Article 29

Education must develop every child’s personality, talents and abilities to the full. It must encourage the child’s respect for human rights, as well as respect for their parents, their own and other cultures, and the environment.

Welcome Back

May we take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy New Year.  Both children and staff have made a swift and positive start to the new term. We hope that you had an enjoyable break over the festive period.

New Nursery Children

We would like to welcome our new Nursery Children to Blanford Mere, they are all settling in well.  We wish them a fabulous learning experience here!

Attendance

In order to best support families to improve the attendance of children at Blanford Mere Primary School, we have joined the ‘5 Foundations of Effective Attendance Practice’ network. This approach looks at the number of days absence a child has over an academic year, as opposed to their percentage attendance at any stage during the year. The aim of this change in approach is to clarify the expectations and to make clearer the current attendance of each child in school at any given time in a fair and proportional way.

Once children reach certain levels of absence, letters will be sent to families to offer support and try to prevent further school absence. This approach will allow the response to be proportional to days lost over the full school year and be a more accurate indicator of poor school attendance.

Attendance/Absence and Holidays in Term Time:

Attendance in school is compulsory.

Don’t forget that our policy on attendance, reporting children’s absences and holidays in term time is on the school website. If children are too ill to attend school then parents must phone the school office by 9.00a.m. to let us know the reason why children are not in school—unexplained absences are recorded as “unauthorised”. It is then your responsibility to ring school before 9.05am on any future days of illness, so our registers are kept up to date.  Our policy reflects the government’s stance on holidays in term time.

We have been informed by Dudley Education Support Service that they are issuing Fixed Penalty Notices (fines) for a leave of absence in term time.

Please can parents be aware of this information when booking any holidays, trips etc.

Lateness

Please try and support us with getting your child to school on time daily.  This is the impact on your child’s learning time if you are regularly late.  It disrupts their learning. Being frequently late for school adds up to lost learning: Arriving 5 minutes late every day adds up to over 3 days lost each year. Arriving 15 minutes late every day is the same as being absent for 2 weeks a year.

The DfE has launched a national attendance communications campaign aimed at parents and carers. The campaign will take place from January to March 2024 and remind families that moments matter, attendance counts.

NSPCC - Speak out, stay safe

Speak out Stay safe is a safeguarding programme for children aged 5- to 11-years-old. 

It helps children understand:

abuse in all its forms and how to recognise the signs of abuse

that abuse is never a child’s fault and they have the right to be safe

where to get help and the sources of help available to them, including our Childline service.

Hi Mrs Cartwright,

Many thanks for using our Speak out. Stay safe resources at your school and for all the time and work that went into delivering the important messages to the children.

I also wanted to thank you for setting up and supporting us to deliver the workshops. Both Anne and I were very impressed with how the children behaved and engaged with the messages.

Please find the attached certificate for your school.  

Best Wishes

Kelly Yardley

Happier Minds – Mental Health and wellbeing support for young people. 

Here in Dudley we have the highest ambitions and want to create a brighter future for all of our children and young people. We have developed this website to ensure that both national and local mental health support is accessible all in one place at the click of a button.

Whether you are a young person, a parent/carer or a professional working with young people we hope this site will be helpful to you and those you care about.

Please click on the link below for more information:

https://happierminds.org.uk/

Happier Minds

Snow

As the temperatures are extremely changeable, we are aware that we may have snow.  In snowy weather we will remain open as long as we have the ability to open safely (whilst most of our children are local and can walk to school, many of our staff live further away and have difficult journeys to get to school). Please make sure that you are logged in to the School Life App so that you receive all updates from us.

A reminder of our procedures.

If a decision is made to close the school, it will be announced on local radio

Free Radio BC - 97.2

Free Radio—B’ham – 96.4

Black Country Radio

We will also update the school website and send out a group text. To keep the school open we have to have enough staff in school to care for the children as well as premises that are safe enough to enter (gritted pathways etc.)

Please do not ring the school. We are unlikely to be able to make an early decision as many staff live a distance away and will be experiencing difficulty getting to school. As soon as a decision is made to close the radio stations will be informed.

As you know, where possible we do our best to stay open. However, if conditions are unsafe for either children or staff then we have no option but to close. We will do our best!

High expectations

We want to thank you for sending your child to school daily, ready to learn and we want to maintain our high expectations of behaviour and standards across the school.  We would appreciate your full support with this, as this forms part of our behaviour system and permeates across the school in all areas of learning. 

Here are a few reminders we are asking for your support with when sending children to school:

Hairstyles: it is not suitable to attend school with shaven heads, tramlines or extreme colours. Children who have long hair must tie it up.

Nail varnish: many children are wearing nail varnish or gel nails for school.  Please save this for the holidays or special occasions.

PE Kit: Could you please make sure that your child has all of their PE kit available in school every day from the first day of term as our timetable starts immediately. Although staff will let you know when the planned PE sessions are, there are often times when we have PE for classes or when teachers take advantage of good weather to do PE. Children are not allowed to take part in PE unless all jewellery/earrings have been removed. If you wish your child to have their ears pierced, can I suggest that you have this done at the very beginning of the of the summer holiday so that their ears have the full six weeks to heal.

