor or Head of Year

 

North Leamington School uses the online electronic payment service called ParentPay.  Parentpay is an online payment system used by schools to manage payments for school meals, trips, and other expenses. It allows parents to make payments securely and conveniently from their computer or mobile device.

 We’ll provide you with more information about how to set up your account during the summer holidays before your child starts

How does it Work?

Information to guide you through our portals and services is detailed below:

Internet Filtering and  Monitoring

To safeguard all users of the school network, we have two programmes installed that monitor and restrict the use of the computers and the internet.

Smoothwall is a filtering program for the internet and blocks inappropriate webpages. When a student attempts to access one of these sites the safeguarding team are notified and take action as appropriate.

Radar is a monitoring program and it monitors all usage of the PCs for inappropriate words either typed or on screen. When the software is triggered, it takes a screenshot and notifies a team at the monitoring company who assess the alert and graded them from one to five as required with grade one being a matter of simple discipline and grade five requiring immediate action. The school is notified by phone in the case of a grade five notification and the safeguarding team take action on all notifications as required.

 

Logins and Passwords 

Students

The IT department look after the student’s computer account and will set their username

Students also have access to Go4Schools (G4S) for homework, timetables, attendance graphs etc. The credentials for this are the student’s school email address and a password that can be reset from the login page.

During the student’s first weeks at school, during their first Computer Science lesson, students will receive logins for the computer system and Go4Schools.

Parents

Parents have access to Go4Schools for attendance and behaviour graphs, reports and results, home work, and notification controls.

Parents can access this by going to the Go4Schools login page https://www.go4schools.com/ selecting Parents Login and clicking first time user, this will ask for the email address they have registered with the school and will send an email to set up a password.
Once this password is set parents can login in from this page. They can also download the App for Android or Apple phones.

To book appointments for Subject Evenings we use a portal called SchoolCloud, we provide a guide on hose to use this when we send a communication regarding the Subject Evening.

ParentPay is administered by the Finance department, they can be contacted via finance@northleamington.co.uk

Groupcall

Groupcall and Go4Schools are used for our communication with parents/ carers,  generally to send emails but in the case of urgent messages we may send a text. 

Messages are sent to all parents/carers who are a priority one contact. Your contact details can be updated via Go4Schools and are then synchronised at midnight.

We endeavour to send communications to parents/ carers on Fridays only and this will include a letter from our Head Teacher, usually every two weeks, specific letters from your child's Year Lead,  letters relating to trips, events along with information .   

Student Email 

The student’s email is accessible on the web via office.com. Their email address is Username@stu.northleamington.co.uk and their password is their usual school password.

Student and Parent Data

If any information about the student or family needs changing or updating, this can be done via Go4Schools. The school administrative team provide support as required - you can contact them by emailing reception@northleamington.co.uk

Microsoft Office

Students can install Office on their personal devices,  the instructions are available here  - Installing Office and PDF readers on Personal Devices 

Helpdesk

The IT department are available via helpdesk@northleamington.co.uk if you have any questions about the school systems and portals. 

Home School Agreement 2023-2024

Students will follow the code of conduct by:

• being committed to attend school on time with the necessary equipment for learning
• following the school’s behaviour policy at all times, behaving in a way that enables their own learning and other pupils’ learning to take place effectively
• being polite and respectful to everyone at all times on and off site
• supporting an atmosphere where everyone feels safe
• wearing full uniform correctly at all times
• achieving excellence by producing work to the best of their ability both in class and for homework
• mobile phones and other electronic devices are left at home or switched off in bags at all times
• caring for the school environment by respecting the premises, putting all litter in the bins provided and eating only in designated spaces
• taking opportunities within their school career to enrich their learning journey

The school will provide a high quality education by:

• delivering high quality learning activities for all students through a well sequenced curriculum
• monitoring the progress of students and keeping them and their parents informed
• using positive behaviour management strategies to support excellent behaviour in lessons and around the school
• setting appropriate homework tasks in accordance with the homework policy
• ensuring that all students are treated fairly and consistently
• provide opportunities to learn and develop skills outside the classroom
• prepare students for next step destinations

Parents and Carers will support the school and their students by:

• behaving in  a polite, safe and respectful manner when on school premises and liaising with the wider school community
• supporting the school’s ethos by reinforcing the school’s expectations at home
• supporting the school’s policies, rewards and sanctions
• role modelling appropriate behaviours to best support the development of your child
• ensuring that students attend school punctually, wearing school uniform correctly and fully equipped for learning each day
• supporting students in completing homework to a high standard by providing a suitable environment and allowing adequate time for deadlines to be met
• attending parents’ evenings and relevant school events throughout the year
• supporting attendance on educational visits and extra-curricular activities
• raising concerns about their child’s education promptly and directly with the school rather than via social networking sites or otherwise bringing the school into disrepute
• contacting reception or relevant staff with urgent messages
• ensuring they attend every day and avoid taking holidays during term time
• acknowledging that if students are responsible for maliciously damaging property, the family may be liable for the costs of any repair required

 

We offer a variety of music instrumental tuition at North Leamington School.

Lessons are available for

• 20 minute  -  individual lesson
• 20 minute  - shared lesson 
• 30 minute  - individual lesson (for Violin only)

Instrumental lessons take place during the school day on a rotating timetable
All lesson costs are the same, whether for a first or second instrument
Students entitled to free school meals receive free tuition for shared lesson only
There will be 33 lessons offered over the entire academic year; on the occasion a teacher cannot fulfil a lesson they will make up any lessons they miss
If students inadvertently miss a lesson, there will be no responsibility upon the teacher to replace this and the charge will remain
Instrumental lessons are invoiced a term in advance for the prices quoted and payable via Parentpay

If a student should wish to withdraw from a lesson parents/carers, must inform us in writing a whole half term in advance of the final term of tuition. Please note that withdrawal after this deadline cannot normally be accepted and the following term’s fees will be payable.

