Weekly Update 22nd November 2024
Read our newsletter to find out what has been happening in school this week and upcoming events ...
Dear Parents and Carers,
It was lovely to see the children coming into school today in their own clothes and thank you very much for your donations of Christmas food items. These are going to be made into Christmas hampers for the very popular tombola stall at the Christmas Morning next Friday. You can read all about the Christmas Morning below. Please do also look at the upcoming dates for the coming few weeks at the end of this Weekly Update.
This week in school
Vocal Concert
There was so much talent on show in Wednesday’s Vocal Concert! The three school choirs, Infant Choir, Junior Choir and Schola, performed both on their own and as one large choir to a packed school hall. There were also some amazing individual and group performances from children across the school. Thank you to Mrs FitzGerald for organising this event and to parents for your donations to CAFOD. The children’s singing raised £68 for CAFOD.
Sports Update from Mr Sagar and Mrs Knowles
Today, a team from Y5 and Y6 braved the chilly temperatures in Bushy Park to take part in the borough cross-country competition. The children all ran very well over a 2.2 km route and supported each other really enthusiastically. We are proud of the way they represented the school in race with a large number of competitors. Their hard work at Running Club on Friday mornings paid off!
Next week in school
Christmas Morning – Message from the PTA
Please come along to our Christmas Morning next Friday 29th November, from 9:00 am to 11:00 am. Let’s start the festive season with a lovely morning of teas, coffees (from Starbucks), pastries as well as international foods, and a variety of stalls with some fantastic presents. Our Christmas hampers will be filled with delicious treats for the Tombola and our Y6 class will be selling Christmas Jumpers and decorations. All of the classes will be singing as well as the choirs.
Our raffle tickets sales are soaring! The prizes are amazing and now include a Frog58 Bike kindly donated by J’aimebike in St Margaret’s. Please make sure you have returned your raffle tickets to the office raffle box by next Friday. It really promises to be a lovely, festive morning for all. We look forward to seeing you.
Month of November - ‘Friends in Heaven’
In next week’s assemblies, we are continuing to remember and pray for our loved ones who have died. Children can bring in a photograph to place on our November Remembrance table until Thursday and these will be returned to them on Friday 29th November.
Christmas Jumper Donations needed
We are still looking for donations of pre-loved Christmas jumpers to sell at the Christmas Morning. Please send jumpers in to the school office by Friday 29th November. Thank you
Information for Parents
Absence and Attendance
Our Local Authority Education Welfare Officer visited the school this week to monitor pupils’ attendance and punctuality. Our overall school attendance is excellent at 97.6% this academic year. This gives children the best outcomes and we thank parents for your commitment to ensuring your child is at school every day, whenever possible. It is also very important that your child is in school on time before the register is taken at 8:55am every morning. The Education Welfare Officer shared the following statistics which demonstrate very clearly how absence and lateness impact children’s learning.
If a child has an attendance rate of 90%, they will miss 4 weeks of learning in a year. If this continues over a child’s whole school career, this adds up to over one whole year of missed school.
If your child is 5 minutes late to school each day, they will miss three days of school each year.
If they are 15 minutes late each day they will miss 2 weeks of learning each year.
Thank you for prioritising your child’s attendance and punctuality and keep up the good work!
Upcoming dates – please do check these each week as new dates are added
November
Tuesday 26th Y5 Local Walk
Wednesday 27th Richmond Borough Boys’ Football Tournament
Thursday 28th Y4 Roman Day
Friday 29th 9am to 11am Christmas Morning, including carol singing by all classes
December
Tuesday 3rd Advent Reconciliation Service – children only
Thursday 5th KS1 Nativity dress Rehearsal
Friday 6th 2-3pm KS1 Disco
Friday 6th 6pm – 8pm KS2 Disco
Tuesday 10th Y4 to Y6 visit to the Rose Theatre
Wednesday 11th 9:30 am Reception carols around the tree
Wednesday 11th Reception to Y3 Theatre performance in the school hall
Thursday 12th 7pm KS2 Advent Service
Friday 13th 9:30am KS1 Nativity
Tuesday 17th Christmas Lunch and Christmas Jumper Day
Thursday 19th 11am Advent Mass
Friday 20th 2pm End of Term
Values Awards
Congratulations to the following children for receiving a Values Award this week.
Reception: Olivia
Y1: Arianna
Y2: Richie
Y3: Georgy
Y4: Valerie
Y5: Mark
Y6: Esme
Million Word Readers
Congratulations to Dylan in Y3 for reading one million words! A fantastic achievement!
Attendance this week
Whole school attendance this week is 98.5%. Congratulations to Y1 and Y6 for having the highest attendance this week both with 99%! This is closely followed by Y3 and Y5, both classes with 98.7%.
And finally we send our very best wishes to Mrs Chan, our Teaching Assistant, who begins her maternity leave today. We are looking forward to meeting her new baby very soon.
Wishing you a lovely weekend,
Jane Hines and the staff of St Elizabeth’s