Ref: TM
120th March 2015
Dear Parent/Carer,
As part of our continued drive to improve ACE Academy and secure better life
chances for our students, we are pleased to announce that we have been able to
introduce the use of Saturday detentions as an alternative to the use of fixed term
exclusions when students have not attended or behaved well in Senior Leadership
Team detentions.
As you already know, when poor behaviour or homework issues arise, wherever
possible the student will be spoken to by their class teacher and may be asked to
attend an informal staff detention during the Academy day. However, in cases of
serious breaches of the Academy Code of Conduct, it may be felt appropriate to issue
students with an Academy Detention. These last for 30 minutes and take place at the
end of every Academy day between 14.50 and 15.20pm.
Either an Academy letter notifying you of the detention the day before and/or a text
message will be sent on the day of the detention to the first point of contact on our
database. It is, therefore, very important that you ensure we have an up to date mobile
number. This can be easily done by contacting us and/or completing a Data Collection
Form.
Where poor behaviour leads to a detention being given, the ACE Academy has legal
backing in enforcing its arrangements to detain students. Neither parents/carers nor
students can refuse to accept them, nor can they require that the detention be at a
different time. However in certain circumstances e.g. a medical appointment, the
detention may be rescheduled to the following day provided this has been
communicated to us by a parent, guardian or carer. The Academy reserves the right to
decide what is a reasonable reason for a student not being able to attend a detention –
further examples of these can be found in the Behaviour Policy. The need to escort a
sibling home is not an acceptable reason for missing a detention. It is also the
parent/carer’s responsibility to make arrangements for students to get home after a
detention. We are keen to work with parents and carers whilst maintaining very high
expectations for behaviour.
Those students who fail to turn up for an Academy Detention without a good reason
receive an extended detention with members of the Senior Leadership Team. These
will last for one hour and will take place each Monday-Thursday between 14:50 and
15:50pm. (When students have been involved in a particularly serious breach of the
Academy Behaviour Policy, they might be placed straight into a Senior Leadership
Team detention.) If a student fails to attend a Senior Leadership Team detention
without a good reason communicated to us by a parent/carer, this will be regarded as a
very serious breach of the ACE Academy Behaviour Policy and will lead to the
student being required to attend our new Saturday School (an extra session of learning
run from 9.30am -12.30pm each Saturday). If a student fails to attend and complete a
Saturday School session, this will result in them receiving a fixed term exclusion.
If a student fails to behave well in a detention, if this is in an Academy detention the
detention will be escalated to an SLT detention. If this is in a Senior Leadership Team
detention, the detention will be escalated to the student being required to attend a
Saturday School session. If a student fails to behave well in a Saturday School
session, this will result in them receiving a fixed term exclusion.
We will begin to run Saturday School Detentions from Saturday 28th March and so
this will apply to Senior Leadership Detentions from Monday 23rd March. If your
child receives an Academy, Senior Leadership Team or Saturday Detention for
homework or behaviour, I would ask that you discuss this with your child and ensure
that they attend the detention. Working together in this way we hope that there will be
no repeat of the poor behaviour and that these will be vastly improved attitudes to
completing homework as this is an integral part of your child’s success.
Yours faithfully
Mr Robin Grover
Headteacher