Newsletter 3 - 2019
Dear Parents,
Well, I feel as though this week has been played through at ‘fast forward’! I can’t believe we are already in October, although the weather certainly seems to be reminding us of that. Please can you make sure that the children always have a named, waterproof coat in school, with a hood. In this season, the day can begin so beautifully but be raining by lunchtime. In wet weather, we do try to get the children outside if possible, balancing the need for fresh air with keeping them safe on possibly slippery ground.
I’m not sure if it is autumnal seasonal or just the ‘back to school’ season but we seem to have a few unwelcome visitors on our children’s heads… Please do all check your children’s hair this week for headlice and treat promptly if possible. If we all endeavour to do this at the same time, we can nip things in the bud.
Our School Parliament met for the first time today. This year, with Mrs Willock, they will be helping the school to work towards the Sandwell Well-Being Charter Mark. The process will allow us to explore areas of success and development across eight categories of mental health and well-being.
As part of this process, Educational Psychologist, Rachel Coles and Trainee Educational Psychologist Katerina Avramides will be collecting the views of children, parents and staff around well being in the school community. Rachel and Katerina will be collecting views by asking pupils to take part in focus group sessions. About 6-8 pupils from different year groups will be invited to take part in these sessions. In addition, children’s views will be collected via surveys conducted in class with the support of teaching staff. These activities will be repeated in the summer term to see if there have been any changes in their views.
Rachel and Katerina will also be asking the views of parents through focus groups. These will be held for one hour on the 14th October at 8.45 and repeated in the summer term. If you are interested in potentially taking part in the parent’s focus group, please let me know as soon as possible. Places to attend the focus groups are limited, and those selected will be informed by 11th October.
All the information collected will be fed back to the school in a report, but it will not use any parent, staff or pupil names. However, this report may also be used for wider academic audiences.
Pupils will not be individually identified unless they score in the ‘below average’ category or lower in one or more of the sections of the well-being survey. At this point the school will be notified of these pupils so that they can provide them with additional support. The information will be kept secure by the school.
Should your son or daughter agree to take part in this research, please be aware that they are able to withdraw consent for their responses at any time. This can be done by contacting the school or Rachel at any time before or during the research process. If you wish, you may withdraw your child from taking part in the survey. Please notify me in writing if you do not want them to take part.
Please contact us or Rachel Coles on 03000412501 if you want any more information or have any questions.
The children will have come home with their Children’s University allocations today. I think we have a great range of options available for the children this year and all children have received one of their 3 choices. Our first session is next Wednesday so hopefully you’ll be able to see photos shortly afterwards on the website.
We held the first of our open mornings for prospective parents this week. A few of our Year 6 children gave tours to the visitors following a hearty session in Worship and Praise. All of the children spoke so clearly and with confidence – many of the visitors commented on how lovely they were. As I said to the assembled group later, any of our Year 6 children would volunteer for this role and they are all, already a credit to the school. I know that many of our Year 6 children are slightly on tenterhooks as they await their PESE results (which will be emailed to parents on 17th October); the leavers hoodies are providing some welcome distraction. Thank you to the parents who are organising these.
Thank you too, to the parents who have taken on the mantel of PTA reps this year. Mr Kwak, our new PTA chair, has already been kept busy by the upcoming quiz. Do talk to your class reps if you would like to get involved or come along. Our outgoing chair, Josine Baines and outgoing treasurer, Ruth Kieran, bowed out gracefully at the PTA AGM this week. Both the Chair of Governors and I echoed the gratitude the school has for the work these two have put into the PTA over the past couple of years. They can be proud of the difference they and their team have made to the experiences of the children whilst at this school.
On Monday, we will holding our Harvest Festival in school. This year, we are joining forces with St Lawrence church to collect items for the St Augustine’s foodbank. If you would like to support us in this, we will be collecting items all week: If you wish to bring any donations to any of our events on Sunday, the foodbank would be very grateful to receive:
TINNED FOOD: soup, tuna, meat, carrots, peas, potatoes, sweetcorn, spaghetti, macaroni cheese, ravioli, fruit, rice pudding, custard.
(NO THANKS: tinned chickpeas or mushy peas or kidney beans).
OTHER ITEMS: coffee, sugar, longlife milk, squash, breakfast cereals, jam, nutella, biscuits, sweets.
I hope you all have a good weekend.
Kind regards,
Julie Burton
Headteacher
