School Timings

The school site opens to parents and visitors from 8:00am to 4:00pm Monday to Friday during term time.

The Abbey School operates a 2 week (48 periods) timetable which alternates between Week A and Week B according to a pre-published schedule.

Students should aim to arrive in the playground ready for the morning's line-up at 8:40am. The school day will then begin at 8:45am, with a 45 minute registration period with form tutors (except for a Friday, when registration period with form tutors will be for 15 minutes due to early finish on a Friday). Within this slot, there is time allocated to support students with literacy, numeracy, thinking skills and academic mentoring. There are also regular year group and house assemblies that take place for each student dependent on their year group.

To ensure the safe transition of our students over the footbridge at the end of each school day, we operate a staggered dismissal system on a weekly rotation. Students are released in their year groups between 3:10pm and 3:30pm and parents will be advised weekly of each of the release times.

Friday

On Fridays, the school day ends at 2:00pm for students. However, Year 11 students will have support and revision sessions in this time at specific points in the school calendar. The remainder of the afternoon on a Friday until 4:00pm is used for staff CPD and INSET.

Activities are available for those students who have to remain in school until 3:30pm on Fridays.

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Lunch Times

We are pleased that Independent Catering has joined the school to deliver quality food at a competitive price to our students and staff.

Our achievements as a partnership include:

• Varied nutritious meals that are freshly cooked onsite each day.
• A variety of choices including a main meal, street food, sandwich bar and fresh salads to suit all tastes. Individual options such as Gluten free can be discussed with the catering manager.
• Cashless Catering allows parent/carers to top up school dinner accounts online and also look at what their child/children are eating.
• Cashless Catering has also driven up the number of pupils claiming their free school entitlement.
• The dining hall has been awarded 5 star food standard rating for the last 3 inspections.

To register for free school meal please click the link below.

The above link will direct you to the Kent County Council site for Universal free school meals.

Information regarding the range of food on offer can be found at the bottom of this page.

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Uniform Expectations

A high standard of personal appearance is expected of all students and anyone arriving in non-uniform clothing may expect to be sent home to get changed. All items of school uniform should be clearly labelled with the student’s name. Ties should be correctly worn and shirts tucked in.

Hair colour and style must be appropriate for school (non-natural colours such as green, red or blue are not acceptable, nor are shaved lines).

Make-up is not recommended, however if worn, it should be discreet and complement natural skin tones. False eyelashes and fake tan are also not permitted. Nail varnish should be natural tones only, no nail extensions or false nails of any kind will be allowed. Non-uniform items will be confiscated.