Expectations Reminder

We wanted to outline our expectations for students upon their return in September. We want to continue the drive to improve standards into the new academic year and it is therefore important to draw the line under what may/may not have gone before and restate our basic expectations. Please note that these expectations are not new, but we want to start the new year with a clear understanding of what we expect when students arrive at school in the morning.

Basic Uniform Expectations (Lower School)

How a student is presented sets the tone for how they will conduct themselves throughout the day. Our uniform expectations can be found here.

Students not meeting our basic uniform expectations will be challenged at the school gate by senior staff and offered uniform from our internal uniform store before joining the rest of the school for the day.

We know that parents need a period of time to source uniform items, however the expectations here are not new expectations and therefore they should not be a surprise to any family. If you are struggling to source items, please get in touch as we have a stock of items in school and would be happy to help where we can.

The most basic uniform expectations are as follows:

• Black formal trousers or skirt (Please note that leggings or jeans of any sort are not permitted)

• White collared shirt

• DCHS Tie

• DCHS black jumper

• Black leather or leather look shoes

• Jewellery should be small and discreet (single plain stud in each ear, small single plain stud in nose)

• Makeup and hair colour should be ‘natural’

• In order to store equipment/outdoor coats/chromebooks/mobile phones, all students should bring a bag to school

Shoes

There are images of shoes that are and are not permitted in school, these can be found at the bottom of our uniform expectations page found here. It is important to note that we do not dictate that any particular brand of shoes must be worn.

Coats/outer layers

Non school uniform sweatshirts, jumpers or hooded sweatshirts (including PE hoodies outside of PE lessons) are not permitted. If a student arrives at school with such an item, it will be removed by senior staff at the gate and held in the uniform store for the day.

Leggings

It is important to note that leggings of any kind are not permitted in school. There has been a sharp increase nationally in the number of students wearing ‘sport’ leggings in place of broken trousers etc. We have a large collection of school trousers in stock, and those students arriving to school wearing leggings will be offered these in the first instance. Students failing to meet our expectations in uniform will face being isolated from the school population until alternatives are found.

Students will need to exchange a personal item in return for borrowing school uniform items; items will be returned when the student brings their uniform back at the end of the day.

Time of the school day

The school day starts at 8:50am and ends at 3:35pm. Students arriving later than 8:45am are putting themselves at risk of not being in registration for the start time of 8:50am. Students late on more than one occasion during the week will have a Senior detention in school over lunch.

Detention/IEU

We run two detention systems in school: Senior Detentions and IEU. Senior Detentions are run by Senior staff every lunchtime and last 25 minutes. Students failing to attend Senior detention will be at risk of being placed in our Internal Exclusion Unit (IEU). IEU is managed and run by senior staff.

Mobile Phones

The expectation for mobile phones is that they are turned off and in school bags. With this in mind, Earpods should not be seen on the school site and will be confiscated if seen.

My Child At School App

As previously mentioned, school gateway and schoolcomms will no longer function in September. We are moving to a single app/website system called ‘MyChildAtSchool’. Login details have already been sent out previously this term, but if you are still unable to login please contact bromcom@dchs-alnwick.uk

As well as this, the method for paying for Dinner and trips will be moving to the MyChildAtSchool App over the Summer so that we have one app for everything at school. More information will be emailed to parents over the Summer regarding this change and how to setup payments etc.

We are trying to work with Bromcom to ensure that from September all behaviour points (both positive and negative) will have a staff comment next to them to aide the follow up conversation you have at home.

Attendance

We wanted to reaffirm our commitment to raising our whole school attendance and recognise that improving attendance is a collective effort. We know from evidence that attendance directly affects academic performance. We will continue to contact home on the first day of any absence if we have not heard from you. We also wanted to ensure that everyone is aware that we do not authorise Holidays in term time. The link to the updated attendance policy is here.

Chromebooks

Next year we will be reinforcing our expectations of staff in terms of Chromebook use. Students with Chromebooks should bring them into school every day. If Chromebooks are not working they should be covered under warranty and should be brought in to IT support in school.

Key Dates 2022/23

Supporting your child evenings will allow us to share further details around our expectations as well as procedural and logistical information so that you can best support your child to be successful at DCHS.