FAQs

Attendance

It is a known fact that regular attendance is closely linked with attainment. As a parent/carer it is your legal responsibility to ensure that your child attends school. We are committed to working in partnership with you to ensure that your child has excellent attendance. Requests for absence during term time will not be granted unless for situations that would be deemed as exceptional circumstances by the Headteacher and Local Authority. Where possible, medical appointments should be made outside the school day. School will allow approximately 1-2 hours for appointments (including travel time). A medical card with appointment times on should be shown on return to school.

Attendance at school

From September, attendance at school will be compulsory and the usual rules on school including:

• parents’ duty to ensure that their child of compulsory school age attends regularly at the school where the child is a registered pupil
• schools’ responsibilities to record attendance and follow up absence
• the ability to issue sanctions, including fixed penalty notices, in line with local authorities’ codes of conduct at the discretion of the headteacher

It is very important that you do not send your child to school if they are feeling unwell with symptoms of Covid19. You must contact school by telephone to inform us that your child is ill. If they have symptoms of the virus (e.g. continuous cough, high temperature, loss of, or change in, your normal sense of taste or smell).

Should a student display any of the Covid19 symptoms in school we will follow the necessary procedures in school and phone families to collect the student immediately.

In light of the current situation students may be required to sit in the medical room whilst being attended to.

Punctuality

Of equal importance is the fact that your child arrives at school on time. Following the initial settling in period, your child will be issued with a late detention of 15 minutes (for the same day) if they arrive at school between 8.40-9.00a.m. Should they arrive after 9.00a.m., this detention will be increased to 30 minutes.

Reserving a locker

At Parrs Wood High School, we have a large number of lockers available to students at a fixed cost. The lockers are only available for a five-year period; therefore students will be required to return their locker keys to the school.

To read more information on how to purchase a locker please click here.

Breakfast Club

To support Parents / Carers who have work or childcare commitments, we run a Breakfast Club in our small dining hall for those students who may need to arrive early. We all know how important breakfast is and it is the most important meal of the day, I am able to offer the provision FREE of charge as we have close contacts and support from Fare Share and Tesco.

The type of food we offer is:

Toast, Cereal, Fruit, Hot Drinks, Juice.

Breakfast Club runs from 7.30am-8.20am each day. 

If you would like your child to attend then please message your interest to:

BreakfastClub@parrswood.manchester.sch.uk

If a place is given to your child then they will receive a pass with the week they are able to attend. 

Personal Development Curriculum

Your child will be assigned a Tutor group and Tutor base and they will meet with their Tutor for 20 minutes every morning. During this time, students are registered, and they complete Personal Development Curriculum activities.

The PDC tasks cover topics within the PSHE and Citizenship curriculum and also ensure that students learn about Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural aspects of life. In addition to this, Tutors use this time to speak to students, check their planners and ensure that they are fully prepared for the day ahead.

As part of our 1,000,000Km challenge, students also complete a 1Km walk around the school site on an assigned day and meet as a Year group for a formal assembly once a week.

Your child will be in a tutor group comprised of students of different abilities from a range of partner Primary schools. In completing the All About Me Form, we will endeavour to ensure that your child is placed in a Tutor group with at least one other person that they know well.

Class types

Students are taught in their form groups for: Art, Music, Drama, PE, PSRE and Technology.

Students are placed in broad ability sets for: English, Maths, Science, History, Geography and Languages. Your child will have a different teacher and classroom for each curriculum subject.

Break and Lunch time

We are incredibly proud of our Healthy Schools status and aim to provide nutritious food for our students during the course of the day. The school uses a Biometric system to provide cashless catering. At break a range of breakfast snacks, sandwiches and drinks are available to purchase and at lunch hot meals, salads and sandwiches catering for halal and vegetarian diets are available.

Students are welcome to bring a packed lunch on any day and may eat this in the dining room with their peers instead of purchasing food. Where students are bringing in food from home, we would politely remind you that fizzy drinks, energy drinks and large “sharing” style confectionary and crisps are not permitted.

Extra-curricular activities

Your child will be given a list of the extra-curricular activities that they can participate in in September. These activities take place both during the school day and after school hours.