Policies & Procedures

Complaints Procedure

If you have a complaint and are not sure what you should do, we do have a Complaints Policy in place which is available on our website or on request. The policy details a four-step procedure, the first being the Informal stage, where you can raise a concern or complaint through a member of staff; this is usually your child's Form Tutor, in the first instance.

Safeguarding Children

As part of the Schools’ safeguarding children policy, it is our duty of care to promote all pupils’ welfare. The aim of the policy is to ensure that pupils grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care. Following the guidelines published in Keeping Children Safe in Education September 2022, Merchant Taylors’ School will follow procedures if there are concerns with a specific pupil’s welfare. After discussion with, and advice from, external agencies, it may be necessary to refer a pupil to the relevant Local Authority Social Care Department.

The Social Services Department, for the area in which the school is situated in this instance is:

Social Care Customer Access Team Merton House, Stanley Road, Bootle Liverpool L20 3UU Tel: 0151 934 3737

Emergency Duty Team (EDT) out of hours: 0151 920 8234

Data Protection

The School is required to process relevant personal data regarding current, past or prospective pupils and their parents or guardians as part of its operation and shall take all reasonable steps to do so. Processing may include obtaining, recording, holding, disclosing, destroying or otherwise using data. The Merchant Taylors’ School pupils’ data protection policy is available on request from the Head.

Telephones

Parents are asked not to use the telephone for unimportant matters. It is a great help to the smooth running of the School if routine requests etc. can be made in writing. Only on occasions of urgency and real importance can telephone messages be given to pupils. A public telephone is available on school premises for outgoing calls only.

Mobiles

Pupils in Years 7 - 11 are not allowed mobile phones during school hours. At MTBS all phones are expected to be switched off during school hours and stored away. At MTGS, girls in Years 7 - 9 are required to hand their phone in at reception on arrival to school. Years 10 - 11 are required to keep their phones in their bags/lockers at all times.

Curriculum Policy

Our curriculum should be broad, balanced and relevant and should be appropriate to the needs of our pupils.

Our intake is selective and we seek to stretch the pupils by offering them an academic curriculum which includes difficult subjects. (For the Senior School this principle underlines our language options in the Lower School and single subject science in the Middle School.)

Our curriculum is designed to allow time for extra curricular activities, both inside and outside school, and to minimise the pressure on young people so that they can explore their own interests.

We want all our pupils to have equal entitlement to the curriculum and explicitly seek to eliminate the possibility of any group developing a ‘sink’ mentality.

The majority of our students go on to study academic subjects at university and our curriculum is designed to prepare them in terms of knowledge and skills to make the most of higher education when they leave us.

We seek to avoid teaching groups which are too large for the individual to be heard or too

Disability Statement

Merchant Taylors’ is a selective academic school and a prospective pupil’s admission depends upon them meeting the criteria required.

The School must be reasonably sure that it can educate and develop each prospective pupil to the best of their potential, commensurate with the standards achieved by their peers. By achieving the above criteria the School intends that each pupil will have a successful and fulfilled school career that will lead to them being a well-educated, wellrounded individual when they leave.

All of the above apply to every pupil and potential pupil, regardless of any disability they may have, provided the School is aware of the disability. The School acknowledges its obligation to make reasonable adjustments and recognises that these should not put any disabled pupil or potential pupil at a substantial disadvantage.

Parents must have included any disability their child may have on the application form, which must be completed as the first stage in the entrance procedure. In assessing any prospective pupil the School may seek further advice and assessment it regards as appropriate and reasonable. Confidentiality