Dear Parent/Carer,
I hope that you had a really lovely Christmas break and have had a very good start to 2020!
We welcome Miss Howell BA QTS who is taking Mr Pugsley’s class. I am sure that the class will help her to settle well. We are fortunate that Mr Pugsley will still be able to do some supply work for us for a few weeks.
It’s good to see everyone back in school today and children were so well-behaved when they were in assembly this morning! It was so good also to see so many pupils receiving their fridge magnets for 100% attendance! Special congratulations to Anaya Hussain and Chloe Liu who won our Early Bird Half Termly Draw for a £5.00 gift card!
This week is a fairly quiet week for events. With the exception of Newport County Football Club after school on Wednesday, all clubs will start next week. Letters will be sent home separately about some of the clubs that change groups of children every half term.
Year 6 pupils who took part in the Cwtsh Summer Art Project will be visiting there on Thursday morning to see the exhibition of their work and also the new mosaic which they contributed to, and which was recently unveiled by Jayne Bryant, AM.
All classes are taking part in our World Week, however, and they are finding out about the following countries:
| Nursery | England | 3J | Italy | |
| RDA | Australia | 3/4B | Sri Lanka | |
| RH | France | 4P | Kenya | |
| 1DJ | Denmark | 5H | France | |
| 1/2D | India | 5/6M | Egypt | |
| 2S | France | 6W | India |
They will be doing lots of interesting activities and several visitors are joining us. If you have any information about any of these countries, please let us know. Thank you to parents who have already offered to help if they come from one of these countries or have a connection with it.
Flu Immunisations
The School Nursing team will be visiting school on Friday to offer a nasal spray flu vaccine to all children in Reception Classes to Year 6. If you haven’t already given your consent for your child to have the vaccine and would like them to have it, please contact the school office for a consent form.
Attendance
We have started a new attendance strategy this term which involves each class working together to encourage good attendance. This has been devised in collaboration with the School Council. A new attendance display has gone up in the school hall. Each class achieving 94% attendance or above during the previous week will receive a piece for their class jigsaw puzzle during Monday’s Early Bird assembly. Once the jigsaw puzzle is full, a class will be able to choose a class treat; this will be a special class activity chosen by the children.
During the week beginning 16th December, classes 1/2D, 1DJ and 5P all had attendance above 94%.
Please be aware that all requests for term time absence will need to be completed on a new form. These are available from the school office on request.
Raven House Trust Foodbank
Thank you for your very generous food donations for the Raven House Trust Foodbank. Food was taken to Stow Park Church before Christmas together with some items of food which were left over from your donations for the Christmas Parties.
As always, I’d like to thank you very much for supporting the food collection and for sharing so much food for the parties. We have amazing parents, grandparents and wider school community!
We have a few serving plates still unclaimed in school. If you think that one of them might be yours, please call in to the office to collect it.
Eco Request
We are taking part in a Christmas Card Recycling Competition. Please count your Christmas cards and send them in, in a labelled bag, by the closing date of Thursday 16th January. Children in each class are keeping count and a prize of a film afternoon will go to the class that collects the highest number of cards. Please ask friends, neighbours and family members for their help with this.
Newsletters and Schoop
This is the last newsletter that will be printed for all parents.
Going forward, all newsletters will be sent out on Schoop and will also be available on the school website. (Diary Dates sheets will continue to be sent as paper copies for ease of reference.)
If you have not already signed up to Schoop, please do so immediately as all messages and relevant school information will be sent out via the Schoop App.
Here are details of how to access Schoop:
SCHOOP (School in The Loop)
Our text messaging service is now open (www.schoop.co.uk)
Please download the free SCHOOP app from Google or Apple. – The system will help you to stay ‘in the loop’ with all our news and events. Our number is 3690
Please register for your child’s class. All requests to join are reviewed and only parents of pupils are permitted to join.
Please ensure that you complete your child’s name form so we can allocate it to your account. You can find this in the “My Schoop” section of the app.
Click the school name and then the pen or the pen and paper icon. Please complete your child’s name, your name and your telephone number and email. If you do not complete these details, then we would have to remove your application from SCHOOP.
I know that those of you who are reregistered find it very helpful, so please spread the word if you know of any parents who haven’t yet registered.
Yours sincerely,
H Vaughan
Headteacher