Dogs: Dogs are not allowed on the school premises at any time, and if you have a dog please do not obstruct the pathway/gate as a number of children, who are frightened of dogs, find this intimidating.

Uniform: Children from Yr 1- Yr 6 should be wearing winter uniform to include a shirt, tie, jumper/cardigan, trousers (not shorts). They should also wear black ‘leather style’ shoes not trainers.  This forms part of our behaviour chart.

Money: Children should not bring any money to school – there is nothing to buy.

School lunches: Dinners should be pre-paid, where applicable, online using School Grid. All lunches should be pre-ordered by parents on School Grid, regardless of year group.

Fruit: All children in Reception Class and KS1 receive free fruit each day for tuck and therefore do not need to bring any food from home. A reminder that all children in Year R, 1 and 2 will be entitled to a free school meal, we would like all children in these year groups (Universal Free School Meals) to take this option.  Children entitled to Free School Meals through benefits should also take this option. Please remember to apply for free school meals if you are eligible as some of school funding depends on it.

Children in KS2 should also bring a piece of fruit for break – there will be no tuck on sale. (No crisps or chocolate please.) KS2 children: May we remind you that we operate a ‘healthy tuck’ policy.  Schools are subject to strict guidelines about the type of food that is allowed/ available during the school day, we hope that parents will support our efforts to encourage children to make healthy choices. We also encourage children to bring in healthy lunchboxes.

Water bottles: Children should only bring a filled water bottle (not squash please– see healthy tuck policy on the website). This needs to be named please so that children can easily recognise their own bottle and do not touch or drink out of bottles belonging to other children.

Dates for the diary

Friday 19^th January – Kingswinford Library visiting Reception class

Tuesday 30th January – Blanford Babies – 9-10am – The Hub

Friday 26^th January – Yr 1 Burns Night Celebration

Friday 2^nd February NSPCC Number Day – Dress up!

February 2^nd is NSPCC Number Day! All children from Nursery to Year 6 can dress up and donate if they would like to. Nursery and Reception children will not be able to take part in the TTRS competition online, but Reception children will be able to play Numbots rather than take part in the TTRS competition.

To raise funds for the NSPCC, we ask students to donate £1 to wear their own mathematical clothes (with numbers/patterns/shapes) or their rock star clothes to school for the day. The £1 donation can be made via School Money.

TTRS Competition

As part of our commitment to make maths exciting and high profile in our school, we are taking part in a friendly competition involving schools in the United Kingdom for NSPCC Number Day. The competition runs from 07:30 to 19:30 GMT on Friday 2nd February. It's all done online via play.ttrockstars.com.

Children can play in any gamemode with every correct answer to a multiplication or division question, earning themselves, their class and the school a point. The Times Tables Rock Stars platform will calculate the class average (the number of correct answers per pupil in the class who play during the competition hours, subject to a 60-minute limit (see below)). Winning classes in the school and in the competition as a whole will be the ones with the highest average.

To support player well-being, there is a daily time limit of 60 minutes per player. Once the player goes beyond 60 minutes of play on that day, they will still earn coins but will no longer earn points towards the competition.

In the spirit of the competition, please don't play on their behalf but by all means, encourage and support them to the extent that it doesn't cause high stress levels or impact on family plans.

Many thanks,

Mr Baker

Friday 2^nd February - Year 3/4 MC Library visit

Friday 2^nd February – Miss Steadman Nursery consultations

W/C 5^th February Children’s Mental Health Week – more details to follow

W/C 5^th February Football Week which will commence. Children will have the opportunity to take part in penalty shoot outs against the teachers and mini 5 aside games during lunchtime on the school field during the week. The aim of the celebration week is to encourage teamwork skills and participation in physical exercise.

Monday 5^th February – Mrs Cameron Yr 3/4JC Parents evening.

Tuesday 6^th February pm – Year 3/4 Maths Competition

Wednesday 7^th February – Reception visit to Adventure Street

Wednesday 7^th and Thursday 8^th February – Parents evening – Please sign up on the SchoolLife app

Thursday 8^th February – Miss Porter Nursery consultations

Thursday 8th February –children can come to school wearing a football top or a coloured top representing their favourite team in celebration of Football week.  They can wear sportswear with this too including trainers.  If they do not wish to take part, they should wear their school uniform.

Friday 9^th February – INSET Day – school closed to children

Friday 9^th February – Half term

Monday 19^th February - School reopens at the usual time

Wednesday 21^st February pm – Yr 5/6 Maths Competition

Friday 23^rd February – Year 5/6 Black Country Museum visit

Tuesday 27^th February - Blanford Babies – 9-10am – The Hub

Thursday 7^th March – World Book Day – more details to follow

Wednesday 13^th – Friday 15^th March – Yr 6 Condover Hall

Friday 15^th March – Red Nose Day – more details to follow

Tuesday 19^th March - Blanford Babies – 9-10am – The Hub

Friday 22^nd March – Break up Easter holidays

Monday 8^th April – Children return to school at the usual time

Have a wonderful weekend.

Mrs Crook and Miss Stanton

Headteacher and Deputy Headteacher