We have continued from Kindness week, moving onto celebrating raising awareness of mental health by wearing yellow for #helloyellow day! We had lots of learning across the school about mental health, and how to keep ourselves mentally healthy, as well as the impact our words have on others.

We are really excited about having Grace Murdoch back at TMS working with our Y3/4 children. We know how much our children enjoy working with her, being inspired by her abundance of energy, belief in our children and her enormous creativity. We can’t wait!

A massive thank you also to those who contributed to the collection for Truro Foodbank we had for harvest. Our community showed enormous generosity: thank you.

With the focus on attendance and with TMS now issuing penalty notices (fining) for unauthorised sessions from the 10th session, and starting the process for prosecution, we would like to clarify some key points:

• 1 day equals 2 sessions
• Exceptional circumstances are incredibly rare for requests for absences. A cheaper holiday due to seasonal work, visiting relatives not seen for a while or arranging a holiday after a particularly challenging time as a family are not considered exceptional circumstances.
• A holiday for 5 days (10 sessions) will trigger the Local Authority to go ahead and issue a Penalty Notice (a fine of £80 per child, per parent).
• After 10 unauthorised absences over time, you will expected to attend a meeting with Ms Teagle and/or Mrs Ewart, and a Penalty Notice, or warning letter for prosecution, will be issued for any unauthorised absence thereafter.

Today, we have met with the Trust attendance Officer and discussed children who have had 5 or more broken weeks from the 3rd June. As a result, some families next week will be contacted about the next stages in the process or notified that we are monitoring attendance. The school is, as always, here to support families in getting children to school, but we must also follow the legal framework.

Attendance is incredibly important for learning, as well as for emotional and social development. At TMS we are committed to achieving excellent attendance.