General Information

We warmly welcome all contact from parents. If you wish to visit the School to talk with a member of staff please telephone to arrange an appointment. The School Reception is open from 8.30 am until 4.30 pm on Monday to Thursday and 8.30 am until 4.00 pm on Fridays. During these hours Reception staff will be pleased to deal with your telephone enquiry. If you leave a message with the office staff then the appropriate member of the teaching staff will respond to your message as soon as they can. For security reasons, all visitors to the School must report to Reception when entering the school.

Outside office hours, a recorded message telephone facility is available.

You can use any of the following to ways to get a message through to any member of staff:

Tel: (01584) 872691

Fax: (01584) 877708

Email: admin.ludlow@shropshirelg.net

Ludlow Church of England School,
The Burway,
Bromfield Road,
Ludlow,
Shropshire,
SY8 1GJ

Headteacher: Mr Philip Poulton

Chair of Governors: Mrs Annabel Gilmour

Director of Education: David Taylor

CYPD,
The Shirehall,
Abbey Foregate,
Shrewsbury,
SY2 6ND
Tel: 01743 254301

Pupil Transport: First point of contact

Customer Service,
The Shirehall, Abbey Foregate,
Shrewsbury,
SY2 6ND
Tel: 01743 253030

Education Welfare Officer: Jo Smith

Inclusion Services,
The Guildhall,
Frankwell Quay,
Shrewsbury,
SY3 8HQ
Tel: 01743 254397

Here are some common sense points to remember.

These points will help your child get the most from their time at the school.

• Always make sure your child attends regularly, arrives on time and wears the correct uniform.Keep in touch with school and attend meetings.
• You will be sent progress and effort grades each term and a full annual report before the Parent's Evening.
• If you are concerned about your child's progress at any time please contact the Tutor. A daily report can be issued and you will receive feedback about issues like work quality, behaviour and or homework each evening.
• If you have any issues that worry you please contact the Tutor earlier rather than later. If we don't know about it we can't deal with it!
• Ask for letters and complete reply slips as quickly as possible. The Headteacher sends out a newsletter at least once a term. You can have these emailed to you if you would prefer. Just let us know.
• If there are important changes in your child's life, please let his/her tutor know (medical problems, home circumstances, changes to contact details).
• Find out what sort of day your child has had at school. Ask about what they have done, what went well? And if there have been any problems?
• Ask about homework. Check the planner. You can communicate with any teacher by writing a note in the planner. In this you will find merit stickers for good work and effort and any demerit stamps for things that have concerned a teacher like poor organisation, a poor standard of work, or no homework! This helps you keep track on a day to day basis.
• Encourage reading and give help if needed. Reading remains the single most important skill that will make a difference to grades achieved.
• Encourage him/her to take part in extra-curricular activities.

Regular attendance is essential to progress in all years. A child cannot learn if they are not in school. Frequent absence disrupts continuity in learning. Please ensure your child attends regularly. Pupils are expected to catch up work missed due to absence on their return to school.

When pupils are absent because of illness they can become anxious about falling behind with work. It is rarely appropriate for teachers to set work during short periods of absence (less than one week). If the absence is a prolonged one it may be possible to set work to be completed at home. In these circumstances, we ask a parent to arrange to visit the School to receive instructions regarding how the work is to be completed and to return the completed work before further work is set.

When the School becomes concerned that the child's education is being affected by regular absence, the School's Education Welfare Officer (EWO) may be informed. The EWO may visit the home or send a warning letter. If this happens an appointment will be made for you to meet the Curriculum Learning Tutor.

The vast majority of our students attend school regularly and are only absent for genuine reasons.

• Please contact us on the first day of absence, a telephone call is fine, otherwise we may have to contact you.
• All absences must be covered by a letter when your child returns to school. If no letter is received, the absence is unauthorised (truancy).

Please remember:

• Only the school can authorise absence. If in doubt, contact the tutor.
• The law states that parents do not have the right to take their child out of school for holidays during term time. The headteacher does not have to authorise holidays in term time, other than in exceptional circumstances. Please note that taking an unauthorised holiday could result in each parent receiving a Fixed Penalty Notice costing up to £100 for each child.
• Medical/Dental appointments should be arranged out of school hours if possible.

We:

• Recognise and acknowledge good attendance by awarding certificates to students who achieve 97% attendance or above.
• Aim at an overall minimum attendance figure of 95% for the whole school throughout the year.
• Inform parents when their child falls below 90% attendance and monitor attendance which causes concern by checking on absence on the first day.
• Inform the EWO if attendance falls below 85%. These students will be put on an attendance checking programme.
• Inform the EWO if we have not received a letter to explain an absence within one week of the child returning to school.
• Check carefully the number of days requested for holidays. Holiday forms must be completed BEFORE the holiday and approval gained.

Where attendance falls well below 95%, parents may be called to an Attendance Panel Meeting.

If your child needs to take medicines during the day all prescribed medication must be taken to Reception by a parent or guardian.

It should be accompanied with written instructions clearly stating what it is, the pupil's name and the dosage and the time it should be taken. Pupils should bring into school only the dosage required for the day; this is important because on several occasions, pupils have either forgotten to collect the medication at the end of the day or have lost it. Proprietary brands of medicine (e.g. paracetamol) should not be brought into school, unless prescribed.

All prescribed medication must be collected at the end of each half term/term. Any medication not collected will be disposed of by the school.

Appropriate arrangements will be agreed between the School and parents where a pupil has a permanent or long term condition requiring regular treatment in School, e.g. asthma or diabetes. In the first instance, you are asked to discuss your child's needs with the Curriculum Learning Tutor.

