Febuary 2007 Newsletter


ANTI BULLYING POLICY

Thankyou for returning the anti bullying questionnaire. It was very useful indeed and coupled with a questionnaire given to the children during our anti bullying week, we were able to put together an anti bullying policy based on our findings. 36% of parents responded to our questionnaire. This policy is now available in school, and you would be welcome to take a copy if you wish.

On the whole, we felt that parents feel we have a strong anti bullying policy, and act quickly if there are reports made by a child. We found that bullying tends to be mostly name calling, and most parents said bullying did cease once it had been reported to the class teacher or headteacher.

Currently at school we very much believe in the social and emotional aspects of learning, which is very important in raising children's self esteem. Each half term we take a theme and talk to the children about it. The themes have been 'new beginnings', 'anti bullying? and 'going for goals'. We feel these have been excellent in focusing children to consider the way they behave with each other, and how they deal with their feelings.
 

 

HOT LUNCHES FROM PERSHORE HIGH SCHOOL

We are very excited about our hot meals being provided by Pershore High School, as from the 5th March. I can honestly say they really are excellent meals, and of a high standard, as I was invited to try them out before Christmas! I think the children will enjoy them too, and you as parents will be rest assured that your child will be eating fresh and healthy food. Don't miss the taster session on Wednesday the 7th February at the High school so you can see for yourselves!

We are sorry we were unable to start these just after half term, but just to remind you to order a packed lunch for the first two weeks if you wish.


SCHOOL PROFILE

The governing bodies of all schools are now required to publish a school profile annually, instead of holding an annual parents? meeting and providing a Governors annual report.
The profile is a way for us to communicate with parents about the school's progress, priorities and performance for the academic year 05/06.
Our school profile is now available to you online at the link below or there are hard copies available at school.

Click here to go to the School Profile Website   (opens in a new window)

FREE BOOKS TO THE NURSERY!

Our Nursery children have just received a free gift book pack to encourage the pleasure of book sharing. It is part of the Bookstart programme in an attempt to really embed the book sharing habit and provide support and encouragement to parents. I hope the Nursery parents and children have enjoyed reading the books together.
The Nursery children are really into their books at the moment, and thoroughly enjoyed their morning down at the local library recently !
 

THOUGHTS ABOUT SCHOOL TRIPS


Thankyou for all your comments regarding school trips. It was lovely to read so many positive comments about how valuable and worthwhile trips are in bringing the curriculum alive. Words such as 'priceless' 'fantastic opportunities' and ' valuable learning opportunities' and ' a wonderful chance to experience activities' were just some of your reactions. Our Ofsted report also congratulated us on our outstanding curriculum!
Most parents feel that we have the balance just right, and certainly do not want us to make fewer trips.

Also most parents said that they thought the costs were realistic and interestingly said, ' its not until your children reach middle and high schools that you realise how reasonable the costs at first school are!'

A large proportion of you felt that we should perhaps make a stand next time, and cancel a trip when we have not got enough funds. We have got very close to this on many occasions.
I would like to conclude and make it clear that NO parent subsidises other children, but it is always the school. When we cost a trip we do not put on extra costs in case of non payments.

Although it was very time consuming for myself and the office giving out constant reminders for our latest trips, we did in the end have just four parents that did not contribute.

I do hope that for future trips parents will understand the need to contribute within the deadlines, otherwise we will have to cancel the trip, which will be a great pity as we all know how important these out of school experiences are.

FRUIT FOR YEARS 3 & 4

As you may know we are part of the national fruit scheme, which means we receive free fruit for our nursery to year 2 children. However, where we can we do try and share out surplus fruit to the older children in years 3 and 4. Some days we don?t have enough to share out, so please if your child is in key stage 2, try and provide your child with a piece of extra fruit for morning break times. Thankyou. 

  

 

                                           

PARENT GOVERNOR ELECTIONS

We were very disappointed to receive no nominations for a parent governor this time. If you think you might be interested in becoming a parent governor, or if you would like to know more about this then please call in at the office for more details.