Page 11 - Ridgeway School Brochure 2017

Ridgeway Primary School

Child Protection

At Ridgeway Primary School we recognize that your child’s welfare is our main responsibility. We want to
work in partnership with you, and may discuss with you, any concerns we may have or that you may have.

It is a priority to inform and involve you at every stage of your child’s time at our school.

There may be rare occasions when our concern about your child means that we have to consult other agencies
even before we contact you. The Child Protection Team at Derbyshire County Council has laid down the
procedures we follow, and the school has adopted a Child Protection Policy in line with this, for the safety of
all.

If you would like to know more about our procedures or the policy, please ask to speak to the Head Teacher,
or the Governor with responsibly for Child Protection.

Attendance

As a school we have a duty and responsibility to ensure good attendance for all pupils. The percentages that
we use as indicators for whether attendance is good or not are set out by Derbyshire County Council. As I
am sure you are aware, attendance monitoring is something OFSTED also look closely at. As the attendance
information about your child is held not only by the school but by County and Government agencies, I feel
it is your right as a parent to be aware of this information as well. Levels of attendance are also passed on
to other schools if your child is moving on from Ridgeway.

At the end of each term (Christmas, Easter & Summer) we send out attendance letters to parents whose
children have fallen into certain criteria. Attendance between 90—94% triggers a yellow awareness letter,
below 90% will trigger a red warning letter.

There is no intention to criticise you as parents or to suggest your child should be in school when unwell. I
hope you do not think we are more concerned by targets and percentages than we are with the children. We
only want the very best for all of the children at Ridgeway. However, there needs to be a line drawn and
DCC, in accordance with Government statistics have set that line at 94%. For the sake of fairness, all parents
with children below this percentage will receive a letter.

I hope you can appreciate that this is undertaken not as a criticism but as a requirement and also because I
believe in transparency and that school works best when parents and staff can work well together. For this
to happen parents need full information and it is my intention to include parents as much as possible.

48 Hour Rule
I understand that following the 48hour policy when children have sickness and diarrhoea can be hard but it
is important. These bugs can spread very easily, so as health advice states, ‘you should wash your
hands regularly while you're ill and stay off work or school until 48 hours after your symptoms have cleared,
to reduce the risk of passing it on.’ I know with work commitments and the need for good attendance, as
explained above, it is tempting not to follow this rule, but all that does is spread the bug and causes more
children, families and staff to be ill.

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