FAQs

The school is open all year round, with the exception of bank holidays and the week between Christmas and New Year.

Reception is open approx 8am – 5pm Monday – Thursday and 8am – 4.30pm Friday.

It is important that your child comes to school properly equipped for work in the classroom. All students should have a good bag to protect their exercise and textbooks from damage whilst they are being carried around and in wet weather. Other essential items are:

• pen
• HB pencil
• protractor
• ruler
• rubber
• pocket dictionary and thesaurus
• red pen for self assessment
• coloured pencils

Any other essential equipment needed will be specified by departments in due course i.e. calculators.

• When moving between classes please keep to the left in the corridors and staircases
• Any personal injury should be reported at once to the trained first aid staff in the Health Hub or to your form tutor
• Food should not be taken out of dining rooms
• Any students interfering with fire safety equipment risks serious punishment, including permanent exclusion
• Students must not enter the Leisure Centre grounds/swimming pool/climbing wall or the electrical substation
• Skateboarding, cycling and other such activities are not allowed on site
• Selling goods to other students e.g. drinks and sweets, is not allowed
• The following are not allowed on the premises: cigarettes, tobacco, cigarette lighters, matches and vaporizers; drugs, alcohol, solvents and aerosols; fireworks; knives, scissors, laser pens and any weapon that could be used to hurt others; pornographic material; chewing/ bubble gum; electrical equipment

According to the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2013, Headteachers cannot grant any leave of absence during term time unless there are ‘exceptional’ circumstances. Under the legislation, the following examples of absence request will not meet the criteria for approval unless clear and specific ‘exceptional’ circumstances can be demonstrated:

• family holidays arranged for convenience (whether because of holiday trade, farming, parental work commitments, etc.)
• family holidays arranged because of cost (cheaper holidays during term time)
• visiting relatives
• family day trips (to exhibitions, theatre, agricultural shows, etc.)
• visiting family/friends who have different holidays.

Some examples of ‘exceptional’ circumstances that would be considered include:

• the serious illness of a close family member
• the funeral of a family member/close friend
• forces personnel on leave from a foreign posting
• representation in national or county sports teams
• other significant family events or circumstances.

An electronic student absence request form is available here or by contacting attendance@ullswatercc.co.uk

If you child is not well enough to come to school, please ring 01768 210206 option 3 by 08:50am to leave a message for the Attendance team. The school will contact home on the first day of absence if there has been no contact from parent/carer.

Please do not email form tutors or heads of year regarding absence as with teaching they can’t always access emails straightaway. If you can’t call, email attendance@ullswatercc.co.uk

Medical and dental appointments: We ask you, as far as possible, to make appointments outside school hours. If your child has to visit the doctor, clinic or dentist in school hours then please call or email in advance. A note will then be added to the register so that teachers know to allow students out of class early.

They must then sign out at reception and sign in again on their return. Students will not be permitted to leave site if we haven’t had prior notification from parents/carers.

Accidents during the school day

Students who have an accident in school will be seen by one of the trained first aid staff based in the Health Hub.  In the event of an injury requiring further medical attention, the first aiders, in consultation with the Headteacher, will arrange for transfer to hospital. A member of staff will accompany the student in the ambulance and parents will be contacted immediately to attend as soon as possible.

Illness during the school day

Students who fall ill during the school day must not just go home or contact their parents without first seeking medical help and/or permission to leave the school site. We need to be able to account for all our students, for example in the case of a fire. This is a Health and Safety regulation.

If students feel unwell during class they should speak to their teacher who can send them to the Health Hub. Staff there will assess the situation and if necessary contact parents/carers to collect the student.

Medication

Students who are taking medication prescribed by a GP should take it to the Health Hub for safekeeping – they must not carry it around school.

However, staff can only administer medication with written parental permission. Please complete a form (available from the Health Hub) stating your child’s condition, the name of the medicine and the required dosage. By law, all medicines must be kept in their original containers.

