Over St. John's CE Primary SchoolHead Teacher Blog: Friday 7th March 2025
Date: 7th Mar 2025 @ 3:22pm
World Book Day
This year’s World Book Day was totally out of this world! (Did you see what I did there?!) We had a fabulous day reading books and completing activities based on our space theme and children and staff alike had some fantastic ideas for how this could be translated into outfits! The World Book Day Parent and Pupil Activity after school was really well attended and everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves.
A huge thank you goes to our Reading Champions who, supported by their Buddy, Mrs M, organised everything that happened during the day – the theme, the books, the crafts… Well done and thank you on a very successful World Book Day 2025!
For those that were able to attend, a survey has been sent out on School Spider – please do complete it to help us further improve our offer.
#WakeUpWednesday
As it was World Book Day this week, its a perfect time to celebrate the joy of reading and explore how technology can support literacy. The way we engage with text has changed dramatically over the years. Whether reading captions on social media, instructions in a video game or an e-book on a digital device, technology plays a major role in modern literacy.
To help struggling readers, many digital platforms offer tools that enhance readability by making text more accessible and engaging. National Online Safety have created this week’s free guide – also available in podcast format – offering parents and educators ten top tips on how they can help young readers engage in text and foster a love for reading.
Attendance
As always, we are looking for attendance to be at least 96%. For the school this week we are at 97.10% which is a fabulous achievement – thank you! Since September, we are on 94.78% – the best we have been in a long time so let’s keep going!
Here is a rundown of each class attendance this week:
Hatchmere: 96.82%
Sandymere: 97.62%
Delamere: 94.21%
Oakmere: 99.17%
Linmere: 95.77%
Blakemere: 98.46%
Well done to Oakmere for the best attendance this week who will receive our trophy in Collective Worship on Monday.
Once again, I would like to acknowledge that we have had some good attendance figures over the past few weeks, with several over and above 96% – thank you.
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
Winsford Town Mayor’s Oscars
The Town Mayor of Winsford, Cllr Wayne Fletcher will be holding a very special ‘Town Mayor’s Oscar Awards 2025’ Event at the Meadow Bank Social Club on Saturday 26th April to recognise the achievements of local people.
They are asking for your help with nominating someone special from the following categories and you can nominate as many categories as you’d like:
Teacher of the Year
Volunteer of the Year
Uniformed Services Worker of the Year
Young Carer of the Year
Neighbour of the Year
Delivery Driver of the Year
Young Person of the Year Award
Community Group of the Year.
The deadline for which is the 28th March and the form to nominate can be accessed via the Town Council’s website https://winsford.gov.uk/events/winsford-oscar-awards-2025/ which includes the information below:
Name: (The person who is nominating details)
Address: (The person who is nominating address)
Email: (The person who is nominating email address)
Phone: (The person who is nominating contact details)
Nominees Name:
Age:
Nominees Address:
Award: ? of the year: Category
Description: A paragraph or so of why they should win the category.
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 cost £3 per day, £15 per 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 2
Wednesday 12th March: Hatchmere visit to Winsford Library
Friday 14th March: Open the Book Collective Worship
Friday 28th March: Open the Book Collective Worship
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
Have a lovely weekend.
Take care,
Mrs E Snowdon