Dear Parent/Carer,
Thank you for taking the time to respond to the consultation about school times. Nearly all the feedback we received about the proposed change was positive. At the full governing body meeting on Monday 5th December, governors agreed the change for January 2023.
Our drop off windows and our official school times from Tuesday 3rd January (first day of the spring term) are:
8:40am – 8:45am (8:45am is the official start time) / 3:15pm-3:20pm (3:15pm is the official end time).
Best wishes
Jim Blakely
Headteacher
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Dear Parent/Carer,
We are consulting on making a small change to the school day times for January 2023.
Our current school times: 8:40am – 8:50am (8:50am is the official start time) / 3:10pm – 3:20pm (3:10pm is the official end time).
Proposed school times: 8:40am – 8:45am (8:45am is the official start time) / 3:15pm-3:20pm (3:15pm is the official end time).
Reason for the change:
The government has set a minimum expectation on the length of the school week. The Department for Education has said that ‘mainstream schools should deliver a school week of at least 32.5 hours by September 2023’, Minimum expectation on the length of the school week information note, DfE 2022.
Although pupils at Garstang St Thomas School can exceed this minimum by arriving early in the drop-off window and being collected later in the collection window, these are not official school times and the opposite can happen – children dropped off late in the drop-off window/ collected early will mean they do not quite meet the 32.5 hours in the course of a week.
In summary, we are proposing to extend the official school day by 5 minutes at both sides of the day whilst retaining short drop-off and collection windows.
We would like to know your views on this proposal. Please let us know if you are happy with the proposal or have any concerns. Please e-mail: admin@garstang-st-thomas.lancs.sch.uk by Friday 2nd December 2022.
Thank you for taking the time to read this page.
Jim Blakely
Headteacher