At the end of the school day, we often have parents come into the building through external doors. Please do not do this. We have lots more clubs after school than we have before which means there are more children still here at the end of the school day. Any visitors to our school must be signed in at the office to ensure we know who is here in the event of an emergency and to safeguard all the children in our care. If you need to come in to school for any reason (other than Premier), please come to our main reception.  This is particularly important if you are coming in to collect a child late. The office staff make a note of all children who are waiting at reception to be collected and they must be signed out by the office team before leaving. The school office is open from 8.15am until 4.30pm every day. 

It has been reported by adults and children that some children are going to Almonds Lane cemetery before and after school and not always behaving respectfully. Please can families discuss with their children to ensure this is not the case. I would suggest that visiting the cemetery at primary school age is something that should be done in the company of an adult to ensure everyone's feelings and well being are taken into account. 

In response to the letter sent this morning, we have had some queries that we wanted to address in our newsletter so all parents received the same information. 

Lots of the queries have been around payments. We do not expect (or need) parents to pay for 20 swimming lessons now. All we ask in the first instance is that parents who gave consent for their child to have lessons in the pop up pool pay for their child's initial lesson which is £4.50. Children will be assessed during this lesson. This may mean this is the only lesson your child has meaning no more payments will be required. Other children will be asked to complete lessons which will cost £4.50 each but parents will be informed about this. The number of lessons any child has will be dependent on their swimming ability with a maximum of 20 being offered. These will take place every day for 4 weeks in the month of November. In order to ensure that parents are not put under any undue financial pressure (especially in the run up to Christmas), the payment request will remain open until near the end of the spring term. 

Lessons at Stevenage Swimming Centre will continue whilst we trial the pop up pool. Slots are hard to get (especially afternoon slots) so we don't want to give ours up until we know that the pop up pool will be successful. Children who currently go down to the Stevenage pool can do both if they want to. Where children have started their lessons already and started making progress, it is important they get the chance to complete the course.

Hopefully this answers any queries. We will answer any further questions after half term.

I would like to say a huge thank you to the staff and parent volunteers who facilitated the Halloween disco on Tuesday.  It was a really well put together event by FOAH and ran seamlessly from a delivery point of view with well over 200 children enjoying themselves immensely. I am especially indebted to staff who gave up their evening on Tuesday who are also going to Grafham on Friday and into half term. It was also lovely to see a slightly expanded group of parent volunteers able to help at this event. 

However, I am sad to say that we have had a handful of parents who have been particularly hard on the office team this week due to the Halloween disco. I understand it can be difficult if your child misses out on events taking place in school which is why we aim to give plenty of notice and reminders through our weekly newsletter. As mentioned before, we have a duty to ensure the children within our care are safe and therefore need time to ensure risk assessments are completed and distributed to the relevant staff in good time before the event. This includes our parent volunteers who kindly give up their time to host these events. When food is being served, we must ensure dietary requirements are met and all staff supervising are aware of any needs. This is a big task for over 200 children and some medical needs require specifically trained members of staff to supervise which must be planned for in advance. 

We are also not able to accommodate the swapping of tickets. There are over 200 children who attend the discos who need to be registered and we need to know who is going to be here.  

Please don’t put staff in a difficult position by calling/emailing and asking them to ‘bend the rules’ to fit your child in. No-one likes saying no. We don’t say no to be awkward. We have deadlines in place for safety reasons and it is never about the money.  

This year, 70% of the school community attended the disco which is the same number as last year.  

The disco has been on our website calendar since the end of September and has been mentioned on our newsletter for the past 4 weeks as well as a reminder being added to Facebook. That being said, the admin team will take some time to discuss communication methods (we currently have our website/newsletter, email and Facebook as communication tools) to see if any improvements can be made and welcome any positive suggestions from parents. 

Thank you to the Year 4 parents who have already completed the collection arrangements form for the cinema trip. If you haven’t already done so please do ASAP. Please note, if a form is not completed by Friday 25th October, your children will be expected to walk back to school after the film.  

https://forms.office.com/e/SpYXKX6ueW

The definition of disability is a broad one.  ‘A person has a disability if he or she has a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his or her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities’ (Equality Act 2010). The Equality Act 2010 replaced previous discrimination law and provides a single piece of legislation covering all types of discrimination that are lawful.   

We would like all parents who feel they and/or their child fits the definition outlined above to complete the disability equality questionnaire. The data collected will be used when writing our school’s accessibility plan and disability and equality policies. In most cases, we know if a child in our school as a disability but it is not the case for our parents and it would be useful to know how we can better support our school community as a whole. You do not have to provide identifying details about yourself or your child but there is the option to do so at the end should you wish to be involved in any future focus groups etc.   

https://forms.office.com/e/htcdMFtbak  

 Please find attached the E-consent letter for your child’s Flu vaccination for this coming winter. Please note that you can consent for either the Flu nasal spray, OR the non-gelatine IM Flu vaccine. Please make sure you complete the form online as soon as you can. The portal will close 48 hours ahead of the Flu session. Vaccination UK East Anglia Immunisation (schoolvaccination.uk) Flu can be very unpleasant for children and can sometimes cause serious problems, such as pneumonia. Children can catch and spread flu easily. Vaccinating them also helps protect others who are at higher risk of getting seriously ill from flu, such as babies and older people. The School Immunisation team will be coming into the school on Thursday 14th November to deliver the vaccine. Please be aware that children can NOT receive this vaccination with their GP unless they are clinically vulnerable. 

Flu Consent Form

Flu Leaflet