News - 20th March 2025
Dear Parents/Carers,
It has been a wonderfully busy fortnight at school, particularly for Year 2! Last week, they took us on an incredible journey around the world with their class assembly, showcasing a wealth of knowledge about the continents and oceans. Their singing, costumes, and music brought the performance to life, and our talented pilot, co-pilot, and cabin crew delivered a truly authentic flight experience. A huge well done to Year 2 for such a fantastic adventure! They were also the first class to make full use of our new sound system, with lapel and hand-held microphones adding a professional touch.
Alongside their assembly preparations, Year 2 has been caring for ducklings over the past week, watching in amazement as they hatched and grew. It’s hard to say who has been more captivated by these energetic little creatures—the children or the staff! The ducklings have now moved to their new homes, but not before making special visits to all the classes in school, including a visit from the nursery on Tuesday. We hope to receive updates on their progress in the future.
With the improving weather, our budding horticulturalists have been busy too. Every class has planted two types of potatoes, and we are eagerly awaiting the harvest in late June. A special thank you to Ren in Year 4, who created beautifully designed signs to mark each class’s potato plot—we can’t wait to see which class yields the most impressive crop!
This week, we have been celebrating Neurodiversity Celebration Week. In Monday’s assembly, we explored what neurodiversity means and learned about well-known individuals who have dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, ADHD, autism, and Tourette’s syndrome.
Throughout the week, classes have deepened their understanding of different aspects of neurodiversity, and today, parents were invited to an informative coffee morning hosted by Freemantles.
Tomorrow, we will be embracing the spirit of Comic Relief! Pupils are encouraged to wear red or colourful mufti, and some brave staff members have been persuaded by the School Council to take part in a lip-sync battle! A penalty shootout is also planned for lunchtime—please check your child’s Seesaw journal for details on how to contribute to this worthy cause.
Behind the scenes, our senior leadership team has been reviewing the school’s Anti-Bullying Policy and developing a clear behaviour strategies and consequences framework to include within our Behaviour Policy. The updated versions of these two policies are attached, and we welcome your feedback as part of our commitment to working closely with parents.
Last week, the Local Committee held its half-termly meeting, and we are delighted to welcome two new parent members—Tom and Gary, both Reception Class dads. In addition, I met with our Chair of the Local Committee, Jane, to carry out a safeguarding link member visit this week, auditing all aspects of our safeguarding procedures.
Our teachers have also been busy engaging in professional development. Last week, class teachers participated in a GST hub writing moderation session, an invaluable opportunity to collaborate with colleagues from other GST schools and ensure consistency in our writing assessments. Most classes have also been completing their Spring term assessments, with Year 6 undertaking practice SATs in the school hall—an excellent preparation for the real thing in the summer term. Next week, teachers will discuss your child’s progress with you during Parents’ Evenings on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Finally, we are all looking forward to the PTA school discos tonight—I am sure they will be a lively and enjoyable event! A huge thank you to everyone who has helped to organise this special occasion.
As always, I am incredibly proud of the energy, creativity, and dedication shown by our pupils, staff, and wider school community. Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!
Warm regards,
Alison Evans
Headteacher
Comic Relief
This Friday, 21st March, we’ll be celebrating Comic Relief. To show your support, we’re asking everyone to wear something red for the day. There will be plenty of fun activities, including an exciting Lip Sync Battle, where your teachers will take the stage and go head-to-head in a legendary performance. The School Council will be judging, but who will come out on top? You decide!
At lunchtime, Mr. Hanson will be hosting a penalty shootout on the playground, where you can test your football skills. For just 20p, you’ll get two chances to score, and those who find the back of the net will win a small prize. Please note that penalty shootout donations must be made in cash on the day, while general Comic Relief donations can be made via Scopay.
Let’s come together, have some fun, and raise money for an incredible cause. We can’t wait to see you all in red this Friday.
PARENT PORTAL and PARENTS EVENING
Abor
You will require access to the Parent Portal to book on to parents evening.
The booking for parents evening is open if you have not yet booked. Parents evening is taking place on: Tuesday 25th March and Wednesday 26th March.
Please note there is no Art Club or Arts and Crafts Club on Tuesday 25th March due to parents evening.
