The School Day and other key information
At Southill Lower the school day begins at 8:50am.
This is when the doors open for children to go to their classrooms for a prompt start to the day.
- Years 1 to 2 (Swallows class) enters the school through the door onto the main playground which is located at the front of the school.
- Years 3 to 4 (Swifts class) enters the school through the door onto the main playground which is located at the front of the school.
- Pre-school and Reception (Martins class) enter the school after meeting their class teacher at the back of the playground and being led to Martins classroom.
The doors close at 8:50am. Children who arrive after this time must come through the main doors and be signed in at the main office.
There is a morning break for Martins, Swifts and Swallows classes.
Lunchtime is the same for all classes and runs from 12:00pm to 1:00pm.
The end of the school day is at 3:30pm.
Collection times are below and again are from the main playground.
EYFS to Y4 all finish at 3.30pm.
This means that the typical school week is 32.5 hours.
Parents can collect their child or children from:
- The front entrance (Swallows class)
- The front entrance (Swifts class)
- The main playground (Martins classes)
We have a school newsletter that is published each week on a Friday and contains lots of information about Southill including upcoming events.
We use parentmail and class dojo as a school to aid communication. These apps can be downloaded to your mobile phone and help parents keep up-to-date with the school day.
Procedure for School Closure due to Snow
In the event of severe weather conditions when it is decided not to open school, we will notify you by text message on your mobile phone. We will also place a notice on the school's website and we usually notify the local radio stations, BBC Three Counties and Heart FM, as well as Central Bedfordshire Council (CBC), so that you can check the CBC Website for information using their 'State of Schools' (SOS) system.
Parents / carers can sign up for email alerts from the Schools Open Status (SOS) system about the status of the school during bad weather conditions (i.e. open or closed). The SOS system also shows the status of the school transport routes, if the buses will be running or not on a particular route. It also has the ability to provide highways reports on the state of the roads. All these will be updated live on the website and email alerts will be sent to notify everyone who has registered. To sign up for this service, parents / carers should visit the website below and register. The use of the SOS system will be in addition to the measures mentioned earlier.
