Official regulations are kept to the minimum and those we have are to ensure that the school is a pleasant and safe place for all members of the community. In a Secondary School we expect pupils to understand this and to be responsible enough to show common sense and consideration for others at all times. A brief but important list of requirements is brought to your attention below.
When a girl is admitted to the College, it is expected that she will observe the regulations and conditions of the school. The conditions under which girls are admitted and allowed to remain in school include:
STUDY
Girls must show willingness to follow satisfactorily the course provided for them. Parent/guardian will be given notice if their daughter is unable or unwilling to profit from the course provided at school.
PROGRESS
Parent/guardians receive a six weekly report on progress. Also, Parent/guardians receive an annual written subject report in which comment is made on attainment, organisation, effort, homework and behaviour. We ask parent/guardians to look regularly at their daughter’s Planner and exercise books. If there are any problems parent/guardians are asked to contact the school and make an appointment with the Key Stage Co-ordinator of Learning & Achievement. Parent/guardians are invited to attend a meeting each year to discuss their daughter’s progress with staff.
EMPLOYMENT
The practice of girls working outside school hours during term time is not encouraged. Experience has taught us that anything more than a Saturday job or its equivalent does interfere with pupils’ progress and does adversely affect their performance. References will only be given by the Headteacher if the girl’s classwork and homework are satisfactory.
PHYSICAL EDUCATION
Girls must take part in Physical Education during the timetabled periods, unless a doctor’s certificate is produced for exemption for a number of weeks, or a note from parent/guardians for occasional exemption i.e. one lesson.
Punctuality
Parent/guardians are responsible for ensuring that their daughters leave home in time to arrive at school for 8.40 am. Girls arriving after the close of Registration Period are recorded as unauthorised absent for that session, unless a letter of explanation is received.
PLANNERS
All pupils are issued with a Planner which they are required to carry with them at all times. Planners contain a lot of printed information to help pupils operate efficiently in school. Pupils are required to use their Planners on a regular basis to record their attendance, homework tasks, merit awards, targets and other items. Parent/guardians are asked to sign it at the end of each week and there is space for parent/guardians to make a comment or pass on a message; pupils are asked to show the message to the teacher concerned The Planner offers a quick and reliable way of passing information between home and school.
ATTENDANCE
Parent/guardians of registered pupils of compulsory school age are reminded that they are under legal duty to send their children to school regularly, and risk prosecution if they fail in this duty. Regular school attendance has always been important, without it the efforts of the best teachers and the best schools will come to nothing. Education provides a means of advancement for all young people. Pupils need to attend regularly if they are to take full advantage of the educational opportunities available to them by law. Irregular attendance undermines the educational process and leads to educational disadvantage. It places children at risk and in some cases it can result in pupils being drawn into patterns of anti-social or criminal behaviour. (The Planner contains all holiday dates for the academic year). Parent/guardians are requested not to take their daughter(s) on holiday during term time.
PROCUDURE
When a girl is absent from school, parent/guardians should telephone the Attendance Clerk on the first day of absence(Telephone 362870 – 24 Hour answer phone outside school hours). A note of explanation for the absence must be sent with your daughter on the day she returns to school. If the absence is to exceed three days, parent/guardians should make a second call to the Attendance Clerk to update the school on the reason for continuing absence. A letter of explanation must always accompany your daughter on the day she returns to school. The telephone communication does not replace the need for a written explanation. Unauthorised absence will cause us to send home a standard letter to establish contact with you. Such contacts avoid truancy, which might otherwise occur. Absences which are not explained by a letter from parent/guardians are recorded as unauthorised. Any girl absent for ten sessions (10 half days) in a period of six weeks, unless authorised by a medical note, could be subjected to a fixed penalty fine. Parent/guardians are asked to arrange for routine medical, ophthalmic and dental check-ups and treatments to take place during school holidays. Where it is necessary for girls to be absent for an appointment, parent/guardians should send with their daughter a written request for absence. Parent/guardians should collect their daughters to take them to the appointment, and parents should then return to school for the remainder of the day.
All girls who leave the College during the day for any reason must bring a letter of request from parent/guardians. This letter needs to be countersigned by the Year Team Leader or Pastoral Support Assistant. At morning Break the ‘signed letter’ is taken to the Attendance Clerk’s office and an Exeat Slip is issued.
ANNUAL HOLIDAY PROCEDURE
If your annual holiday must occur in term time, absence must be approved. A letter requesting a Holiday Request form should be sent to the Key Stage Co-ordinator of Learning & Achievement at least a month in advance of the holiday. If the request is authorised by the Headteacher an approval slip will be issued. Parent/guardians are reminded that missing even a short period of time in a Secondary School is most detrimental to their daughter’s progress. Dates of public examinations in Years 10, 11, 12 and 13 are available from the Examinations’ Officer.