Injury or Illness

If pupils are injured or taken ill in school they are seen by a person qualified in First Aid. If necessary, that pupil is taken to recover or rest in the pupil's reception room and parents may be contacted to collect their child. With more serious accidents or illness, where hospital examination or treatment seems appropriate, every effort will be made to contact parents. For this purpose parents are asked to complete a form to indicate where they may be contacted during the day and to name the person to be contacted if parents are not available.

Please note that:

• The School is not allowed to administer any drugs unless a doctor has prescribed it.
• Parents should inform us in writing, of any medical condition or course of treatment, which may have a bearing on a pupil's welfare in School. Such information will be kept confidential and placed on a medical register held by a First Aider.
• If a pupil is unwell parents will be contacted and asked to collect their child, Pupils will not be allowed to walk home by themselves.
• The Education Authority makes regular medical and dental inspections of pupils; parents are normally notified of these.

Ludlow Church of England School is committed to effective high quality safeguarding for all members of the school community. Rated as good by Ofsted in terms of our procedures and safeguards, the school continues to monitor, improve, and challenge practices in the area of safeguarding. Our response to incidents of alleged bullying is outlined in the anti-bullying policy located within the policies section of this website. Like any school, we can not guarantee that allegations will not arise. However, we have the approval of external agencies regarding our handling of such allegations and, more importantly, the confidence of our parents and pupils to do so.

In terms of recruitment and selection processes, we have taken the additional steps to ensure that every single one of our governors has undergone local authority safeguarding and safer recruitment training. Applicants for posts are left in no doubt as to how serious the Governing Body views their safeguarding role when recruiting staff.

Regarding child protection, the school has ensured that all staff have undergone child protection training, delivered by the Local Authority Prevention Team. We also have a nominated Child Protection Lead, as well as a Deputy Lead Officer. Our safeguarding practices are monitored by a member of the Governing Body.

We strive to maintain a safe and secure site. From our Revenue Budget, with no external funding, we have secured the extensive boundaries of the school and have established protocols with neighbouring institutions so as to ensure the safety of our children. Any incidents that we feel compromises the safeguarding of our students in terms of external, unauthorised access to the site are reported to the Police and appropriate governor.

Safe internet usage is important for all members of our school community. The Internet Usage Policy can be found under the Policies section of this website. However, it is our duty to educate our school community about safe internet usage when they are not on filtered I.T. facilities on the school site. This is achieved through the I.T. curriculum and associated assemblies. Staff are aware of our policies in this area, including guidance regarding safer working practices ( Department for Education Guidance). For any queries regarding safeguarding, please do not hesitate to contact the school.

Here are some notes of our policy in respect of photographs taken as part of routine school life that may include your son/daughter. For example, we often invite press photographers to record events, take team photos and pictures of award winners or special presentations. We also take photographic records of trips and visits. In addition our school publicity material may well include pupils to illustrate school life.

Photographs taken by the press remain the press' copyright. Photographs taken by our own staff remain under the school's ownership.

In the near future, publicity material for the school will also be available from our website.

In all these matters we will operate the following code:

1. Images taken by the school may be given to the press to illustrate an event, but will not be provided at their request.
2. Images taken by the press may include pupil names for publication in newspapers.
3. Publicity material used by the school will NOT name individual pupils.
4. Web-based images will NOT include pupil names.

If you explicitly do not wish your child to be included in photographs, please make sure that your child is aware, and you inform us in writing. We will then do our best to ensure they are not photographed.

The computer system is owned by the school and / or the Council and is made available to students to further their education and to staff to enhance their professional activities including teaching, research, administration and management. The school's Internet Access Policy has been drawn up to protect all parties - the students, the staff and the school.

The school reserves the right to examine or delete any files that may be held on its computer system or to monitor any Internet sites visited.

Neither the school nor the Council will be liable under any circumstances for any injury, distress, loss or damage to the pupil or the parents, which may arise directly or indirectly from the pupil's use of the Internet facilities, the use of e-mail, or from other pupils' unauthorised use of those facilities or e-mail.

• Permission will be sought from pupils and parents before any personal data, i.e. names are published on a web site;
• Access must only be made via the authorised account and password, which must not be made available to any other person;
• All Internet use should be appropriate to staff professional activity or student's education;
• The downloading of sexist, racist, pornographic, indecent or abusive images, text or sound files is forbidden;
• The downloading of any program, screen saver, game etc without permission from an authorised person is forbidden;
• Activity that threatens the integrity of the school ICT systems, or that attacks or corrupts other systems, is forbidden;
• Sites and materials accessed must be appropriate to work in school. Users will recognise materials that are inappropriate and should expect to have their access removed.
• Users are responsible for e-mail they send and for contacts made that may result in e-mail being received;
• The same professional levels of language and content should be applied as for letters or other media, particularly as e-mail is often forwarded;
• The sending of 'sensitive personal data' whether relating to the sender or not is forbidden;
• The sending of any information which pupils are not certain to be 'public knowledge' outside the school is forbidden;
• Posting anonymous messages and forwarding chain letters is forbidden;
• Copyright of materials and intellectual property rights must be respected;
• Legitimate private interests may be followed, providing school use is not compromised;
• No unauthorised contract, purchase or payment should be made over the Internet;
• Student purchases over the Internet are forbidden;
• Use for personal financial gain, gambling, political purposes or advertising is forbidden
• Staff and students should be aware that Internet access is monitored and reported to the Headteacher.