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/

Mrs. Small, our new assistant head is responsible for physical and mental wellbeing and as such, she will be introducing Friday achievement assemblies starting on Friday 15^th September. We will begin with celebrating the children who completed the summer reading challenge over the holidays. If your child took part, please email a photo of their certificate FAO Mrs Fordham (reading subject lead) or they can bring in their certificate. I know children are very keen to be awarded their 5 house points. On this note, we will be inviting children to bring any trophies, certificates, awards or photos from achievements outside of school to share with pupils in assembly (as well as being added to our website/newsletter).  In addition to this, we will be celebrating the musical talents of our children and inviting those who play instruments to play for their peers whilst they enter the hall for assembly. If your child would like to do this, tell them to speak to Mrs. Small.

Parents will receive a letter this week regarding attendance and I would urge you all to take the time to read the information. With the cost of living crisis and more pressure on families, we saw an increase in the number of holidays taken in term time last year. I would like to remind parents that I cannot authorise time off during term time unless for exceptional circumstances. I understand parents may feel that the time off will not affect their child significantly negatively however the overall education of the class is affected if the teacher has to repeatedly catch up those who have missed prior learning.

Please download the School Gateway app to receive messages and emails from school. You will need to give your email address and you will be given a PIN number to set up your account. The email address must be the same as the one held on our school records.

To order and pay for school dinners, you will need to use School Grid. http://app.schoolgrid.co.uk

Next week, we will be on week 2. 

Parents of children who have joined us this term will have access to the Arbor Parent Portal. Many of you have already logged in which is fantastic but if you haven’t and need help with this, please contact our office. For all other year groups, this will be rolled out in the coming months.

School policy allows for children in Years 5 and 6 to bring a mobile phone to school for safety reasons if they travel to and from school independently. Mobile phones must be switched off whilst on school premises and not be used during the school day. There is no need for parents to inform the class teacher/office if their child is walking home independently. I would ask that children do not however bring their phones on school trips or after school events.

Please can I remind parents, especially those in Year 5 and 6, not to arrive at school before 8.45am. I appreciate some children are keen to get to school but the school grounds are not supervised before this time and accidents can happen.

There will be times, as parents, where you need to contact the school and general enquiries can be made via the school office by phone or email. You can also use the year group email addresses to contact your child’s year group.

If you have any concerns regarding your child, please make an appointment after school to see the class teacher initially as in most cases they will have the most up to date information on your child. If at this point you still feel you would like to speak to someone at our school, please first contact Miss Simmons, our Deputy Head (admin@almondhill.herts.sch.uk) or if your child has special educational needs or disabilities, Mrs Birchall our SENCo (iep@almondhill.herts.sch.uk).  The Designated Teacher with overall responsibility for Child Protection is Mrs Fordham, with Mrs Birchall and Mrs Burgess as deputies. The deputies (especially Mrs Burgess) deal with day to day safeguarding issues but all cases are shared with the whole safeguarding team.

Mrs Fordham can be contacted using the admin email address and will respond accordingly. However, depending on the nature of your email, it may be passed on to a more appropriate member of staff for a response.  Mrs Fordham is often unavailable at short notice and an effective and more efficient response is often achieved by speaking to someone else on the team. That being said, Mrs Fordham will always make the time to speak to parents if all other avenues have been exhausted, the matter is extremely urgent or parents have a specific reason why they believe she is the only person who can deal with the matter.