Dear All,
Welcome back to everyone after the summer holidays! The children look really smart in their uniform and had an excellent day yesterday.
The Reception children started today and have really made a great start!
Welcome also to the new children who have joined us from other schools and are settling into classes across the school! I know that they will settle in really quickly and make friends easily.
I am also pleased to welcome Mrs A Hayes BA PGCE as a new Reception teacher and Miss J Collins as a Teaching Assistant in the Nursery.
Diary Dates and Topic Letters
Topic Letters and Diary Dates sheets will be sent home on Monday 7th September. Spare copies of these will always be available at the office if you ever need any.
If you are a new parent, it will be helpful for you to know that a newsletter will always be sent out on a Monday and spare copies are always available in the office.
Eid
Because Eid was at the end of term, we will have an Eid Party on Thursday 10th September (instead of our usual Eid assembly). Reception children who are with us part-time will have a morning and an afternoon party.
Children are welcome to wear their national costume or their best party clothes on this day.
We would be grateful for donations of food items such as samosas or cakes and snacks next week. Class teachers will let you know more about this in letters coming home this week.
Clubs
All school run clubs will commence in the week beginning Monday 14th September and a letter will come to you about this soon.
We are lucky that staff are prepared to run so many clubs voluntarily and, rather than limit opportunities, we will rotate clubs where necessary on a half termly or termly basis.
Minecraft will continue to run an after school club on a Monday starting from Monday 14th September. This club is a paying club and a separate letter will be sent out about this.
Classes and Staffing 2015
Classes
Nursery Mrs Davies and Miss Lott – Miss Collins, Mrs Ramzan
Reception- RD Mrs Dickenson – Mrs Bashir
Reception- RH Mrs Hayes – Mrs C Jones Mrs Parkinson (am)
1/2VS Miss Spray – Mrs Jarrett, Mrs Abbas (am)
1/2S Miss Spearey – Mrs J Fowler
1/2 DJ Miss Driscoll/Mrs K Jones (also PPA) – Miss Winfield
3/4C Mrs Morton – Mrs Abbas (pm)
3/4G Miss Goodwin
4/5B Miss Bishop
5/6W Miss Watkins
5/6P Mrs Parry
PPA (Planning, Preparation and Assessment- fortnightly)
Miss Pretty – Classes 1/2S, 5/6W and 3/4G
Mrs Barton (who has reduced her hours this year) – Class 3/4M
Mrs Couch – Class 4/5B (weekly – to include management time. When Miss Bishop has to attend additional meetings in her role of Inclusion Manager, Mrs Couch will also, wherever possible, provide additional cover.) Also Class 5/6P.
Mrs Davies – Class 1/2VS (weekly, to include management time.)
Miss Lott – Class RH
Mrs Graham – Class KD
Mrs Graham, Mrs Luckett and Mrs Parkinson will run additional support programmes in Foundation and Key Stage 2 respectively.
Hometime
In order to help children leave safely at the end of the school day, there are a number of exits in use. These are:
Nursery and Reception Nursery and Reception doors (Under canopy)
Classes 1/2VS and 1/2MS Bottom front door
Class 1/2DJ Side Reception door (By the mural)
Class 3/4S, 3/4B and Front main door
Class 4/5G
Class 5/6B and 5/6P Side door by yards (morning door)
If you are waiting at the main entrance by the steps at hometime, please help us by waiting outside the gates. This is because there is not enough room for children to come down the steps and to walk either to the front or the side if parents are waiting in the space. Thank you for helping with this.
Side Door
Mrs Luckett, who is at the side door in the morning, always passes on messages to teachers and to me. From now on, to avoid unnecessary queues in the morning, parents will only be allowed in through the front door if they have an urgent reason to see office staff. Parents will not be allowed to use this side door. This will enable the office staff to see who is coming in for help straightaway.
It will help to reduce unnecessary pressure on the office if you send money for dinner and trips in with your child. This helps us and also gives your child some responsibility.
Please remember though that you may always make an appointment to see your child’s class teacher if you ever have any particular concerns or information that you want to pass on. These appointments will generally be at the end of the school day so that teachers can give you time once the class has been dismissed.
I would really appreciate your help with this request because, with ever growing numbers of children, limited entrance space and just one member of office staff first thing in the morning, I want to make the morning entry calm for everyone.
School Meals
If you receive Income Support or Child Tax Credit, you may be entitled to Free School Meals, and we have application forms in schools. If your application is successful, you do not need to take the meals up unless you want to.
Congratulations
Congratulations to Miss Carlyle who married in the summer and who is now Mrs Morton! Congratulation also to Mrs Hayes who also got married in the summer!
Purple Day
Thanks you very much for your tremendous support for Purple Day in aid of LATCH, the children’s cancer charity, which was held on the last day of term. We raised £474.00 which is a fantastic sum!
Mural
Many of you will have seen the new mural on the Infant yard which is fantastic! This was painted over the summer holidays by Mr Roy Guy, a local artist who has helped us with murals on several occasions in the past. He was helped in this by Laura and Dion Guy.
I am hugely grateful to them for giving up their time voluntarily to do this and I hope that they will be able to join us at an assembly where we can say thank you to them very soon.
Bonus Ball
Thank you if you have supported this in the past.
We have a few spare numbers available for a weekly contribution of £1.00 so if you are interested, please see Mrs Kidd in the office.
All money raised is split equally so that half is given in a weekly prize, and half goes to school funds. If any parent would be interested in helping to collect this Bonus Ball money on the yard either at the beginning or end of the day, please let me know.
Our aim is for all staff to work closely with you to achieve the very best for your child and I am sure that this new school year will go really well!
Yours faithfully,
H Vaughan
Headteacher