Health and Safety regulations mean that we cannot give paracetamol to students without the explicit permission of parents. Permission for this will be sought when your child enrols at UCC.

Each year group have one parents’ evening per year.

Additionally, Year 7 & Year 12 have a “settling in evening” early in the Autumn term.

For 2024/25 all parents’ evenings are in person at UCC, but you book appointments online.

Dates can be found on our calendar – but you will also receive an email as the date approaches, giving more detail.

The booking system can be found here – you need to set up an initial account but once you have that you just log in each time.

[When setting up your account, the main issue people encounter is the system doesn’t recognise you. You must be entering the same details that you’ve given us for your child’s record, i.e. if we have Ms J Smith, it won’t recognise Mrs J Smith]

Once logged on, you select the evening and it will show a list of your child’s teachers and the times they have available – we do recommend booking early to avoid disappointment.

Note: as we always say if you have an issue or concern regarding your child it doesn’t have to wait for parents’ evening, contact us anytime and we can put you in touch with someone to help.

Arbor is a school system that has grown in popularity over recent years, and in September 2024 UCC replaced their old system with Arbor.

This is where we store student records, take registers, record behaviour/achievement…amongst many other things – and there is an app that parents can download to monitor their child.

The functionality of Arbor will expand as we embed it throughout the year and parents will be kept updated.

For more information on how to set up your app, click here.

We give the students September to settle in and then advertise school lockers, starting with Year 7, then Year 8 and so on.

Once lockers are available;

1. Families need to provide their own combination lock padlock
2. Then go onto iPay to pay the £1.00 deposit to reserve a locker
3. Once paid, students go to reception with their padlock
4. They will be taken to the locker by a member of staff who will remove the existing master lock and replace with their own padlock
5. The student is then responsible for that locker for the rest of the academic year

Note:

If they forget their combination code you will be asked to pay the £1.00 through iPay again so that we can cut off the padlock to allow access – and then students needs to provide a replacement padlock

At the end of the school year students will be given a date by which their locker needs to be emptied. Failure to clear the locker by the deadline will result in the padlock being cut and the contents will be taken to lost property

Students are encouraged to go before tutor time, at break and at lunchtime, to prevent them missing vital parts of lessons.

If they need to go during a lesson they should ask politely if they can leave the room. If permitted, they will be issued with a pass from the teacher, and if they do have a mobile phone they will be asked to leave it with the teacher.

Students must come to school in full uniform and change into PE kit at the start of their PE lesson.

Our dining halls and pasta pod serve a variety of hot and cold foods.

The weekly menu is displayed to students on TV screens outside the dining halls.

For more information visit; https://ullswatercc.co.uk/parents/catering/

At the start of each term a list is collated of all the exciting and diverse clubs and groups that we offer, and there will be lots of communication and advertising to students within school.

Once finalised it is published on the homepage of our website for parents to peruse.

Items that are marked with your child’s name are easily returned. Any student who has lost an item of property should report the loss to their Form Tutor.

Items of lost property found on the site are handed in to the withdrawal room (R30).

Exercise books, textbooks & student planners must be looked after and, if lost, will have to be paid for.

Parents are asked to note that the Local Authority cannot accept responsibility for the personal property of students whilst they are on the school premises and cannot pay compensation in respect of any loss sustained.  The school will always endeavour to return property.

Email is always best as it’s very difficult to get teachers on the phone during teaching hours.

If it’s your first time contacting the school the best email address to use is admin@ullswatercc.co.uk

The admin team can either forward your email onto the relevant person, or give you their email address to make contact yourself.

If it’s a general issue in the first instance you should contact their form tutor, if it was about a certain subject i.e. English, you should contact their English teacher.

If an issue then needed escalated it would go through the channels of Form Tutor – Pastoral Team – Senior Leadership Team – Headteacher.

