FAQs

Not just one, but two! We are delighted to confirm that our 'Year 6 taster days' for our September 2024 cohort are scheduled for Monday 8th and Tuesday 9th July. Further details will be shared about this in due course. 

We are offering all parents/carers an opportunity to book a ten minute virtual meeting with Mr Dean (Head of Year 7 & Transition). This will help us find out more about your child as well as answering any questions that you may have. There will be a range of appointments between Friday 7th June and Friday 14th June. Appointment times will range between 8am and 5pm. 

There will also be a Parents Information Event on Thursday 11th July with the two sessions starting at 4:30pm or 5:30pm. Booking a place will be electronic and details will be shared about this in June. 

We are also hoping to have further opportunities so please do keep an eye on the various communications.

Your child’s primary school has provided us with a “working group” of one or two other students with whom your child works well in a classroom setting.  We use these groupings to place as many students as we can with someone they know and learn well with.

The “working groups”  are not necessarily based on friendship groups.  We hope that using these working groups will mean students will each be with someone they know as they move from room to room across the school.  We hope this will help begin building up their courage to navigate around the site over the first few weeks.

For those joining us from our smaller primary schools or as the only one from a particular primary school, we will place students in a similar situation in the same group.  We hope this means they more quickly get to know new students and feel reassured that they are not alone in dealing with the understandable additional  anxieties some of them may feel.   

Based on the information we are provided with by primary schools, we do our best to avoid any students with whom there has been prior conflict although, again, we cannot guarantee that they won’t be together at some point during the school day and this obviously includes lesson changeovers, before/after school and during break/lunch times.

“Teaching groups” are the group of students with whom they learn across multiple subjects usually including Geography, History, Personal Development and Science.  They are mixed attainment groupings.  They also act as the student's PDM group for Lesson 0 (see below). 

Other subject areas use different groupings for their own Department and this usually includes Design Technology, English, Maths and PE. This means that students will have a huge opportunity for as many new interactions as possible across our 20 feeder primary schools. 

Our school day timings are shown below:

08.40 Lesson 0

09.15 Lesson 1

10.15 Lesson 2

11.15 Break

11.35 Lesson 3

12.35 Lesson 4

13.35 Lunch

14.10 Lesson 5

15.10 End of School Day 

We have a two week timetable which means we repeat the cycle every fortnight rather than every week.  We call the weeks "A Week" and "B Week".  Your child will receive a timetable in September and form tutors and the Year 7 pastoral team will help them know more about what this means including identifying the subject lesson, teacher name, room location etc.

You will receive a login to a service called "MyChildAtSchool" on which you will be able to see your child's timetable and access school report information.  You will also have access to ClassCharts which provides real time updates on your child including praise points issued. There will be further information about this in both the transition booklet and also the Parent/Carer information event. 

You can access the most up to date uniform guidance here. This includes a summary of recent changes in case you have an older child in the school. Our uniform is designed to make it as economical as possible and everything (except the school tie) can be purchased either from high street shops or supermarkets which also gives you the advantage of checking sizes etc.

Uniform can also be purchased through the website here if you do not want to buy it on the high street or from supermarkets.   Please note that we cannot offer any advice on sizing and we do not have a uniform shop or samples to try.

If you have any specific queries regarding school uniform please contact our school reception using the email address office@thecooperschool.co.uk

We have many members of our pastoral team who work collaboratively to support each Year 7 student and this includes:

• A Personal Development Mentor (PDM) allocated to each group from September. You will have a chance to meet them in term 1.

• Heads of Year - Mr Dean and Miss Field work closely together to support your child's transition and induction into secondary education, they monitor and enhance student's personal development and academic progress.

• A Year 7 Student Support Manager who is a non-teaching member of staff who supports students on a day to day basis; she can also be a first point of call for parents.

• A Senior Leadership Team Link who is the Behaviour Lead across the school.

In addition,  pastoral staff might make referrals for students to speak to other staff at school including those situated in our Pheonix and Wellbeing Hub e.g. School Counsellor and a School Nurse.  

Perhaps the biggest difference between primary and secondary education is the vast number of subjects that will make up a student's timetable. These lessons are taught by our subject specialist teachers and departments. A Year 7 timetable will consist of the following subjects:

English, Maths, Science (Biology, Chemistry and Physics), Design Technology, Modern Foreign Language, Physical Education, History, Geography, Religious Education, Drama, Music, Art, Computer Science and Personal Development (formerly PSHE - Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education)

The Inclusion Department comprises a team of Academic Co-Ordinators, who support students on the SEND register by mentoring students and delivering individualised intervention plans to help overcome barriers to learning. The staff work in our ACE centre which stands for Achieving and Creating Excellence. AEN (Additional Educational Needs) provision is overseen by our Deputy Headteacher, Mr Rogerson, with lead DSL and SENCo responsibilities within the school. 

The Academic Co-ordinators also liaise with parents/teachers/specialist TAs and outside agencies to ensure individual students receive the appropriate level of guidance and support within an Inclusive environment. 

In addition, Curriculum HLTAs work with students within Departments to offer additional support to students' learning within that subject area. 

Our Inclusion Team has been in contact with primary schools about all those students joining us with additional learning needs. If you have anything you would like to discuss with our Inclusion Team about the support for your child with additional learning needs please e-mail our ACE Centre Admin. Assistant (jneal@thecooperschool.co.uk)

We have a designated Year 7 social area which makes it easier for students to know where to spend their break and lunch times. This space is supervised by members of staff and the Head of Year is on duty each lunchtime. Students can eat their lunch and chat to their friends and in the last year we have added benches, seven outdoor table-tennis tables and football goals to this space. 

There is an indoor space nearby, again just for Year 7s, where students can play games (we have a selection of card games, board games etc. and students are welcome to bring in their own) and there is also space to do homework, including the use of their 1-1 chromebook devices. Again, this room is supervised each break and lunch.

There are also some clubs (we call these Electives) that run at lunchtime and these opportunities will be shared with students in September. 

Yes, we are a cashless school and use the ParentPay service.  You will be sent relevant login information for this, although this can only happen when your child starts with us in September.  We use a biometric fingerprint system and you can see the relevant policy information about this on the "policies" section of this website.

If there is any additional information you would like to share with us about your child or if there are any questions we can help with please e-mail y7admissions@thecooperschool.co.uk