I recently wrote to parents about the importance of attendance and have also been speaking to the children about this. In order to keep this high profile and in discussion with the children, I have decided to provide some incentives. The class with the highest weekly attendance (which has always been celebrated on the newsletter) will also receive the attendance trophy and teddy (yet to be purchased!) and an extra fifteen minutes playtime on a Friday afternoon. The logic being that their attendance is so good they can 'afford' some extra minutes of playtime as they have been in school all week. I have explained to the children and please can parents be reassured that the attendance figures of children with significant medical reasons for not being in school, will not negatively affect the class total as this cannot be avoided and the figures can be adapted to remove this impact.

We know that there were some people who wanted to book onto a club this term who were unable to due to that club being full. We are going to keep a log of those people so we can offer clubs to children on a ‘waiting list’ basis or we could offer those children first refusal on clubs later in the year. The clubs that were full were; multi-sports (Year 3), stop-frame animation (Year 4) and football (Year 6). Please note, we cannot guarantee which clubs will be run each term but we hope by doing this, clubs can be allocated as fairly as possible. If would like to add your child to the waiting list, please complete the form below.

https://forms.office.com/e/GkWjseJcY1

Whilst on the topic of clubs, please can I remind parents that at Almond Hill, we do our upmost to ensure a fair allocation for all clubs and remove barriers such as cost by making clubs freely available to all. This is facilitated by the school funding Premier clubs and for staff kindly volunteering their time free of charge. Therefore, although we would love to offer even more clubs, we are limited by cost and time. Parents may know that last year, our highly successful football club (who won both the league and the cup) was run by parent volunteers. If there are any parents with specific skills who wish to offer their time to run a club, we would be delighted! Please email admin@almondhill.herts.sch.uk FAO Mrs Fordham.

We are excited to tell you that we will be having a fundraising day on Monday 25^th September to raise money for a fantastic charity. As most of you will know, The Abilities in Me Foundation writes children’s stories based on real children with a range of conditions. Money raised goes into: creating more books to help raise awareness, supporting school SEND projects and running family support events which they are looking to expand across the UK. If you would like to find out more, please go to: www.theabiltiesinme.com. All teachers will read at least one book from the range to children during the day. For a suggested donation of 50p, children are invited to wear an item of brightly coloured clothing to school on Monday 25^th September. Parents of children in Years 4, 5 and 6 will remember that the author of this book series visited the school (free of charge) last year and donated her entire series to our school library. Children were truly inspired by her visit and her books so this is a lovely way to support the charity. Payments can be made on School Gateway.

The benefits of the strong partnership we hold with you cannot be underestimated and it is with this in mind that I would like to extend an invitation for parents to join an Almond Hill ‘Parent Forum’ which was set up by Miss Simmons last year. The aim of the group is to share and discuss important educational issues affecting the school and to get parents even more involved in decision making that directly affects your children.  It is an opportunity to provide feedback, discuss future initiatives and national news related to education.

Each and every one of you is an expert in what it is like to be a parent at our school and would be welcome.

Miss Simmons plans half termly meetings to discuss an agenda jointly formed between the school leadership team and parent volunteers. The most important thing is that parents get involved. We would love approximately three parents per year group and with so many new families joining, we wanted to remind you of this opportunity.

Please email admin@almondhill.herts.sch.uk FAO Miss Simmons if you would like to get involved, or even just find out more. This is a really exciting opportunity to further develop the home school partnership.

We have had some reports of children with headlice. Please check your child’s hair and treat accordingly. Please see the website for advice on treatment: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/head-lice-and-nits/