February 2017 Newsletter

 

Annwyl Rhieni,

Dear Parents,

This term is flying by and we can hardly believe we are already half way through February and at the end of the first half of the term! The children have continued to work hard and have had a variety of experiences and opportunities to develop their skills within a creative learning environment. As you are aware, each class has been working on a different project allowing contextualised learning to take place. Here is an update of some of the recent events in school.

Holocaust Memorial Service

On Friday January 27th we took four Year 6 children to the Holocaust Memorial Service at St. Woolos Cathedral. It was a very poignant service attended by Head Teachers, Councillors, LA Officers and children from across the authority. We were so proud of the four children we took. Not only was their behaviour exemplary, but they demonstrated an understanding of why we were there and what the service was about. Well done children!

Year 5 visit to the Jampod in John Frost School

Year 5 spent a morning at John Frost School experimenting with music making in the Jampod. The children had a fantastic time. Well done everyone!

PTA

A BIG THANK YOU to the PTA for organising and running the cinema nights for FP and KS2 over the past two weeks. The children thoroughly enjoyed them! The next PTA event will be the family bingo night on Friday 17th March. This really should be great fun so please come along and support us. Details from the PTA will follow after half term.

Sport

Earlier this week the rugby team took part in a Newport schools rugby tournament at Rogerstone Primary. The children played really well and came runners up overall. Well done everyone!

The Year 5 / 6 football team are scheduled to play a number of matches at school over the next few weeks and the netball children are due to take part in the Newport festival in March. Good luck everyone!

The Big Sleepover

A few weeks ago children in Years 5 and 6 came to school on a Friday evening for a sleepover! The event was organised by Mrs Parker to raise money for AbleChildAfrica. It was a fantastic evening / night! Mrs Parker was supported by a number of staff who gave up their evening and night to help. The children watched a film, took part in a quiz, played games, had McDonalds, ice cream, hot chocolate and……………… eventually ………………went to sleep! A BIG thank you to Mr and Mrs Mason, parents of Joshua in Year 5 and Tommy in Year 3, who provided breakfast for the children the following morning!

Not only did Mrs Parker raise £760 for her charity, but it gave the children an opportunity to experience staying away from home in a familiar environment with their class mates, preparing them for their overnight residential stay in Year 6.

Late Night Lock – in and Pyjama Day

On Friday 24th March, Mrs Parker is organising a ‘Late Night Lock – in’ for Years 3 and 4; again to raise money for her charity. This will involve both classes being invited to return to school by 6.30pm to participate in a variety of activities, as above during the sleepover. The children will need to be picked up about 9.30pm.

During the day on the 24th, Foundation Phase will be allowed to wear their PJ’s to school and again will take part in a variety of activities. Mrs Parker will soon be sending out more information about these two events!

Eisteddfod

The first week back after half term, week beginning 27th February, will be our designated Welsh culture and heritage week in school. Our Eisteddfod to celebrate St. David’s Day, will be held on Wednesday March 1st.

On the day of the Eisteddfod the children can come to school wearing Welsh National costume or National costume from their country of origin. Each year group will be given a theme and the children are to produce one item following that theme. They can either: paint, collage, draw, make a model, cook or write about their theme. The themes for each year group are:

Reception       –     Dragons

Year 1           –       Welsh costume

Year 2           –       Daffodils

Year 3           –       Welsh castles

Year 4          –       Welsh food

Year 5           –       Welsh history and heritage

Year 6           –       Welsh art and artists

The entries should be brought into school on Monday 27th February. Children should invent a nom – de – plume to label their work with. Work will be judged throughout the week.

 World Book Day

We will be celebrating World Book Day on Thursday 2nd March with a special assembly, a book writing competition and a fancy dress competition. The children will be given booklets to write in (or they can use their own version). The children should use these to produce their own book, either fiction or non – fiction, with illustrations. Staff will be judging the books and there will be prizes for content and presentation. The children can also come to school on World Book Day dressed as a character from a book. Once again there will be prizes for the best costumes!

Teachers2Parents

For your information we have changed the provider for our text messaging service from Parentmail to Teachers2Parents. There is no change to the way texts and emails are sent out.

ParentPay

We will soon be using ParentPay for the collection of trip money. Details to follow once this has been set up.

Burglary

We are devastated to report that during the night of Saturday 21st January school was broken into and two laptops were stolen from the school hall. If anyone knows or hears anything about this incident, please contact school. The incident has been reported to the police.

Nursery

On Wednesday February 15th the nursery will be open to prospective parents (parents who are applying for a place for September 2017) at 11.45am for 20 minutes to have a look around.

Attendance and Punctuality

As you are aware, we regularly monitor whole school, year group and individual pupil’s attendance. We are concerned that a number of children are coming to school late and therefore missing vital learning opportunities at the beginning of the day. It is vital that children are in school and ready to learn by 9am. Attendance figures for last term and this term so far are as follows.

 

Year Group Autumn Term 2016 Spring Term 2017 – so far!
Reception 96.79% 96.38%
Year 1 97.03% 97.22%
Year 2 97.15% 97.27%
Year 3 97.75% 98.01%
Year 4 96.64% 96.61%
Year 5 96.95% 97.14%
Year 6 95.84% 96.02%
Whole School Average 96.87% 96.95%

 

A HUGE well done to Year 3 for achieving over 98% attendance so far this year. Years 1, 2 and 5 are also doing really well with over 97%. Our attendance target, as set by the Local Authority, is 96.5%.

Good attendance at school is vital if your child is to achieve his / her full potential. We monitor individual pupil attendance on a regular basis and if your child’s attendance dips below 96% we will contact you to discuss ways in which we can support you to improve it. As a reminder, the following information from Welsh Government illustrates how your child’s attendance equates to a judgement. We hope you find it useful.

 

Attendance   What This Means
100% Excellent Your child has the best chance of achieving their full potential
95 – 99% Good Your child has missed up to 2 weeks of school in a year
90 – 94% Unsatisfactory Your child has missed up to 4 weeks of school in a year
85 – 89% Poor Your child has missed up to 5 ½ weeks of school in a year
80 – 84% Very Poor Your child has missed up to 7 ½ weeks of school in a year – over half a term
Below 80% Extremely Poor Your child has missed more than a whole half term of school

 

It is important that all holidays are taken during the school holidays and not in term time.

Thank you for all your support again this half term. We value the partnership we have between home and school. It is vital if children are to flourish and to reach their full potential.

Yours sincerely,

C.M.Jackson

Head Teacher

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