If your child wishes to start receiving lessons in September at NLS, or has been been receiving instrumental tuition please contact us at nls@northleamington.co.uk

Students participating in instrumental lessons also contribute to one of the school's ensembles each week. Rehearsals are after school and further details can be found in our extra-curricular pages.    

We hope students will enjoy, and benefit, from our Music Tuition Scheme and extended curricular programme.

Practicalities

What does a typical day look like at North Leamington School?

The school day is 8.45am until 3.15pm - the day includes five lessons and a tutor time session. Students should be on site before 8.40am.

Can a child get breakfast at school and what time can they arrive on site?

The school site is open to students at 8.15am where they can sit in the canteen and get breakfast.

My child needs to get the bus to school, how do I go about finding out which bus they need to get and will they require a pass?

Buses come into North Leamington School from Ryton, Binley and Stretton areas. Please contact the bus companies direct,  further information regarding school transport can be found at the Warwickshire County Council website. 

What equipment does my child Need?

Within a school bag/rucksack initially they will need a pencil case and a water bottle. At the start of term they will be given an ID Badge which they must wear at all times. Once they start, teachers will inform them of any additional equipment they need for individual subjects.

Can my child bring packed lunch?

Yes, they can eat packed lunch in the canteen or the designated area for Year 7.

If my child wants to buy lunch from the canteen how do I put money onto their ID card?

North Leamington School  is a cashless school, therefore the canteen requires students to swipe their ID badge to pay for their food. You will receive a ParentPay login which is the platform used to manage purchases and more guidance will follow shortly. Students can also upload money at one of the machines in school.
If your child receives Free School Meals, staff in the canteen will be aware and they will be provided with a meal at lunchtime.

How do I apply for Free School Meals?

If you would like to check your eligibility for Free School Meals use the link below, or view information here.

www.warwickshire.gov.uk/freeschoolmeals

Where do I buy uniform from?

Our uniform suppliers are Stitch-Tech who are based in Sydenham, Leamington Spa. The uniform requirement list and Stitch-Tech contact details are on our website also.

Should I label my child’s clothes with their name?

Yes, this will minimise lost items. If your child does lose something they should ask at student services.

Can they use their mobile phone?

We understand you may want your child to have access to a mobile phone during their travelling to and from school however, we expect their phones to be switched off and not visible during the school day. If a phone is seen by a member of staff it will be confiscated until the end of the day. We do not take responsibility for phones or any other valuable items on school site. If they need to make an urgent phone call, or if they are unwell, student services will call you.

Will there be a locker available for my child?

Yes there are some lockers available for Year 7 which will be released after students have started in September. You will be informed when they are released and they will be issued on a first come first served basis via ParentPay.

 

Learning

Are classes mixed or set by ability?

Classes are all mixed ability at the start of term however, around October half term, and following teacher assessments, some subjects will then be set in abilities range.

How do I find out how if my child is making good progress in their subjects?

Each year you will have the opportunity to attend a subject evening where you can have a face to face meeting with teachers of individual subjects. In addition there are occasions in the year where data is released on Go4Schools to show whether your child is on track and making expected progress. More information on our assessment and reporting, can be found in our guidance documents here.

How much homework will my child get?

Students will get settled in before small pieces of homework are introduced. Please liaise with either subject teachers or tutor if you have any concerns.

How will my child be rewarded?

Students will receive reward points for working well and for demonstrating specific attributes like helping others or producing excellent work. The number of points they are given will be communicated to parents/carers. There are also celebration assemblies and regular phone calls/emails home.

What clubs and extracurricular activities are on offer?

There are a range of extra- curricular activities offered, examples include Sport, Drama, Science, Creative Writing and Art. Departments will advertise their clubs when you start in September and details of our extra-curricular clubs can be found in the Student Life tab on the website or here.

How often do they do PE?

Twice a week, there will also be many opportunities to take part in clubs.

 

Support

As a parent/carer, who do I contact if I have a concern/query about my child?

Your first port of call will be your child’s Tutor who leads their tutor group every day. You will be given their email address at the start of term and they can also be accessed via the website. Your child’s Year Lead  will also be responsible for the pastoral and academic wellbeing of your child, overseeing the Tutor groups.

Who can I contact to discuss my child’s specific SEND?

We are working closely with primary schools to collect relevant information regarding specific needs. Contact send@northleamington.co.uk for enquiries or further guidance.

Will my child be in a class with their friends?

 We try to separate children out from Primary schools to encourage them all to make new friends as well as keeping their old ones. We do not take requests for children to be placed with their friends unless in very specific cases.

My child will definitely get lost, will there be someone around to help?

Students find their way around school very quickly, but there are other students and staff to help as well as our Student Services desk who will support. We also have a Student Support and Engagement team who can help with any specific worries.

If there is a problem, who can they talk to?

They can talk to their Tutor who they see every day, or any other staff member they feel comfortable talking to. We also have a Student Support and Engagement team who can help with any specific worries. Additionally they could talk to the Student Services desk for help.

How will I receive communication with the school?

Communication will be sent regularly from the Year 7 Lead, and via the website for general information.