Are we meeting your child’s needs? 
I'm absolutely thrilled that 98% of parents who responded to the survey believe we are meeting their child’s needs. As a school dedicated to serving the local community and by extension, children with a wide range of needs, this feedback makes me incredibly proud. It reaffirms that we are successfully fulfilling our mission.

The current ‘job pairs’ were mentioned in the survey – not in a negative way by any means but I wanted to address it here. For some children, a job pair can be tricky however we believe it builds a really strong teaching team for your child. Teachers are able to utilise their different strengths to enhance the learning experience for the children. Children in any class are often taught by different people (for example Cover Supervisors) and they are very much used to this throughout the school.

We have looked at the comments regarding how we can improve but there were no patterns or trends and comments were very much personal to the individual person or family. If there is anything you feel needs follow up, please contact the relevant staff member so we can discuss this with you.

Details are still being finalised but please be aware the dates for the spring term parents’ evening are as follows:
Tuesday 11^th March and Thursday 13^th March

Parents of 3W please note parents’ evening with Miss Ward will take place on Monday 10^th March and Thursday 13^th March.

I was pleased to hear that the recent pastoral/SEND coffee morning was the best attended so far. This particular day of the week and time was suggested by a parent and staff changed their working patterns to facilitate so this made it particularly worthwhile. Hopefully parents know that when they give us feedback to improve, if we can action it, we will always try though it might not happen immediately.  

We have been overwhelmed with the generosity of our families and staff so far with regards to donations of kit for swimming. We would really appreciate donations of the following:

• Towel x1
• Hats x8
• Swimwear (boys and girls) size 11-12 x2 of each
• Swimwear (boys and girls) size 12-13 x2 of each

If you have any of these at home that are unwanted or no longer fit, please bring them in and give them to your child’s class teacher.

Miss Simmons will be hosting an information meeting for parents of children who will be going to Grafham next year. Here you will have the opportunity to find out more about the trip and ask any questions you may have. Year 5 children are welcome to attend with parents/carers. Thursday 20^th March 6pm via Microsoft Teams.

From outer space and dinosaurs to Messi, Ronaldo and everything in between—our young journalists have been hard at work on the latest edition of the student newspaper, 2 Cool 4 School. You can read it here:

Thank you to all parents who joined the Teams meeting for our first online Parent Forum. We had 21 parents/carers from across the school with each year group represented, this is a welcomed increase on numbers from the year before. It is great to see how invested everyone is in the school and their children's education.  At the meeting we discussed and took opinions on different elements of Almond Hill including: possible future changes to the way parents are kept informed of school events, the idea of being 'phone free', how we can improve transition from Y2 - Y3 and Y6 - Y7 and what parents feel about supporting the school through voluntary contributions towards some occasions. It was lovely to hear your views and even if you did not contribute your ideas this time, knowing there were many parents logged in and listening was great - so thank you. Please look out for the next meeting at the end of the term. Everyone is welcome! It is from the comfort of your own home and very informal - a nice chat about all things Almond Hill. So if you have been thinking about joining and being a voice for the parent community - do it!

We have loved celebrating Safer Internet Day this week.  This year, the celebrations and learning have been based around the theme ‘Too good to be true? Protecting yourself and others from scams online'.

Safer Internet Day is the UK’s biggest celebration of online safety. Each year we cover an online issue or theme that speaks about the things young people are seeing and experiencing online. Created in consultation with young people across the UK, this year Safer Internet Day focused on the issue of scams online and for young people, how to protect themselves and others, as well as what support is available to them. This Safer Internet Day, we assessed the real scale of this issue and allow young people to share their experiences and ideas on how to tackle the problem.  It is coordinated in the UK by the UK Safer Internet Centre, the celebration sees thousands of organisations get involved to promote the safe, responsible and positive use of digital technology for children and young people.  More information can be found on the link below.

Safer Internet Day 2025 - UK Safer Internet Centre

The children have used the information that we have discussed to create pretend scams.  The best will be used on a display in the Computing Suite to educate children (or adults) on the tell-tale signs to watch for in an online scam.