Dear All,
Welcome to all the Reception children who have joined us full-time today. It’s great to see everyone settling in so well!
Elections will be taking place throughout this week for School Council, Eco Team and House and Vice Captains.
Zoolab are visiting Reception and Year 1/2 classes on Tuesday and they will bring a selection of animals for pupils to see and hold if they want to.
Year 1/2 classes are beginning their six week block of Samba sessions on Wednesday and these are run by Glyn Watkins from Upbeat Music and Arts.
Friday is Jeans for Genes day and in return for a minimum 50p donation, children are allowed to wear jeans and casual clothes to school.
The Contact Details prize draw for the green address cards will take place on Friday morning. There are three prizes of a £5.00 gift card: one each for a Nursery, infant and junior pupil whose name card is pulled out.
Clubs
School clubs and the paying Minecraft Club start this week.
Please remember that all clubs finish at 4.30pm. Please help these clubs to work well by collecting your child promptly at the end of a session.
All staff run these clubs voluntarily and I am grateful to them for helping with this.
Contact Details Update Cards
Thank you for returning the green Contact Details Update cards. Please send in any green cards still at home-they are very important because we need to ensure that all telephone numbers and addresses are current. (Spare ones are available from the office if you need one.) If you change your phone number, please always let us know as soon as possible.
School Dinners
The new menu has been sent home and spare copies are available from the office if you need any. The menu, which the school has drawn up in consultation with Chartwells, is run on a three weekly cycle.
The sandwich system is going well and this is just a reminder to new Reception parents that children will need to bring home all their sandwich packaging and also any uneaten food so that you know what your child has eaten. This helps with Newport’s recycling target also.
Although we are unable to declare ourselves a nut free school, please help us by not sending in your child with any nuts or products containing nuts if you can help it. This is because we have a few children who have a nut allergy, and we would like to minimise any risk to them. Thank you for your help with this.
Please remember that no glass bottles or canned drink can be brought into school
Please do not bring dinner money to the office in the morning. Newport City Council do not run school dinners-they are run by Chartwells. Miss Stone, the cook who is employed by Chartwells, collects all the money from the purses in the morning.
We have chosen not to run a payment and advance ordering system (which has to be done two weeks in advance) in order to make things more manageable for you but I would ask you to help with this by not coming to the office for change first thing in the morning. Please send in money every day in your child’s purse (£2.00). They will be given change to bring home. Every pupil is given a free purse but if yours is lost, replacements are available from the office for 50p.
Attendance
Thank you very much for supporting us with our drive to improve attendance!
Our final attendance figure for 2014-15 was 93.7% which is the highest year end figure we have achieved (just 0.1% above the 2013-14 total of 93.6%).
Thank you to everyone for working so closely with the school on attendance. Lateness after the register closes at 9.20am is recorded as an unauthorised and unfortunately repeated lateness by a few families last year prevented us from reaching our target of 94%, even though we were exceeding it at one point in the summer term. Obviously, if there is a traffic accident which causes delays, as there was this morning, then we will understand and record the lateness fairly if you have let us know.
Mrs Couch, our Deputy Head, manages attendance in the school and she meets regularly with Mrs Sue, Haigh, who is our Educational Welfare Officer. Attendance is also one of the issues that the Governing Body discuss at every meeting.
If your child is ill, please ring the school and leave a message first thing in the morning. The number for texts about attendance is: 07541 644956.
Diary Dates
INSET Days this term– Friday 25th September- School Development Plan (with Governors)
Friday 23rd October – Literacy and Numeracy Framework
Macmillan Coffee Afternoon
Class 5/6P are holding their regular Coffee Afternoon for Macmillan Cancer Care on Thursday 24th September at 2.30pm. They hope that you will be able to join them for coffee and cake. (There is no charge but there will be an optional raffle in aid of Macmillan Cancer Care).
Bonus Ball
There is a rollover this week.
Yours faithfully,
H Vaughan
Headteacher