FAQ

Find answers to common questions below, including Academy Closure Policy, Uniform and more…

At a local level, this decision will be taken by the Principal and Senior Leaders based on current conditions and weather forecasts. The health and safety of students and staff must be the main consideration in any such decision. Notice of this will be posted onto social media, the Academy website and via text message to parents and carers.

If there is heavy snowfall overnight, then a decision about whether or not to close the school will be made at 6.30am. The LA Director for Education may decide in the interests of public safety that all schools in the Authority must close. This will only happen if actual or forecast weather conditions are very severe.

It must be remembered that closure of all schools, particularly at short notice, is very difficult to justify because of the considerable inconvenience it causes to a very large number of parents/carers, as well as disrupting children’s education. In the event of a city-wide closure, Wolverhampton City Council staff will:

  • Inform schools by email if the decision is made before 3pm on the preceding day
  • Post information on the ‘Wolverhampton Today – School Closures’ Facebook page and the City of Wolverhampton Council Twitter feed. This is the agreed method for informing the local radio stations of any closures

If the school is closed, we will inform the Local Authority ‘Snow Line’ who will post information on all school closures on the council’s website:

http://www.wolverhampton.gov.uk/schoolclosures

Home/Academy Communication

Communicating with parents is an important part of Academy life, making sure you get the correct information about activities, events and other Academy related items is something we care about. Traditionally we have used printed letters but delivery of these can be unreliable; they are also expensive, take time to produce and are not environmentally friendly.

We’re very pleased that we now have our own school ParentMail mobile App which you can now use to receive school messages! You may have already received a registration e-mail from ParentMail, do not worry if you have been unable to register at this time as registration details and guidance will be sent to you in September.

We’d like to encourage ALL parents to download our school App in September as there are a number of benefits both to you and for our school:

  • It’s free for parents to download!
  • All school messages will be sent securely
  • No need to search through a busy email inbox for important messages
  • Read and respond to school messages at work, at home or on the go
  • Every message sent arrives as an instant alert on your mobile.

If you have any questions or need to contact the Academy at [email protected] or visit https://www.parentmail.co.uk/help/parenthelp/

ParentMail +Pay Cashless System and Catering

+Pay on ParentMail is an online payment service which allows you to pay for school items and catering on your smartphone, tablets or computer.

Over 90% of parents say they would prefer to pay for school items online, because it’s easier and more convenient than sending cash or cheques into school – and you can be sure that your money is being spent on the right things!

We will inform you about items you have purchased or need to pay through ParentMail, and you will then be able to pay electronically, with money transferred directly into the school bank account – it’s all very easy, safe and secure. ParentMail doesn’t store credit or debit card details and works in the same way as other large retailers who accept online payments.

Another great thing about +Pay on ParentMail is that you can also make payments using PayPal or PayPoint. This makes the payment process easier than ever before! 

If you have an Android or Apple smartphone, we would highly recommend you download the free ParentMail App so that you can make easy, online payments on the go. To do this, simply search for “ParentMail” in your App store.

What are the main benefits of a cashless catering system?

  • Convenient way of paying for school meals.
  • Discourages the misuse of school dinner money through spending in shops outside of the school grounds.
  • Alleviates many of the associated problems with the use of cash in schools, i.e. loss, theft, bullying.
  • Queuing times are reduced through increased speed of service.
  • Automatic free school meal allocation with the student remaining anonymous.

Biometric information means is the collection and use of an individual’s unique physical and behavioural characteristics, such as fingerprint. This information can be used to uniquely identify an individual person to ensure appropriate security is granted to electronic systems.

What is a biometric cashless catering?

Biometric cashless catering is a software program which recognises each individual customer, holds individual cash balances and records expenditure and cash received. It also records where and when money is spent and on what food.

How are students and staff recognised by the system?

All students and staff will be registered by biometric information. The biometric measurement takes a part image of some of the coordinates of the fingerprint, which is then converted, encrypted and stored as a unique number. This data cannot be converted back into any image of a fingerprint, nor can it be used by any other source for identification purposes.

What data is held on the system?

Certain data is held on the system to enable accurate operation. This includes the student’s name. tutor group, photo, account balance, meal entitlement and the biometric number. Other than the biometric number, this data is already held on the Academy’s administrative systems. All the data is handled under General Data Protection Regulation guidelines. The data is only used for the purposes of the cashless catering system and will be destroyed when the data is no longer relevant (such as when a student leaves the Academy).

How is the biometric system utilised to obtain food?

An individual places a thumb/finger on the biometric scanner at a till. This will activate an individual’s account which will be displayed on screen for the catering operator, including name and current balance. The till operator will then enter the selected food and drink into the system from an itemised keyboard, while the amount spent and the new balance will show on the display.

The catering system works in exactly the same way for all students. However, the amount allocated for the free school meal is entered into the system daily and will only be accessible at lunch time. The system will then allow on a daily basis the required cash amount for each individual student to be allotted to their current cash balance. However, any underspend or missed dinner will be identified by the system and will not be added to the next day’s balance.

The student can also add cash to their balance to enable a greater daily spend. Any additional cash can be used for break time snacks as well as lunch time meals.

ClassCharts is an online system which teachers use to track achievement and behaviour throughout the school day. We believe in working closely with parents and one of the key benefits of using Class Charts is that we are able to securely share your child(s) achievement and behaviour report with you and so keep you up to date in real-time.

Each child has a unique access code which the school will issue parents. Once you have been issued with a code you will need to create an account and enter the code here: https://www.classcharts.com/parent/login

If you have more than one child in the school then you can enter additional codes once you have created an account and are logged in.

For any problems and questions regarding ClassCharts, please go to the dedicated ClassCharts Feedback & Support Document.

Please find full details of our uniform policy HERE.