HOMEWORK
Homework is an integral part of the work of the school. It provides the opportunity for pupils to develop perseverance and self-discipline, to consolidate/extend the learning activities provided, to cover more ground and make more rapid progress, and to develop the habit of private study. Pupils are given an opportunity to explore materials and sources of information not accessible in the classroom, to pursue their own lines of enquiry, to complete work started in class, to practise skills learned in class or to prepare work for the following lesson. Tasks required include factual/imaginative writing, reading, revising, research tasks, illustrative exercises, mapwork and thinking.
We ask parent/guardians to support us in seeing that homework is done conscientiously in the best possible conditions. In Years 10 and 11, when pupils are preparing for GCSE, heavy demands are made on them to prepare coursework of a high quality, as this will be instrumental in raising their final grades.
Pupils work at different speeds, so homework takes longer for some girls. If there is any problem about homework, we encourage parent/guardians to contact the Subject Team Leader via the Pastoral Support Assistant. Similarly, we shall get in touch with parent/guardians if we consider that there are frequent problems about homework which parent/guardians could help to resolve. As a rough guide girls in Year 7 should spend about one hour per night on homework. A Year 11 girl should be spending about two hours per night on her work.
PASTORAL CARE
All pupils of the same age form a year group, for which tutorial staff have special concern. Immediate contact with parent/guardians is through the Key Stage Co-ordinator of Learning & Achievement and Pastoral Support Assistant who, with a team of Form Tutors, is responsible for the personal and academic progress of each girl. The Key Stage Co-ordinator of Learning & Achievement is the link with specialist agencies e.g. the Psychological Service and the Education Social Welfare Service. The Headteacher and Deputy Headteachers are always pleased to see parent/guardians. It would be appreciated if appointments could be arranged beforehand by telephoning Bradford 401500.
The Sixth Form is run as separate year groups because we acknowledge the different needs of older pupils. Sixth Formers are part of the whole community – they each help in a variety of ways to ensure the smooth running of the College, but the ‘semi-independent’ character of their year group aims to promote a situation in which young women learn to accept academic and social responsibility under the guidance of experienced staff.
DISCIPLINE
All pupils are expected to adhere to a Code of Conduct which is displayed in Form Rooms and Planners. In the event of misbehaviour involving danger to others, interruption of classwork, bullying, bad language, theft or damage to property, pupils are referred to the Key Stage Co-ordinator of Learning & Achievement, Assistant Headteachers or Deputy Headteachers, who will investigate and contact parent/guardians. Students can be referred to the Silent Study Room for one whole school day equivalent where their behaviour disrupts the progress of learning and where they fail to take note of teacher advice and warnings of referral to Silent Study Room. Bullying will not be tolerated at St Joseph’s Catholic College. Reports of bullying will be taken seriously, incidents will be investigated. For serious lack of effort, poor attitude or unauthorised absence from lessons, girls are put “on report”. This process sometimes involves parents/guardians keeping an appointment with their daughter at the Behaviour Improvement Panel. The report book is signed daily by parent/guardian and Form Tutor and at least weekly by the Key Stage Co-ordinator of Learning & Achievement. If a pupil fails to respond positively whilst ‘on report’ parent/guardians will be immediately requested to come into school to negotiate and jointly sign a Pastoral Support Plan; they will need to attend a subsequent review of the Pastoral Support Plan. In exercising responsibility for the discipline and welfare of the College, the Headteacher will exclude pupils from school in any case which he considers justifiable. Under such circumstances, the parent/guardian’s have the right of appeal to the Governors. The College regards co-operation with parent/guardian as the most important element in the maintenance of discipline. Copies of the College Behaviour & Discipline Policy are available on request.
School policy on dealing with racial incidents
The College is committed to the preparation of all pupils for life in a multi-cultural society, in which they can take their rightful place with dignity and respect, irrespective of ethnic, religious or racial origin.
The College will not tolerate any form of racialist behaviour. Staff are asked to give positive direction to the development of the school ethos, which actively discourages racialist behaviour and bring to the attention of the Headteacher or, in his absence, to the Deputy Headteacher, any incident of racialist activity. After examining the incident, the Headteacher will take the appropriate disciplinary action, record details and refer the matter to parent/guardians.
Illegal substances
Any pupil dealing, taking or in possession of illegal substances will be permanently excluded. Girls must not possess, bring into school or consume in school or on the way to or from school, alcohol.
