Dear Parents and Carers,
I hope you and your families enjoyed half term. This week the pupils have impressed me with how well they have settled back into the routines of school. Many children have shown increase in their focus, independence and personal skills; sitting for longer for learning, engaging for longer with friends in class, putting their wellies on for Forest School and tasting different food at lunch. In maths a number of children have been working on telling the time and one pupil has learnt to tell the time to o’clock. In literacy lessons pupils have continued to work on their phonics and writing and two classes have really enjoyed listening to the ‘Very Hungry Caterpillar’ also completing lots of different art and activities with food, related to the story. One class worked together as a team and set their own class goal of “sharing more” and decided if they get 100 stickers they get to celebrate by having a dance party! It has been lovely to hear them chatting about this so excitedly and to see them trying so hard to achieve their goal. There have been some lovely developments in communication this week. One of our older pupils talked very clearly to me whilst she was instigating a game on the tyres at Lunch Play. She was very specific about what she wanted to do! In one of our year 6 PATH annual reviews one of our pupils who did not talk at all when they came to school, spoke fluently, clearly and fully contributed to the whole meeting which lasted an hour. It was wonderful to see the growth in their confidence and skills!
New build news
Those of you that drop off and pick up will see that the new building is almost completed. During the next few weeks the furniture and final fixtures and fittings will be installed and then snagging will be underway. It is really exciting to think that things are really progressing and that during the next school year we will have a purpose built and great new class room space for our pupils.
There has been a lot of illness in the school and wider community which we know
has impacted on our children. Beyond this though, there is plenty of research that shows missing school can have a significant impact on children’s learning and progress. It can also be harder for children to form relationships with classmates which impacts on their wellbeing and wider development. Routine is so important for our children and breaking the chain of attendance, breaks the chain of learning.
Did you know?
- If a child has 90% attendance at the end of the school year, this means that they have been absent one day a fortnight and have missed 19 days of school, almost 4 weeks. If this level of absence were maintained for a five-year period, it would mean half a school year would have been missed.
- If a child has 80% attendance at the end of the school year, this means that they have missed one day every week, 6 days every half term, 12 days every term, 36 days every year.
- If a child has 75% attendance at the end of the school year, this means that they have missed 46 days of school which is just over 9 weeks.
We want school attendance to be as high as possible but do of course recognise that for some of our children this will not be possible due to their complex medical needs and for these children, we work with parents/carers to support the best attendance they can manage.
Please support us with the following;
- Illness – you must notify school on the morning if the first day of absence and then each subsequent day thereafter. A useful NHS link for deciding on whether your child is well enough to come to school or not can be found at https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/is-my-child-too-ill-for-school/
- Medical – please notify school in advance (where possible at least 5 days) of medical/hospital appointment. For routine appointments such as dental check-ups, these should be arranged outside of school hours where possible.
- If your child has a local medical appointment, please endeavour to send them to school before/after their appointment.
- Holidays – these can only be authorised by the headteacher and only in exceptional circumstances. An Absence Request form must be completed well in advance and at least 5 days before the first day of absence.
Certain absences will be marked unauthorised. These include holidays that have not been authorised and absences where we have not been provided with a valid reason for absence.
Please note, school will try and make contact with you if you have not provided a reason for absence. We will work down your list of emergency contacts if we cannot get hold of you so please ensure that we have up-to-date numbers for listed contacts.
For the week commencing 6th February, the classes with the best attendance were;
- Explorers hub – Zebra class
- Investigators hub – Gecko class
- Engineers hub – Sloth class
A reminder
NEU strike in our area: Thursday March 2nd School will be closed. Please see last night’s letter for more details.
Buggy Park
In the next couple of weeks we will be creating an outside buggy parking area at school. This will probably be next to the bicycle racks and under cover. For some of our children, they only use their buggy for travelling to and from school or when out on trips so during the day the buggies are in the corridors which can be both potentially hazardous as well as tempting for children to climb into! We understand that it is not always practical for parents to take a buggy home after dropping off in the morning, only to bring it back again in the afternoon for collection. Therefore, if you would like your child’s buggy to remain at school during the school day we would ask that ahead of the buggy park opening, you ensure your child’s buggy is clearly named and that you provide a rain cover for it to provide maximum protection from the elements. Please also remove any non-essential items from the buggy.
Coffee Morning
Please join us for coffee and cake on Wednesday 1st March 9.15am – 11am
This week’s sign of the week is book!
Have a lovely weekend everyone!
Very best wishes,
Catriona