WORLD BOOK DAY
The book fair was a HUGE success, thank you to all who visited and helped to raise an incredible amount of money for more books for our school. We raised: £1076.25
We feel very lucky to have such supportive parents and families in our school community – thank you for supporting us in recognising the importance of reading for pleasure and instilling a lifelong love of books and reading for the children to always enjoy.
BREAKFAST CLUB
Please avoid parking on School Lane when dropping child/children for Breakfast Club. This causes obstruction to staff trying to access the carpark.
Please ensure you book your child onto breakfast club the day/evening before via Scopay. Numbers have increased over the past few weeks so it is important we have the right ratio of adults to children
BEFORE THE END OF TERM REMINDERS
•Please check lost property. We have a number of items unnamed so cannot be returned to the correct child.
•Please collect any medicines from the office,
•Please ensure that Scopay is updated for after the Easter break.
•Please review Scopay for any outstanding payments for upcoming school trips.
SCHOOL UNIFORM
From next term children can wear summer uniform if they choose to:
This includes plain white polo shirts, grey shorts, pale blue and white check dress, white socks and black or dark blue low heeled shoes.
Children should be wearing royal blue sweatshirt or cardigan with logo. Children should not be wearing unbranded jumpers (plain jumpers) or blue cardigans.
https://www.yourschooluniform.com/
Children should not be wearing jewellery, large earrings, or colourful hair ties/bands or trainers on non PE days.
Long hair must be tied back for practical and hygiene reasons. Blue, black or white or hair coloured hair bands, slides and ribbons of a modest size are acceptable.
SCHOOL FUND
On a termly basis, we ask for a small contribution per family in order to support some of the extended opportunities that we provide. This may be used for additional resources for specific resources i.e. Art or a piece of equipment to be used by pupils on the school site.
In today’s economic climate, I am aware that parents are concerned about requests for financial support from schools. However, the reality of the situation is that, like all schools, in our latest budget we have had to make significant savings, which reflect reduction in our funding allocation from central government. It is only through continued careful management of resources that we have been able to afford to do this and protect the core curriculum resources.
With this in mind, your on-going support for the school fund would help us to continue to support these additional resources. For the academic year 2024 – 2025, we would like to ask each family to contribute £25 per term; however, anything you can contribute
would be gratefully received.
ATTENDANCE
We need to remind you that there are new Department for Education regulations in place regarding children’s absences. These took effect from 19th August 2024 which affect penalty notices issued for unauthorised absence from school.
The ‘National Threshold’, when it is appropriate to consider issuing a penalty notice, is 10 sessions of unauthorised absence in a rolling period of 10 school weeks. A school week means any week in which there is at least one school session. This can be met with any combination of unauthorised absence (e.g. 4 sessions of holiday taken in term time plus 6 sessions of arriving late after the register closes all within 10 school weeks). These sessions can be consecutive (e.g. 10 sessions of holiday in one week) or not (e.g. 6 sessions of unauthorised absence taken in 1 week and 1 per week for the next 4 weeks). The period of 10 school weeks can also span different terms or school years (e.g. 2 sessions of unauthorised absence in the summer term and a further 8 within the autumn term).
From autumn term 2024, only 2 penalty notices will be issued to the same parent in respect of the same child within a 3-year rolling period and any second notice within that period is charged at a higher rate:
1.The first penalty notice issued to a parent in respect of a particular pupil will be charged at £160 if paid within 28 days. This will be reduced to £80 if paid within 21 days.
2.A second penalty notice issued to the same parent in respect of the same pupil is charged at a flat rate of £160 if paid within 28 days.
3.A third penalty notice cannot be issued to the same parent in respect of the same child within 3 years of the date of issue of the first.
In a case where the national threshold is met for a third time (or subsequent times) within those 3 years, alternative action will be taken instead, which will often include considering prosecution.
If you would like any further information regarding these changes, full details can be found here:
Working together to improve school attendance (Gov.uk)
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-improve-school-attendance
https://www.stmaryschidd.org/key-information/parent-information/school-attendance/
CHRISTIAN VALUES
Dear Lord,
Thank you for all the opportunities we have,
And for the staff who help us to blossom and grow.
Please help us to always try our best and to be ready, be safe and be respectful.
Amen.
