23rd June 2023
Dear Parents and Carers,
The children continue to do great learning despite the heat and their tiredness at this time of year. In communication, some children have been working hard on their more switches. Another has been working hard using hand over hand signing more. Another has been seeking adult interactions. Another child is using their first sign, ‘thank you’ in more contexts! In literacy there has been some great writing linked to our musical theatre work; there is great excitement about our end of term performances related to this topic! In sensory and physical development, some pupils have been using an assisted bike, doing laps around the big playground, which they all loved! Another has been trying new foods. A number of our children are growing in confidence at walking. In creative learning, one child drew a recognisable picture of a cat. There has been lots of progress in social development this week. One child has been taking turns with their Peers. All of one class have added a handprint to their kindness tree because they’ve have all been so kind this week and in another class all the children played nicely together.
Attendance Focus
For the week commencing 5th June, the classes with the best attendance were;
Explorers hub – Ladybird class
Investigators hub – Badger class
Engineers hub – Koala class
Safeguarding Spotlight
Last year, PEGI announced a change to the age rating for Roblox. PEGI used to rate Roblox as 7+, however, because of the huge level of user generated content within Roblox, PEGI changed the rating to a Parental Guidance label (as shown above). It is rated for ‘Teens’ on Google Play and 12+ on the App store. You can either use Roblox to create games or play games that other users have created. As a lot of the content is user generated, it may mean not all games will be suitable for your child to view/play. It is important to set up Parental controls appropriate to your child.
Parental controls include –
- Restricting chat
- Spending limits and spending notifications
- Enabling age-based experiences. If you enable Allowed Experiences, your child will only be able to join experiences that match or are below the age recommendations set. Age categories available are 9+, 13+ and all ages.
View what you child is doing on Roblox, including recently played experiences, private message history and their friends.
Minecraft remains ever popular and can be a great learning tool. Check the age ratings: Minecraft is rated by PEGI as 7+ or 12+ depending on which version you are playing. The Google Play store rate it as 10+ and the App store rate it as 9+. On Minecraft you can choose between Creative or Survival mode – creative mode removes the survival elements of the game (no mobs appearing at night) so may be a more appropriate mode to play. Also be aware of the multiplayer option – children can interact with others (including strangers), you can switch this option off within settings or choose to play offline. Be aware of additional purchases – in app purchases and the purchase of additional items (skin packs) to support (although not needed) game play. Check your child’s privacy and make sure you have set up appropriate parental controls on the device your child is using to play Minecraft as well. For more information and advice from the NSPCC on Minecraft, please click here.
Holiday Activity and Food (HAF) Programme
The HAF Programme is fully funded by the Department for Education and offers children who are entitled to benefits related free school meals the opportunity to attend participating holiday activity clubs and have a free meal.
Eligible children can attend their chosen HAF provision for a maximum of four days per week during the summer – 16 sessions. From 12 June, a new online booking system for all HAF bookings across West Sussex is in place. Families will need to register for an account using their existing HAF codes.
The new booking link is https://haf.bookinglab.co.uk/westsussex/37147/login
To find out more, please follow #HAF2023 or visit the West Sussex HAF programme website here or at https://www.westsussex.gov.uk/education-children-and-families/support-for-families/holiday-activities-and-food-programme/
The sign of the week is water!
Parents Evening
It has been great to see so many of you at our Parents evenings this week. I hope you enjoyed looking at your pupils work and / or hearing about the progress they have made. Thank you too to those of you who have given feedback. If you haven’t already and would like to please use the QR code attached to the email sent out to you to do so.
Have a lovely weekend!
Very best wishes,
Catriona