For further clarification see our Home Communications Policy

Mobile phones are not encouraged in school; however, the school accepts that they are often an essential form of communication with parents. Mobile phones should never be used in school without the permission of members of staff. If a phone is used without permission, it will be confiscated and taken to the withdrawal room – where the student will need to collect it at the end of the day.

Sex Education is taught across the age range in Science, Humanities, PSHE and Child Development to mixed gender classes. In addition, outside speakers are invited to talk to groups of students on specific topics. A variety of teaching methods are used, including videos, discussions, lectures and role play. The sex education teaching programme covers:

• The process of human reproduction.
• The physical and emotional changes that take place at puberty.
• The benefits of good personal relationships.
• Family planning, abortion and the laws relating to sexual behaviour.
• HIV, AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections.
• Pornography and its effect on attitudes to sex and the opposite sex.
• Internet safety and sexting.

The school has a detailed sex education policy on our Policies page.  We are happy to discuss any aspect of the policy and to show parents/carers the materials used in the delivery of sex education.  Parents/carers wishing to exercise their right to withdraw their child from sex education lessons should contact the Headteacher so that alternative arrangements can be made.

In the case of extreme weather (snow/flooding) we will update our website regularly.  You can also follow our facebook page, and we will keep parents updated with text/email.

It is vital that student records are kept up-to-date. If you change address or contact details please either complete this online form, email us at admin@ullswatercc.co.uk or update it on your Arbor app.

We do encourage families to return any unwanted uniform/PE kit to school, either because it no longer fits or their child has left UCC.

Anything that is good enough to be passed on for a small charge is added to the School shop as “pre-loved uniform”.

Any other donated items are kept in “Withdrawal” and loaned to students for the day i.e. if they come to school without their blazer they will be sent to “Withdrawal” (R30) to borrow one, returning at the end of the day.

We encourage families to check their eligibility for Free School Meals and Clothing Vouchers through W & F Council – https://www.westmorlandandfurness.gov.uk/schools-and-education/free-school-meals-and-clothing-vouchers

If granted, free school meals are automatically added through iPay and accessed the same as any other child in the dining hall, so other students wouldn’t know that your child was in receipt of free school meals.

There is occasionally additional funding available from the council or sometimes charities, anything that we become aware of we will share information with families.

We do have a UCC Support Fund for certain circumstances, the policy and hard copy application form can be found here, and the online application form can be found here.

Including images of students in school publications and on the school website can be motivating for the students involved, and provide a good opportunity to promote the work of the school. However, schools have a duty of care towards students, which means that students must remain unidentifiable and consent must be given for photographs and footage to be taken of your child.

When your child starts at UCC you will be asked to complete a consent form, this includes consent for digital images, and this can be withdrawn at any time. Please contact us for any other enquiries regarding digital consent or photographs of your child.

UCC catering staff will never let a child go hungry. If they don’t have enough funds on their iPay account they will be given credit for that day to allow them to eat.

If iPay accounts start to become “overdrawn” you will receive a reminder to add funds from our finance and/or catering team.

You don’t need to do anything, as soon as they can our finance department will refund all accounts that are no longer on roll.

In the case of a younger sibling being here any credit will be moved to their account.

Please visit our dedicated Safeguarding page – https://ullswatercc.co.uk/safeguarding/

All students will be given a paper copy of their timetable on day one. It will be double sided, illustrating the two week timetable; week A and week B.

They will also be expected to hand write their timetable into their student planner – they will be required to have their planner out on their desk during every lesson.

From September 2024 you will be able to see your child’s timetable on the Arbor app.

Any students that are leaving UCC** need to speak to their form tutor to obtain a leaving form. They need to complete this form, get their Head of Year to sign it and return to school reception.

The laws around students in school are very strict so it’s important that we know which school students are moving to, without this we can’t take them off roll at UCC and are required to report them as missing in education.

** obviously with the exception of the normal end of Year 11 or 13