Dear Parents and Carers,
The children are settling well in lots of cases throughout school and it is really lovely to see the progress they are making. In our Explorers hub the children have continued to make progress in settling into school. They have worked hard to develop their engagement, attention, communication and social skills. One of our pupils has had her first full day in school and has been making lots of happy vocalisitaons. Another has improved in making transitions. Another has had a brilliant speech and language session using eye gaze, another has worked hard on making great eye contact. One pupil pressed the hello switch independently and managed an hour and a half without a comforting device. Another pupil has been showing more of her likes and dislikes and working hard to move her fingers through sensory media.
One of our pupils did some really good looking and reaching for a toy in an independent learning session whilst another intentionally placed their hand in paint in an art session. Another has grown in confidence in speaking including saying ‘kind hands’ and another has been trying to teach some other pupils by gently encouraging them to go to the hello board and showing them how to self-register. Another has been trying to teach others phonics! Across the school there has been some great phonics learning and reading going on. You can join in by following the song of sounds links on our website! There has also been so really good developments in personal skills with some pupils being able to go to the toilet on their own, remembering to flush and wash their hands. A number of pupils have made progress in learning to walk more independently too. In our Investigators hub some of the pupils have been working hard to develop their play skills, following patterns on an outdoor drumkit together. Another followed her now next board and used 3 different choice boards following routines, sitting for carpet time, and using it really well to learn and make positive interactions. In Maths learning one pupil sorted amounts into groups under 10, another wrote numbers to 30 and another worked on some multiplication. A number of pupils developed their social skills some working together to complete a tricky jigsaw whilst others played together role playing being pirates. One pupil wrote his own version to ’10 little pirates’ and read it back to an adult. In the Engineers hub, children have worked hard on their literacy and numeracy skills with some pupils helping our maths lead teacher to evaluate the maths curriculum! Others worked hard to create their own space rockets out of mod rock. One class went to an offsite basketball court for their PE lesson and did incredibly well; not only in developing their basketball skills but in listening to the adults and responding to them. Many of our older pupils are showing daily that they listen to instructions, can wait for their turns and complete all that is asked of them with decreasing amounts of adult support and increasing amounts of independence and this is wonderful to experience.
Finally, this week the school has finished voting for our head boys and girls and our prefects. These pupils are within Year 6 and complete responsibilities and jobs across school! Congratulations to them all.
Head Boy: Mwelwa Head Girl: Rosie
Deputy Head Girl: Lexie Deputy Head Boy: Monty
Senior Prefect – Harvey
Prefects
Tulisa, Grace, Mabel,
Aston, Noah Brandon
Swimming
Our Swimming Coach has recently taken on a new role outside of education and we are in the midst of our recruitment process. We had hoped to have a short term solution this week but it is taking a little longer to resolve. We aim to have has many of the children who are swimming this term swimming again as soon as possible and your class teacher will notify you when your child is able to swim again. Please do contact Kaarina if you would like to discuss this further.
Keeping children safe during community activities, cubs & out-of-school settings
Having started a new school year, many parents/carers may be looking for clubs, groups or sport’s clubs. The DfE has produced a document (Keeping children safe during activities, after-school clubs and tuition: Questions to help parents and carers choose out of school settings)to help parents/carers identify the safeguarding issues to consider when choosing a club or activity. The guide contains questions you may wish to ask a provider, examples of good answers you should expect to hear back and warning signs to look out for when choosing a provider. For example;
- Do they have a child protection policy?
- Who is the lead person responsible for safeguarding and what training have they had?
- Do they have a complaints policy?
- Who is in charge of first aid?
- Do they have
- a parental consent and emergency details form that you need to complete?
- How will they securely store the information they hold on children?
During the first week of October (3-9 October), the NSPCC will be launching their keeping Your Child Safe in Sport campaign. They have developed tools on how parents/carers can play an active and supporting role in their child’s participation and provide information to help parents understand what the safeguarding requirements of clubs and activities are.
There are a number of resources that parents/carers can access including;
- an animation for parents on what abuse might look like in sport and how to get help
- a free, short, interactive e-learning course for parents on how to keep children safe
- updated information on their parents’ hub as a one-stop-shop for safeguarding information
We do appreciate the difficulties with parking at the moment whilst the building work continues at Palatine. However, we ask that in order to keep everyone safe, you do not park on the zig-zag line outside of the school entrance. Please avoid parking across the driveways of our neighbours who have, in some cases, been unable to leave to go to work due to a car obstructing their drive.
With limited parking spaces on school site at present, parking in the school car park is restricted to staff and those parents/carers with a parking permit, which must be displayed in the windscreen of the car. For those with permits, please follow the strict one-way system that is in place as this is for the safety of all but especially our children and those getting off and on buses.
Thank you for your continued support and understanding.
Coffee mornings are the first Wednesday of every month during term time. Please pop in and join us on Wednesday 5 October, 9.30am – 11am.
Have a lovely weekend!
Very best wishes,
Catriona