Friday 8th September
Headteacher's Update
Welcome back to school! I hope that you all had a wonderful summer and were able to catch up with friends and family. All of us are looking forward to working with your children over the course of the year and feel honoured to be a part of their education journey.
What a fabulous start we have had to the term! It has been lovely to see lots of smiling faces as they have got started with their work, catching up with friends and exploring their new classrooms. When walking throughout the school and visiting each class, the children are all settled in their work and taking great care with their presentation.
It’s been lovely to receive such positive feedback on the improvements that we have made to the learning environments at both schools. These have included the creation of a sensory garden space in the entrance to the Junior school, improved play equipment at the infant school and the completion of our new outdoor classroom facility. I would like to thank Green Park for their support with this project. It’s been great to see the children already using this facility. We will be creating a specialism for learning in the outdoors as part of our improvement work this term.
Reminders
It was wonderful to see the children looking really smart in their new uniform and I would like to thank all of our families for helping us to make this change. I would like to remind parents that our sock colour is grey. White socks are only permitted to be worn with the summer dress until half term.
I would also like to remind parents that breaktime snack must be healthy, i.e. a piece of real fruit or veg. Please do not provide children with crisps, biscuits or 'Fruit Winders'.
Thank you for your understanding in these matters.
Primary Behaviour Support Coffee Morning
Are you struggling with behaviour at home? Is your child anxious or worried starting back to school? Do you need support and advice to help manage these challenges at home?
Many parents joined the Primary Behaviour Support (PBS) workshop evening last term and found it really helpful.
Zoe Perks from PBS will be visiting the Junior School next Wednesday morning to hold an informal coffee morning with parents who wish to attend. This is a chance to chat to others parents, meet our new Family Support team (Mrs Fritz and Mrs Hawkins) at school and seek advice about behaviour. Zoe has a wealth of knowledge and lots of practical tips to support parents with managing anxiety and behaviour at home. This can range from concerns about your child's anxiety or difficulties with behaviour at home.
Any parent can attend this informal coffee morning. Parents can drop in at 8:45am/9am and do not need to attend the whole time.
Sign up here:
Attendance, Medical Appointments, Illnesses
Attendance is vitally important to your child’s education and time at school. Showing your child the importance of attending school every day not only helps your child to settle quickly when starting school but helps them to keep and maintain friendships and enjoy the school environment.
As a Federation we aim to have our overall attendance of 96% or higher and appreciate your efforts in supporting us with this. Persistent absence (PA) is defined as an attendance rate of 90% or below. Missing a half a day of school a week (which would lead to an attendance rate of 90%) equates to missing a year of school over their time in education and research has shown that those with higher attendance rates achieve higher results at both the end of KS2 and KS4.
More information and advice can be found here.
The DfE guidance on attendance can be found here:
As a Federation, we are here to help you if there are any barriers to getting your child into school, so please do let us know if you need further support. I understand that there are some exceptional cases where your child must attend a planned medical appointment during school times but I ask that, wherever possible, dentist, doctor, physio appointments etc. are held outside of the school day or during the school holidays.
For those appointments where that is not possible, it is best to bring your child in for as much of the day as possible. It is fine to send your child to school with a minor ailment such as tummy ache, head ache, cough or common cold.
The NHS provide some advice on helping to determine if you should send them in or keep them at home.
If your child is too unwell to attend school, you must contact the school on/before the first morning of the absence stating the reasons.
How will I find out what my child is learning about and how they are progressing?
There are many ways of finding out what your child is learning about and how they are doing.
• Meet The Teacher meetings for each class at the start of the school year
• Parents Evenings in the Autumn and Spring Term and written reports in the summer.
• If your child is in an end of key stage year group (Year R, 2, 6) or takes any statutory assessments (Year 1 and 4), results of these are also sent out in the summer term.
• Regular updates of what is being covered in class can also be found on our website here.
If you would like more information than this or have any concerns about how your child is progressing, please do get in touch with your child’s class teacher through the school office.
House Captains
Congratulations to our newly elected House Captains:
Pegasus - Aidan Fisher and Mollie Foulkes
Lynx - Archie Campbell and Sofia Kennelly
Aquila - Roddie Maclean and Thea Samara
Cygnus - Oscar Loupekine and Daisy-Rose Heaver
School Council Elections
School Council elections will take place next Friday in class. If your child is in Years 1 or 2 and would like to be on the School Council they should prepare a poster/short talk for their class on why they would be a good school counsellor. Teachers will talk to their class about this today. Each class will have one child from Year 1 and one child from Year 2.
School Librarians
We would like to chose 6 Year 2 children to be school library helpers. If your child is interested please can they give Miss Knapp a poster/letter to apply by next Friday. The children were spoken to about this in assembly today.
School Photographer
The photographer will be in school from 8.30am on Thursday 5th October to take the annual individual portrait photos.
If you would like a photo taken with younger/older siblings then please queue at the hall door from 8.30am. Children with brothers/sisters who attend the Infant School will be taken during school hours.
Please ensure your child is wearing the correct school uniform. Thank you.
Music Lessons
Becky Stevens, our piano and brass teacher, has a few available spaces this term and will be holding trials for the Infant School on Monday 11th September and the junior school on Tuesday the 12th.
If you are interested in lessons and would like more information, or for your child to start or for your child to attend a trial; please contact Becky via email - silverbeatsandtreats@gmail.com
Meet the Teacher
Come along and meet your child's new teacher. You will find out all you need to know about the year ahead, find out how to support your child's learning at home and have an opportunity to ask questions. We will run a ‘crèche' for school age pupils. Younger children can be taken into the meeting if necessary.
Meetings take place on the following dates:
Phonics Workshop
We will soon be running a parents workshop on how we teach phonics in the federation and how to support your child at home. This is open to parents from across the Federation, including those at the Junior school, book your place here:
Star Awards
The following children received Star Awards this week! They should all be really proud, well done!
Jessica Matthews
Autumn Wilson
Christian Davies
Francesca Tanner
Denys Kirnos
Ella Morgan
Daisy-Rose Heaver
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