Who are the pupil support team?

The pupil support team are made up of a number of members of staff who all play a key role in supporting pupils throughout their time at Ipsley. At times, pupils may need support from different members of the team to ensure that they are happy, healthy and safe.

How does Ipsley support pupils with their behaviour?

At Ipsley, we have three school rules: ready, respectful and safe.

We support pupils to understand what it means to follow these rules in lessons, around school and beyond, including online. Pupils can earn Team Ipsley points for excellent behaviour, community values and fantastic learning. We use ePraise to keep in touch with all parents and carers around pupils’ Team Ipsley points. They can use these points to enter prize draws, buy rewards from the shop or donate to charities of their choice. Our team of Behaviour and Wellbeing Leaders support pupils and families with behaviour throughout the school day and beyond.

We work with our pupils to help them to understand that all behaviour has consequences. When we behave well, we have positive consequences. However, if a pupils’ behaviour does not meet the high expectations we have of each other in our school community, then poor behaviour has negative consequences. Our behaviour policy outlines how we work together as a team to ensure all consequences are appropriate, including where pupils may have additional needs, and to support pupils to improve their behaviour moving forward.

You can get in touch with us via the form on our home page or by calling the office on 01527 525725 to discuss any questions or concerns around behaviour.

How does Ipsley support pupils with their wellbeing?

Looking after our mental health is just as important as our physical health. At Ipsley, we talk about wellbeing every day. We learn about how to look after our minds, how to recognise when we might be feeling low or upset and how to support each other. The pupil support team support pupils throughout the school day and beyond, and work with a number of different external agencies and specialists to ensure pupils have the right support at the right time. This includes the Wellbeing and Emotional Support Team, who provide access to an Educational Mental Health Practitioner in school each week.

You might hear pupils talking about their ‘stress buckets.’ This is a way we help our pupils to understand that at different times of year we might all feel our ‘stress bucket’ start to overflow. As a school community, we learn different ways to release the pressure from our stress buckets, including healthy and unhealthy stress management, so that we can support ourselves and each other to stay mentally healthy. We are a resilient school, who believe in overcoming challenges and persevering when things get tough. As one of our school values, we believe all pupils should become resilient learners while they are in Team Ipsley so that they can go on to lead happy, healthy and meaningful lives.

You can get in touch with us via the form on our home page or by calling the office on 01527 525725 to discuss any questions or concerns around wellbeing.

How does Ipsley support pupils with their attendance?

Pupils who maintain good attendance do better in school.

Pupils whose attendance falls below 96% are 20% less likely to pass their school assessments (such as SATS or GCSEs) and miss out on valuable social and enrichment opportunities. This is the equivalent of missing 8 days of school in a year.

Each day of school missed represents six lost lessons of learning, where pupils miss out on developing the crucial skills they need to succeed. Pupils need to be in school so that they can take advantage of every opportunity to develop the knowledge, attributes, skills and experiences they need to help them achieve.

Pupils with positive attendance will be eligible for rewards, perform better in their learning and increase their opportunities to aspire, believe and succeed.

Where pupils’ attendance falls short of expectations, we will identify concerns, work with families to help them to understand the impact of their low attendance and support pupils to improve. This could involve messages sent home, phone calls, parental meetings and home visits from our Educational Welfare Officer. We know that some pupils may have medical conditions which impact their attendance – it is important that we are kept up-to-date around these so that we can support all pupils to succeed.

You will be informed of your child’s attendance at regular intervals, and you can view your child’s attendance at any point via ePraise.

We understand that sometimes absence is unavoidable, such in the instance of serious illness (e.g. sickness) or some medical appointments. Medical appointments should be booked outside school hours wherever possible.

In the event that your child is unable to attend school, you should notify us of the reason for absence before 8.15am by completing the form on our website/ePraise. If you cannot access the form, you should contact the school office on 01527 525725. Families may be required to provide evidence of absence where appropriate (e.g. a medical note from a GP surgery). The school will then decide whether to authorise this absence.

 Holidays should not be taken in term time. They will not be authorised except for in very exceptional circumstances, and the school may issue fines if an unauthorised holiday is taken.

You can get in touch with us via the form on our home page or by calling the office on 01527 525725 to discuss any questions or concerns around attendance.

What should I do if I have a concern?

Pupils can report any concerns to us by speaking to the pupil support team and/or safeguarding team in school. They can also report any concerns to us on ePraise using the ‘report a concern’ button.

Parents/carers can get in touch with us via the form on our home page or by calling the office on 01527 525725 to discuss any questions or concerns around behaviour, attendance or wellbeing.