Dear Caregivers,

I’m actually writing this on Friday afternoon whilst it is fresh in my mind.

We have just had our first whole school virtual assembly. We managed to get all the classes linked in – we couldn’t always see everyone but we could hear everyone. Thank you! We will get there with the technical issues.

Not only was it wonderful to see all the children but we also heard from each class about the work they had been doing during the week. I lost track – there was so much!! Plenty of maths and literacy, storybooks and reading, TT Rockstars and column addition, multiplication, and factors. In addition, we had designing slippers for DT, Charles Darwin and evolution in Science, map work and settlements in Geography- we will all look out for place names that end in “ton”. Some classes have been making Christmas cards to share with the Salvation Army while others had been producing firework art. All in one week!

It was so impressive to hear and see.

We were very proud of the whole school. You can see some of the work later in the newsletter. Sadly, we can’t show you it all.

The children were, on the whole, attentive and listened well to each class and to each other for the best part of the hour. It almost felt that we were all back together again!

I can’t wait for tomorrow.

Tracy and Mike

Sycamore and Cedar have non uniform tomorrow as a reward for reaching 200 pebbles. Well done!

Attendance for the week beginning: 16th November 2020

Whole school – 96.1%

Year 3 – 96.6%

Year 4 – 96.1%

Year 5 – 97.7% – well done, Year 5. Top of the leaderboard again!

Year 6 – 94.1%

News items and updates

Road safety

Please may we remind all caregivers to ensure that children travel to and from school safely?

We are seeing an increase in children riding bikes to school. Whilst this is great, we would hope that they would ride with a parent or have passed their Bikeability. Concerns have been raised, from other parents and neighbours, about children cycling down the middle of the road, not wearing helmets, and being dangerously close to cars.

On a similar subject, whilst there should be a level of independence being fostered in the older children to walk to and from school by themselves, it is important, especially with the darker evenings approaching, that the younger children are supervised whilst walking to and from school.

We thank you for your support in this matter.

Flu vaccinations

Somerset SAINT recently visited school to immunise consented children with their flu vaccinations.

There may be some families who missed the consent deadline but still wish to have their children vaccinated. Please contact the team at at somersetsaint@somersetft.nhs.uk or call on 0300 323 0032 to make an appointment at one of the community clinics.

Please note, this vaccine is not available to school-aged children from your GP practice unless they have a medical condition that puts them in an at risk group.

School Lunches

We have decided to reinstate hot food for all children from 5th January 2021. There will be things we will do differently – the children will have to go in in two sittings and sit at their own class table. The adults will take the food to the children at the tables in order to limit movement. We will give it a go and make adjustments as needed.

We have taken the decision to add our menus to ParentPay for parents/carers to choose meals for their children, half termly in advance. All meals MUST be booked and paid for on ParentPay by 11th December 2020 for all meals from 05/01/2021 to the February half term, 12/02/2021.

For parents/carers in receipt of free school meals, bookings must still be made via ParentPay, whereby the balance due will be nil. The system will recognise whether you are eligible. For more information on free school meals and an application, please visit https://www.somerset.gov.uk/education-and-families/free-school-meals/ or visit the school lunches tab.

Please note that bookings for Spring term 1 cannot be made after the deadline of 11th December 2020.

For help with using ParentPay, or if you have any questions regarding the above, please do contact us in the school office or watch this short video:

The menu choices and allergen information for Spring term 1 can be found here: School Lunches

Virtual author visit

On Wednesday morning, Year 5 were lucky enough to be ‘visited’ by author Ross Montgomery.

All three classes joined the meeting without any technical hitches, and they were all treated to an engaging and fun session. Ross read a couple of extracts from his new book, The Midnight Guardians, which is also the Waterstone’s Children’s Book of the Month (other book shops are available!) and spoke about how he came to write this book. The children then had a chance to ask some questions and asked about the processes that Ross goes through when coming up with ideas and how long it takes him to write a book.

It was a wonderfully enjoyable and engaging hour, and at the end of the day, each child was able to take home their own signed copy of The Midnight Guardians. All of this was made possible with the help of The Wells Literature Festival, who continue to support local schools by helping to fund events like this.

We hope to continue working with the festival and organise other similar visits in the future.

Why read to your child?

Thank you to all the parents, carers, and family members who are supporting the school by reading to and with your child. We are already seeing an increase in class reading percentages each week. We will publish these each week in the new year.

Have a look at this short video to see why this is so important:

Mr Mullen’s book review

Mr. Mullen continues to be an avid reader. His latest review is of “The Ship of Shadows” by Maria Kuzniar. Head over to the book reviews page to read his and other staff member’s recommendations of good books!

Christmas cards

We are busy making preparations for Christmas activities – more details will follow next week.

Due to the current restrictions, we are having to think of different ways to allow children to share Chistmas cards with their friends. Thank you to Maddie GB and mum for helping to come up with a plan!

The plan is as follows:

Children will be able to write cards and hand them to their class teacher BEFORE Friday 4th December. We cannot accept cards after this date.

On Friday, the teacher will “post” any cards to children not in the class into the school post box and hold onto cards for children in the class in the classroom.

All cards will be quarantined over the weekend and then distributed to children the following week.

Children WILL NOT be allowed to hand cards to each other.

Christmas performance

The children are busy learning their class song for the whole school Christmas performance.

We will be filming the children’s Christmas performance to share with parents through a private YouTube link on the school newsletter.

If you would like to withdraw your consent or ensure that your child is not included, please inform the school office by Monday 30th November. If we do not hear from you, we will assume that you are happy for your child to be included and recorded in the class performance.

The school respectfully asks that you do not share the YouTube video on social media, to protect the privacy of all pupils.

Thank you from Forest School

Thank you so much to Mr Harmon, Daisy’s dad, who has helped Mrs Bulmer put the roof on our new Forest School shelter. Daisy helped too! The shelter looks really great and will definitely be a welcome addition in the coming months.

Salvation army appeal: Please help if you can.

Gallery of work

Remember:

“Hug your child for no reason at all.“