No. 2 Autumn Term 2010

01460 240507

Dear Parents

Music Tuition
Music Tuition will be starting after half term, lessons will be available in drums, guitar, clarinet, flute, saxophone, piano, violin and singing. Booking forms will be sent home in October to all children who returned a slip last term expressing an interest, further copies will be available from the office.

After School Clubs
We are aware that there are not many clubs available to KS1 children. If there are any parents who would like to volunteer to run an after school club for this age group, please do.

CRB
Any parents who would like to accompany school trips, help in class, run an after school club, please pick up a CRB application form from the School Office.

Headlice
It has been brought to my attention that there are several cases of headlice among the children that are proving very hard to eradicate. Please could you look carefully at your child's head and, if you find either live lice or nits (egg cases), carry out one of the following procedures?

• Every day, for at least a week, put conditioner on the child's hair and comb through with a fine tooth comb, then rinse. This process breaks the legs of any live lice, thus ensuring that they cannot reproduce. Please note that this doesn't have to be expensive conditioner, it is just used to help the comb slip through the hair more easily.
or:
• Use a proprietary brand of nit lotion and follow instructions. I believe that these lotions are available on prescription from the doctor.

It is helpful to comb through your child's hair with a fine tooth comb on a regular basis in order to keep your child's hair free of lice.

I am loathed to recommend that you use chemicals on your child's head and so would always recommend the conditioner and nit comb method, but I appreciate how time consuming this method is. I am also loathe to send home a letter every time a case of nits is discovered, mainly because, in the past, it has led to some children's heads being over-treated with chemicals.

Thank you for your understanding with this problem. If everyone is vigilant and uses one of the above methods when nits are discovered, we should manage to reduce the problem.

Lunchboxes
As you may be aware, we are trying out a new system for lunchtimes. This has been introduced to stagger lunch sittings so all children can eat in the hall. To help this to run smoothly at the start of the day children are encouraged to place their lunchboxes on the labelled carts outside their classrooms. It is important the lunchboxes are named to ensure there is no confusion. Also at the end of the day the children are encouraged to collect their lunchboxes from the same carts. Thank you for your support with this, it is working well and the children are enjoying eating together.

Home School Diaries
Children in Key Stage 2 have now been given their new home school diaries. These books will work as an important way of communicating between home and school as well as recording homework and reading.

Emma Weinel Leaving
Sadly, Mrs Weinel is leaving us in December to relocate to Switzerland. I know you will all miss her and I'm sure there will be a good send off for her near the end of term. I will let you know as soon as we have appointed a replacement.

Science Dome Contributions
To help enrich this terms topic of Infinity and Beyond, we are having a visit from the Science Dome. Science Dome is designed to explore science, geology and geography in an interactive way. The Science Dome provides an additional science resource for schools and presents a different learning experience to children. However, we would appreciate a voluntary contribution of £1 to help offset the cost of this activity.

School Photos
Tempest Photography will be visiting school on Friday 1st October to take individual and family photographs. If you would like your child to be photographed with younger siblings, these sittings will take place from 8.45 am.

Security and Safety
As you may have noticed, there have been small changes being made around the school, we will be doing our best to ensure you are all made aware of these. One of these changes relates to the issue of security and safety. As you may have been aware the main door leading into the school is now being closed. This is to ensure that all the traffic moving in and out of the school is monitored. This is in line with the Ofsted Safeguarding Framework.

Holidays in Term Time
When deciding whether to allow term-time leave the school will consider:-

• The length of the leave period requested taken together with previous leave taken within the current school year (if the total exceeds 10 school days authorisation can only be granted in exceptional circumstances).
• The stated SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES (holidays totalling 10 days and under) / or EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES (holidays totalling over 10 days)
• Age of the child and national curriculum year
• The child's general absence/attendance record
• Proximity of SATs/GCSE examinations
• The child's ability to catch up the work missed
• The child's educational needs
• General welfare of the pupil
• Purpose of the leave
• Other issues that may be detrimental to your child's education

If the school refuses your request and the child is still taken out of school, this will be recorded as an unauthorised absence and noted on your child's attendance record. This may be used in any legal action taken for poor attendance.

Finally, in this period of transition I thank you for all for your support and thoughts on how to improve the school. I hope all of the above information is clear but please do contact me if there is anything that you need to discuss further about these, or any other matters relating to your child.

Wayne Higgins
Head Teacher