PERSONAL PROPERTY
Essential equipment required by pupils includes basic writing tools – fountain pen, biro, pencil, eraser, ruler, calculator, simple mathematical instruments, ‘rough’ notebook and a suitably A4 minimum sized school bag as books and papers taken home need protection. All items of equipment and uniform should be clearly and indelibly marked with the owner’s name as tracing lost property is a great problem in a large school. Girls are asked not to bring expensive articles or equipment or large sums of money to school unless it is essential, and the prior approval of the Headteacher has been sought. Valuables and money must be kept on the owner’s person at all times or left for safekeeping in the safe in the School office. No electronic equipment is allowed on school premises e.g. mobile phones, personal music equipment, hair appliances etc. Jewellery is also not permitted. Any personal property, or items of uniform such as coats, are brought on to school premises at the girl’s parent/guardians’ own risk and neither the College nor the Local Education Authority accept responsibility for loss or damage. Parent/guardians who wish to insure against this possibility are advised to take out an ‘All Risks Policy’ with their own insurance company.
BOOKS
These are provided free of charge. They remain the property of the College and must be returned at the end of the school year. Payment will be required for loss or damage to such books, instruments and materials and parent/guardians are asked to ensure that items taken home for reference study are not misused.
SCHOOL LUNCH
Every girl must have a meal at lunchtime. In order to encourage more girls to take advantage of the school cafeteria, the Dining Room offers a cashless system. The canteen staff would be pleased to receive suggestions with regard to feasible alternative menus. The only girls allowed off the campus at lunchtime are those who have written permission to go home for lunch. The school cannot accept responsibility for pupils who defy the rules by leaving the premises without permission during lunchtime. Each girl is issued with a ‘swipe card’ and these may be topped-up at two cash points using coins orpreferably by cheque made payable to ‘Sodexo Catering and Support Services’ on a weekly or termly basis. Your daughter’s name and form needs to be clearly written on the reverse of the cheque. Upon written request to the Catering Manager print outs of your daughter’s purchases in the Dining Room can be supplied.
TRANSPORT
The Local Authority’s policy on transport to schools is published in their booklet ‘Educational Provision in Bradford’. Qualification for free transport is normally limited to travel between the student’s home and the nearest available school, but where pupils attend schools outside their normal catchment area for religious reasons, free transport will be provided between home and the nearest available denominational school providing that the distance exceeds 3 miles. Enquires should be directed to School Transport Service, Education Bradford, Future House, Bolling Road, Bradford, BD4 7EB. Telephone 01274 385581. All students need to equip themselves with a half-fare pass before the school year begins.
SCHOOL JOURNEYS AND VISITS
Written consent from parents/guardians is required for all residential and extended (i.e. beyond the school day) visits. Other types of journeys e.g. local visits or field courses and inter-school matches are adequately supervised to ensure the safety of the pupils and are a normal part of school life.
Parent/guardians agree to:
Support and work with the school and encourage a positive attitude to education.
Support the school’s policies on behaviour and discipline.
Ensure that their daughter attends school punctually and regularly each school day.
Ensure that their daughter wears the correct school uniform.
Ensure that their daughter has a reasonable night’s sleep before coming to school.
Give time to talk and listen to their daughter, encourage homework and give positive support to the efforts and progress their daughter has made.
Attend meetings at school to discuss their daughter’s progress and to learn about the work of the school.
Let the school know if they have any concerns about their daughter’s education.
Let the school know if there are any factors that may affect their daughter’s performance in school.
Encourage their daughter to read and, try to provide books and resources that will help with learning e.g., use of library and learning resources centre.
Encourage their daughter to use the media, especially television, selectively, taking advantage of the programmes that help learning.
The school agrees to:
Provide opportunities for girls to find and follow Christ, to worship and pray and to serve others.
Provide a safe working place for the girls.
Provide a full and balanced curriculum and to strive to educate each girl to the best of her ability.
Provide records and information about the girl’s educational progress, as well as the girl’s development in practical and social skills.
Arrange regular meetings with the girl’s teachers and be available at other times when the parent/guardian has concerns or questions.
Send home examples of the girl’s work and books to read.
Let the parent/guardian know immediately if their daughter is having any difficulties at school.
Keep parent/guardians informed about new policies and developments at school.
Arrange for parent/guardians to meet informally and socially.
Welcome all parent/guardians who wish to be part of any programmes for parent/guardians to help in the daily work of the school.
Provide information about educational benefits, where parent/guardians may go for help and advice, and about the procedures for complaints.
