As I am sure parents will have noticed, we have been working hard to offer lots of opportunities for children to take part in different events and activities. We ‘subscribe’ to Stevenage Sporting Futures who organise a variety of sporting events throughout the year. As well as this, there are adhoc events in maths, writing, visits to our feeder schools, netball/football matches and plenty more. With lots of children here, it is important we are organised when planning these events to ensure risk assessments are completed in plenty of time and everything is in place for the event to be safe and successful. We know parents are very busy and sometimes emails are missed but going forward, we will be adding a date and time to our deadlines for consents etc. If these deadlines are not met, we will offer the space to someone else. Often the sporting events have a minimum numbers requirement and if we do not have enough people, then the whole team will miss out. There are other events that we have paid for and would lose money if the space is not taken. We will endeavour to ensure our deadlines are as reasonable as possible to help parents with this although please bear with us as sometimes information from external providers is not given to us as promptly as we would like.

We have set ourselves a target this year to ensure every child is involved in an additional extracurricular sporting activity or event and are tracking this carefully to ensure all children have access to these opportunities.

I would encourage all parents who have not already done so to log in to Arbor as this will be a key method of communication for consents etc going forward.

Firstly, I would like to thank the parent who alerted me that we did not come back to the reports survey after this was completed by many parents in the summer. I can only apologise for this oversight and assure parents the feedback has been read and will be used to adapt/improve what we provide in the summer term.

I am going to take the time to address some of the points here. It was lovely to see so many responses with the vast majority being positive.

Parents told us they were happy with the length and amount of information received and particularly liked the child’s feedback section. The reports were described as ‘in depth, easy to read, and not generic’. One particular comment really stood out ‘I am always impressed with how much thought and work goes into this report, it’s a challenge to do that for each kid’. We are really grateful for such positive feedback.

As we would expect when asking for feedback, there are some areas that parents felt could be improved and some of which requires a more personal, 1-1 response and where this is possible (i.e. a name has been provided as the feedback is anonymous), I will be in touch if I have not already to discuss the reports with you

Some parents requested more information per subject regarding areas of concern and/or praise and some asked for more detailed information, particularly if their child is not at age related. Another request was for school reports to be received more regularly.  The general comments section is used to provide further information on what a child has done well or where a child needs to develop.  School reports take a huge amount of time to draft, read and rewrite and providing additional reports is not feasible. The school holds two parent and teacher meetings a year as well as the school report, but as always, parents are very welcome to meet with their child’s class teacher to discuss any areas of concern/interest. Please use the year group emails to let teachers know if you would like to speak to them about anything,

Whilst some parents said the reports felt personal, there were some who felt they were quite generic. The reports are written using a formula to ensure all parents receive the same areas of information. However, I read every school report and can assure parents they are personalised to your child.

Finally, I would like to say thank you to so many of you for responding to the survey about reports. In the past years, I have only received two or three responses and had considered not adding it to last year. I am so glad I did as I genuinely appreciate and consider all comments.

99% of current children will own a smartphone before they reach 18 📱👶. With phones and other devices offering an increasing number of ways to pass the time, it can prove difficult for young people to set them aside. As a gateway to messaging services, games, television, music and more, digital devices can become borderline indispensable items in a young person's life. 

Studies have shown, however, that managing a child’s screen time can have positive impacts on their cognitive development. The guide below provides you with some simple but effective tips to help you bring your family’s screen time down to a healthier level, while suggesting alternative activities that are far less reliant on technology.

Managing Screen Time Guide

We have not yet planned INSET dates for the next academic year but we have had some parent queries regarding the start of term in September 2024 so we have liaised with Letchmore and agreed we will have an INSET day on Monday 2^nd September and term will start on Tuesday 3^rd.  I hope that helps parents to plan their summer holidays.