Dear Parent/Carer,
Well done to everyone for their really lovely performances in our Harvest Festival last week!
Thank you also to everyone who sent in generous donations for our Harvest table. All food items have been collected by The Raven House Trust, whose food bank for this side of Newport is based at Stow Park Church.
Thank you very much if you were able to help accompany one of our classes on a visit last week. We really appreciate your help!
Our Cash for Clothes Collection takes place first thing tomorrow morning. Please bring in clothes (no school uniform) first thing in the morning and leave the bags at the back of the Nursery or Infant yard.
Parental Consultations take place on Tuesday and Wednesday. (See note below.) Nursery consultations will be next Tuesday and Wednesday. I hope that you will be able to join us for these because your support makes a huge difference to your child.
Consultations in Mrs Jones’ class, Class 4J, have been postponed because she is absent from school due to illness at the moment. We anticipate that her appointments will be held over until next Tuesday and Wednesday but I will let parents of children in her class know about the situation as soon as I can. Unfortunately, we have just heard that Mrs Parry will be absent tomorrow also so her Tuesday Consultations meetings will also be postponed. We will let you know tomorrow if Wednesday’s Consultations are unable to go ahead. I apologise in advance for the inconvenience that this causes.
Miss Balfe, who is currently teaching Miss Bishop’s class in her absence, will be taking the Consultation meetings for class 3/4B but, because she has only been with us short while, she will also be joined by Mrs Couch. (I have passed on the best wishes that you have given me and other staff for Miss Bishop. I know that she is touched by your kindness.)
Newport City Council’s Strategic Director for People, James Harris, will be visiting the school on Tuesday afternoon. He knows our school well and this will be a lovely opportunity for him to see the lovely things that children are doing in their classes. His visit is scheduled to end at approximately 4.00pm so you may see him if you are coming for an early consultation.
Library visits are taking place this week on Wednesday for Class 5/6M, Class 5M on Thursday and Class 3P on Friday.
On Wednesday local vet, Mrs. Morris will be joining us to talk to children in Years 1 and 2 to talk about her job.
School dental nurses will be visiting us on Thursday to evaluate the Gwent Health tooth brushing project in Foundation Phase.
Flu Immunisations for pupils across the school will take place on Friday and a team of nurses will be in school all day for this. Please return your completed forms to the office if you haven’t already done this.
We were delighted that Kath and Phil Rikards from the Pont charity, based in Rhonndda Cynon Taf, were able to join us for our Harvest Festival last week and they will be joining us in school on Friday for our Celebration Assembly. They will be helping us to develop a link with a school in Mbale, Eastern Uganda in the new year, and we are looking forward to working with them and a small group of local schools, who will also be involved in the same project.
Parental Consultations
We are looking forward to as many of you as possible joining us for our Consultations on Tuesday and Wednesday.
We make ten-minute appointments for each child and, to make the evenings really fair for everyone, we will stick to this time limit closely. You are, as always, welcome to make a separate after-school appointment to see your child’s class teacher to discuss any special issues that you may have.
Thank you in advance for helping to make the evenings run fairly for everyone by respecting this.
A children’s DVD will be running in the Nursery if you have no-one to babysit and need to bring your child with you. Your child will be expected to attend this DVD though and not stay in the hall with you so that you can all have undisturbed time to look at your child’s books quietly.
The only exception to this is Year 6 pupils because their appointment forms part of their final assessment discussion with you for the year.
As usual at Parental Consultations, you will be given a copy of our updated Home Learning Policy. This will be especially interesting for you to read this year because it contains some information from our Pow! Thinking Group, who has worked with pupils to help decide a new direction for Home Learning in response to the new curriculum.
Hometime
If you want to chat with a member of staff about anything when you collect your child, you are welcome to do so, but please wait until all of the children are dismissed first before speaking to the class teacher. Thank you for helping with this.
Welcome
We are very lucky that we have secured Miss Balfe BA (Hons) PGCE to teach in Miss Bishop’s class until she returns. She is an experienced teacher and was most recently teaching a Year 5 class in St Michaels’s RC Primary School. I’d like to welcome her to St Woolos where she has already settled in very well.
Charity Day
Instead of holding a school fund-raising Casual Day next week on Friday 26th October, we will be holding a Pink Day in support of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. We felt that this was the right thing to do in light of Miss Bishop’s recent diagnosis. Children could wear or buy from school a pink ribbon, or wear an item of pink clothing eg hairband scarf etc.
Dates
Monday October 29th-Friday 2ndNov. – Half term
Monday 5th Nov. – INSET Day – School and Nursery are closed for pupils.
Friday 23rd Nov. – John Frost Cluster INSET Day – School and Nursery are closed for pupils.
Yours sincerely,
H Vaughan
Headteacher