Schools and Daily Acts of Collective Worship

Each pupil must take part in a daily act of collective worship unless they have been withdrawn by their parents.

Our Church of England schools must provide collective worship in accordance with the tenets and practices of the Church of England.

Our community schools (schools that do not have a religious designation) must provide collective worship that is wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character. A school can reflect the religious backgrounds represented in its community, as long as the majority of provision is broadly Christian.

Religious Education

Our schools follow the Devon and Torbay agreed RE syllabus.

The right to withdraw from RE or Collective Worship

Parents have the right to withdraw their children from religious education and/or collective worship, and should contact the Head of School to ask for this. Parents will be invited to a meeting to discuss withdrawal and to explore how their concern may be met. Parents are not obliged to attend such a meeting in which case withdrawal shall be put into effect immediately and the school will notify the parent.

Relevant Policies

You may also want to have a look at policies in our safeguarding section, such as anti-bullying and anti-racism, which are available on our website here.

And/or the policies in our SEND and medical section, which is are available on our website here.

Gender
You can find our report on our gender pay gap here.

Relevant Documents

You will find below our Equality Policy and Objectives, and the outcome of our annual reviews of progress made towards these objectives.

Useful Documents

Our Pupil Attendance Policy template includes information about how we promote attendance, when to keep your child at home due to illness and holidays during term time. 

Please refer to your child's school website for the policy for your child's school. 

In order to make informed decisions about their child’s fitness for attending school, parents are encouraged to refer to the NHS guidance ‘Is My Child Too Ill for School?’.

Policies

Our schools develop their own policy to suit their context and pupils, based on the Trust template which can be found below. 

The individual school policy can be found on their website. 

In primary schools, parents can withdraw their child from sex education beyond the national curriculum for science, but cannot withdraw them from Relationships or Health education.

Policy

The First Federation Trust schools aim to deal with concerns as quickly, sympathetically and effectively as possible. It is hoped that most concerns will be settled amicably without recourse to the formal complaints policy. Parents and carers should talk about their concern to their child's class teacher in the first instance. If they feel their concern has not been dealt with appropriately, parents and carers should then make an appointment to discuss it further with the Head of School.

If the complainant remains dissatisfied, they will be directed through the formal stages of the First Federation complaints policy. 

Parents may find it helpful to refer to the ParentKind parent guide to school complaints which can be found below when raising concerns or complaints. 

The complete First Federation complaints policy can be viewed and downloaded below. This explains the different complaint stages and timelines.

The complaints form, to be used for formal complaints, can also be downloaded separately below. 

Where concerns or complaints which should have been addressed to a Trust school are received by the Trust head office, the Trust will ask the school to investigate them, letting the parent or carer know to expect an answer from the school. 

The Trust will not normally investigate anonymous complaints. However the Head of School, a member of the Trust Senior Leadership Team or the Chair of Directors, if appropriate, will determine whether the complaint warrants an investigation.  

Compliments 

We also always welcome any compliments you might have!