Over St. John's CE Primary SchoolHead Teacher Blog: Friday 28th March 2025
Date: 28th Mar 2025 @ 1:48pm
Winsford Decides Outcome
A huge thank you to Mrs Bettley for attending Winsford Decides on Wednesday evening and making a presentation to try to gain some money to help towards the purchase of iPads for our children. We were not successful on this occasion but she did make a valuable contact who may be able to help us as well as an offer of an unused tablet from a member of the audience. We will keep trying and our fabulous PTA will continue to keep trying with us!
Junior Safety Officers
I shared on my blog on 14th March that our Junior Safety Officers had conducted a survey outside school one morning to check the safety of our families at drop off time. They arranged a meeting with myself today to share their findings and I think that it is important that these are shared with our school community.
They said that they were happy to find out that lots of our families crossed at the zebra crossing but they unfortunately noticed more people cross outside of school in between parked cars, not being safe. They said that this made them worry because people from our school could get seriously hurt. They would like to remind everyone to use the zebra crossing even if it means walking a bit further up the street.
Thank you to Ava and Frankie for their work and sharing their very important message - one that I would hope people respond positively to by taking action and using the zebra crossing.
VE Day Celebrations
The 80th anniversary of VE day is coming up on Thursday 8th May and we would like to mark this special, historic occasion as a school. We will be doing some lovely things in school during the day, but we are asking children to come into school dressed in red, white and blue for a non-uniform day. We look forward to seeing the children’s patriotic colours!
PTA News
🐰🐣We have teamed up with the Easter Bunny to bring some joy to our children 🐇. The Big Easter Egg Raffle! And when we say big, we mean BIG! OVER 70 chocolately treats to be won! Raffle tickets will be on sale from Monday, hop to it! 🐰50p per ticket for sale during school.
Attendance
As always, we are looking for attendance to be at least 96%. For the school this week we are at 95.36%. Since September, we are on 94.87%.
Here is a rundown of each class attendance this week:
Hatchmere: 94.55%
Sandymere: 94.76%
Delamere: 97.37%
Oakmere: 94.17%
Linmere: 96.92%
Blakemere: 94.62%
Well done to Delamere for the best attendance this week who will receive our trophy in Collective Worship next Friday.
As always, I appreciate how difficult it is when there is illness circulating but also appreciate you checking Is my child too ill for school? and being reassured that we will send them home if they are too ill to be in school. You might also be interested in this link from the Government about support for parents for attendance:
Improving School Attendance - Government Support for Parents May 2024
#WakeUpWednesday
Bluesky social app is a microblogging social media platform that gained popularity after separating from Twitter in 2021. It’s more than doubled its user numbers in the past six months alone, from 14.5 million in October 2024 to 32 million at present. Since accounts must be public, this opens the door to potential trolling, cyberbullying and the spread of misinformation.
This week’s free guide – also available in podcast format – is offering parents and educators advice and guidance on the tools available to keep children safe while using the popular social media platform Bluesky.
Holiday Activities and Food
Thanks to the crucial funding from the Department of Education, HAF Easter is nearly here and Edsential wanted to share with you some of the Holiday Activities and Food clubs available in our area. Coordinated by Edsential, on behalf of Cheshire west and Chester Council, this year's Easter HAF programme has a whole host of clubs that are completely free for children and young people in receipt of free school meals.
The new and improved map will let you find and book HAF clubs easier than ever before. Parents and carers can simply scroll, search or navigate the map to find the perfect club for their child. And the best part? Just click on a club, read their details and book directly with the provider!
To find a full list of the Easter holiday activity clubs visit the website.
Absence During Term Time – Reminder
As I have shared a number of times previously, there have been some changes to the way that Penalty Notices are issued for absences during term time. Penalty Notices are issued for irregular attendance, with days off here and there throughout the term including holidays.
The new National Framework for Penalty includes:
A Penalty Notice must be considered for 10 sessions (5 days) of unauthorised absence within a rolling 10 school week period – these days do not have to be all at the same time, they can be a couple of days here and a couple of days there; they can be a combination of a couple of days holiday and a couple of days absence at other times too.
An increase to the amount of a Penalty Notice is now £160 if paid within 28 days, and £80 if paid within 21 days. This fine is issued to each parent separately for each child, so both parents receive the £80 fine, meaning that for one child it equals £160 (£80 for Mum and £80 for Dad) if both parents take the child.
A second Penalty Notice could be issued to the same parent for the same child within a rolling 3 year period being charged at a higher rate of £160 with no option for this second offence to be discharged at the lower rate of £80.
A national limit of 2 penalty notices that can be issued to a parent for the same child within a rolling 3 year period, so at the 3rd (or subsequent) offence(s) another tool will need to be considered (such as prosecution or one of the other attendance legal interventions).
School Dinners
School dinners currently cost £3 per day, £15 per week.
Information was shared with you a couple of weeks ago that Edsential are increasing their costs and from 1st May and school dinners would cost £3.30 per day, £16.50 per week. However, after meeting with Edsential’s Business Manager this morning, there is to be a revision to the price which will only be a small increase as opposed to the 30p. I will share the revised cost with you next week.
Children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 receive free meals as part of the government’s Universal Infant Free School Meals (UIFSM) scheme. Dinner money must be paid in advance via School Spider.
If you are in receipt of benefits and think that you may be entitled to free school meals, please click here for more information and support and how 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.
Confirmed Dates for the Spring Term 2025 – new dates highlighted
Dinner Week 3
Monday 31st March – Wednesday 2nd April: Year 2 and 3 Residential to Robinwood
Friday 4th April: Easter Service in St. John’s Church at 9.15am. All welcome.
Friday 4th April: School closes for Easter at 2pm
Tuesday 22nd April: School opens at 8.35am for the Summer Term
Thursday 8th May: Red, white and blue non-uniform day for VE Day
Have a lovely weekend.
Take care,
Mrs E Snowdon