Dear Parents and Carers,

It does not seem a moment since we returned from the Christmas holidays and here we are at the half-term break!

During half-term we will be entering the season of Lent which begins with Ash Wednesday on 14th February. As we are not all together in school for Ash Wednesday this year, we would encourage you to check your parish websites for times of services so your children have a chance to receive the ashes. On our return to school, our assemblies, liturgies and RE lessons will focus on Lent and how we prepare ourselves for Easter. We will also be having a Reconciliation Service and Y4 will be performing the Passion Play during Holy Week.

Over the half-term break, Jenny and the NSSport team are looking forward to welcoming children to the holiday club which will be running every day. Please see the flier attached to see the holiday club activities and details of how to book your child’s place.

This Week in school

It has been an incredibly busy week in school. Here are just a few of the highlights!

Reception, Y1 and Y2 Class Concerts

The children in Reception, Y1 and Y2 were thrilled to show their parents what they have been learning in their Music lessons so far this year.

Y6 Cycling Proficiency

Congratulations to our Y6 pupils for taking part in their cycling proficiency this week. You may have spotted them in their hi-vis jackets cycling on the roads around the school. This is such a valuable life skill for the children especially as they will be heading off to secondary school in September. Y6 parents, please be reminded that we do not allow children in Y6 to cycle to school unaccompanied until June and then children can only do so with written permission from an adult.

Y3 Safer Walking

Another vitally important life skill for our Y3s this week. They have been learning how to cross the roads around school safely using the pedestrian crossing. Please do talk to your child about what they have learnt and also remember to model safe road crossing by using the pedestrian crossing.

Thank you to the Richmond Safety Teams for organising both safety events.

Pupil Chaplains Bring and Buy Sale for Small Steps

Thank you for your donations of books and toys for the Pupil Chaplains’ Bring and Buy Sale this week. The proceeds from this are going to Small Steps, a local charity which supports children with physical disabilities with whom we are making links.

Mental Health Week

Please see attached to this ParentMail, two documents from Mrs Compton our School Well-Being Lead. One document provides dates of parenting webinars which all our parents can access for free. The second document includes important tips on how to start conversations about mental health with your children.

Mrs Compton hosted a well-being coffee morning this week with our link Educational Psychologist and will be organising another coffee morning in March – more details to follow.

Lunar New Year Assembly

We would like to wish all our children and families who are celebrating this weekend, a very happy Lunar New Year! The children gave an excellent presentation in assembly today, explaining how the festival is celebrated, showing decorations and items of food.

Sports update

Congratulations to the school swimming team who performed brilliantly in the Richmond Gala this week. There were many individual and team highlights which we will be sharing in the sports assembly after half-term. Thank you to our Swimming Squad Co-Ordinator parents, Mrs Piers, Mrs Andrews and Mrs de Thierry, for their tremendous support.

The Sports Committee will be leading our assembly on Tuesday after half term, 20th February, when we will share and celebrate our children’s sporting achievements outside of school. If your child has won a sports certificate, medal or trophy, please could they bring them into school on Monday after half term? Our theme this term is being good friends at play time, and so we would be especially delighted to celebrate children who have earned an award for being a ‘good sports person’.

If your child is interested, please find attached a flier from Richmond Rugby regarding their half term Rugby Camp.

Upcoming events in school

February

Monday 19th National Dental programme in school

Tuesday 20th Y6 & Reception Height & Weight measuring in school

Tuesday 20th Sports Assembly - children can bring trophies, certificates etc to show in assembly

Wednesday 21st Borough Netball tournament, Barn Elms

Thursday 22nd Y4 & Y3 swimming sessions begin

Thursday 22nd Y2 BrightSparks Schools’ concert at the Royal Festival Hall

Thursday 22nd No Junior Choir

Friday 23rd No Infant Choir

Monday 26th Mathematics Problem Solving Day – all classes

Tuesday 27th 3:30 – 6:30 p.m. Parents’ Meetings

Thursday 29th 3:30 – 6:30 p.m. Parents’ Meetings

Save the Dates …

Friday 1st March 9am Blessing of the new Food Technology Room

Thursday 14th March PTA Quiz

Million Word Readers

Congratulations to Sebastian in Y4 and Angie and Olivia in Y5 who have read an amazing 1 million words.

Reading Cup

Congratulations to Y5 and Mr Askin who are the winners of the Reading Cup! Well done!

Message from the PTA

Thank you to all our parents and carers for supporting this term's class cake sales; Y1 raised £269.14 and, despite the rain yesterday, the Reception cake sale raised £337.88!

The Ceilidh Evening was a fun event! Thank you to our Y6 class and reps for organising such an entertaining evening.

The PTA presented a cheque today for £1,200 from all the parents, carers and children of the school to the staff. We thanked them all for all their hard work that helped the school achieve an outstanding Ofsted Report and we are immensely proud of them.

Our next PTA event is the Quiz Night on Thursday 14th March which always promises to be a great night! Save the Date and more details will follow after half term.

Attendance and Punctuality

We are half-way through the year now and we have been reviewing pupil attendance with the Local Authority Educational Welfare Officer (EWO). Our overall attendance for the year so far is 96.54%. This is excellent and reflects the value you, our parents, put on your child’s education. Children whose attendance is below the government target of 90% are identified as ‘Persistent Absentees’ and are monitored by the EWO. If your child’s attendance is below 90% you will have received a letter in your child’s reading packet today to alert you to this fact. We aim to support families to improve children’s attendance and if you would like to speak to a staff member about this, please contact the school office.

This has not been an easy half-term for travel to school with a number of serious disruptions to traffic and buses in our area. We will therefore begin our punctuality monitoring after the half-term holiday and will send punctuality improvement notification letters before the Easter holiday.

This week the class with the highest attendance is Y6 with 96% attendance. Well done, Y6!

Thank you, parents!

A huge thank you from all of the whole staff team for the cheque that was presented to us in this afternoon’s assembly. This was such a wonderful surprise and so generous. We are very fortunate to have such supportive parents and carers and this gift is very much appreciated.

Finally, we wish all our children and families a restful half-term holiday and look forward to seeing the children back in school on Monday 19th February.

Kind regards,

Jane Hines