Over St. John's CE Primary SchoolHead Teacher Blog: Friday 7th September 2018
Date: 7th Sep 2018 @ 12:26pm
Welcome back and to my first Head’s Blog!
As explained before the summer, my intention is to blog at the end of each week to keep you more regularly updated on events in school and this will replace the monthly newsletter. Please do check the website at the end of the week to find out what has been going on and check on your children’s class pages too.
It is so lovely to be back at school, to see all the children again and hear their many stories about what they have been getting up to over the summer holidays. A special welcome to all our new children this year as we welcome Blake in Year 6, Seth in Year 1 and Kai, Mia, Annie, Harry, Alexander, Francesca, Eva, Robyn, Ava, Eva, Calliope, Holly, Lucas, Joshua, Ava, Oliver, Franklin, Ruby, Wyatt, Quinn, Arabella-Alice and Jacob in to Reception. We are sure that they will all be very happy here.
The children may have told you that a lot of work has gone on in school over the holidays, for which I am very grateful to staff for ensuring that the school was ready to open on Tuesday, as work wasn’t completed until the end of the day on Thursday last week! We have had Blakemere, Linmere and Delamere re-carpeted and decorated and the ceiling tiles in the hall replaced – which caused an awful lot of dust and dirt! However, the school is looking very smart and is a wonderful learning environment for the children.
Speaking of looking very smart, the children look wonderful! Thank you so much for your support with ensuring the children are wearing the correct uniform, as per the letter that went home at the beginning of July. I will go into some more detail about this year’s School Development Plan shortly, but one of the things that we are focussing on is behaviour and expectations – uniform expectations form a part of this - if children know the uniform expectations but see that we don’t follow them, then how can we expect them to follow any other expectations that we have in school also? Once again, thank you for your support with this.
School Development Plan
A number of things that we are focussing on this year are a culmination of development points from our Ofsted inspection in January, findings from our parental questionnaire at the end of term and information from analysing results at the end of the summer in all year groups.
In January, our inspector asked us to focus on teaching the children about particular aspects of equality and diversity, as per British Law through the Equality Act of 2010. Therefore, this year we will be introducing a ‘No Outsiders’ theme – you may have seen posters around school. More details will be sent home in due course, but the main theme behind this is recognising that, in British Society, children will come across many different types of people and they are all welcome in Britain and can all succeed. No one is an outsider – everyone is welcome. This is something that we have always promoted anyway through our Christian Values, but this will enable the children to make the link between our Christian Values and British law.
Another aspect we are focussing on is expectations of behaviour. Our inspector felt that the behaviour at Over St. John’s is good, from observing the children in class, in the playground, in the dinner hall and talking to children but a small minority of parents were unsure about behaviour expectations, rewards and consequences so we have introduced a new set of Golden Rules and rewards and consequences with the children. I will send a separate letter to you all about this shortly so that you know our approach in school and you can discuss it with your children at home.
The parent questionnaires highlighted the fact the parents would like to find out about their children’s progress on a more regular basis, as the time between October parents evening and March parents evening was quite long. This year, we are changing the number of parents evening, the content of parents evenings and the times. There will be three parents evenings this year, just before each half term in October, February and May where teachers will discuss particular aspects of your child’s learning with you. As each parents evening arises, we will include in the appointments letter details of what will be discussed.
This year, we also have the addition of sending home your child’s attainment and progress information at the end of each term – the bands and steps that you usually see on the first page of your child’s report, so that you can see how they are progressing throughout the year. We hope that you will find these changes useful – as always, we are willing to listen and we will take feedback at the end of the cycle in the summer to see how it has worked for everyone.
Reminders
School dinners now cost £2.30 per day, £11.50 per week. Children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 receive free meals as part of the government’s Universal Infant Free School Meals scheme. Please can dinner money be paid in advance via the School Money system.
If you are in receipt of benefits and think that you may be entitled to free school meals, please click https://www.cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk/residents/education-and-learning/school-meals.aspx to apply. It is very important to apply for free schools meals whatever year your child is in, even if you receive the UIFSM in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2, as the school receives a sum of extra money to further help support your child and their education.
Please may I remind you that schools are not allowed to authorise pupil holidays in term time. Any child going on holiday in term time will receive an unauthorised absence. Our registers are regularly checked by the Education Welfare Service and parents may be issued with a fine from the Local Authority for unauthorised absence, which is currently £60 per child, per parent.
Confirmed Dates for the Autumn Term - further dates will be added in forthcoming blogs.
Friday 21st September: Jeans for Genes day – further details to be sent out
Sunday 7th October: All Together Service in St. John’s Church Hall at 10.30am. All Welcome.
Wednesday 10th October: Children to visit St John’s Church for a service
Tuesday 16th October: Year 5 Pilgrim’s Day at Chester Cathedral
Friday 19th October: Individual Photographs
Tuesday 23rd October: Parents Evening 3.10pm – 6.10pm
Wednesday 24th October: Parents Evening 4pm – 5.30pm
Friday 26th October: School closes for half term at 3pm
Monday 5th November: School opens at 8:45am
Thursday 8th November: School Nurses in to do flu jabs for Reception to Year 5
Sunday 2nd December: All Together Service in St. John’s Church Hall at 10.30am. All welcome for the Christingle Service.
Wednesday 5th December: Children to visit St John’s Church for a service
Thursday 20th December: Carol Service in St. John’s Church at 1.45pm. All welcome. Please note: All children to be collected from church at 3pm instead of school.
Friday 21st December: School closes for Christmas at 2pm
I hope that you all have a lovely weekend – you need it after getting back to early starts this week!
Take care,
Mrs E. Snowdon