30th November Newsletter

Your family has the responsibility to help you learn and exercise your rights, and to ensure that your rights are protected.

Christmas Church tickets were sent out on Wednesday 28^th November – so please check your child’s bag.

We have had an overwhelming response to this event this year – the most we have ever had. We have allocated the slots in the order that they we received the slips and money. As you are aware, the hall only holds a certain number of adults and children at once and we only have the capacity to serve a particular number of adults and children in any one sitting. We apologise in advance if you have not got the slot that you requested, but we have done our best.

May I take the opportunity to thank you for your co-operation with returning the slips and money for the forthcoming events. We will be sending tickets out in the next few weeks.

The Brownies spent a lovely afternoon working with our Rights Respecting Champions on 12th November creating a project for their ‘My Rights’ badge. 

Lily C said ‘It was great to make links with groups we go to outside of school. 

Paige W said ‘We were able to tell our Brownie groups all about what we had done in school. 

Dominic W said ‘It is good to know that we are spreading the word about children’s rights in the wider community.’ 

We had a wonderful email from 1st Kingswinford Brownie leaders too - We were excited to discover you were learning about our rights and we are pleased to find that the girls have done so much work towards their brownie badge. We took time to discuss the girls’ “Respect my Rights” boxes and other girls enjoyed looking through the boxes and learning about what they had discussed in class. The girls that presented were very knowledgeable and impressed us leaders, they have contributed massively to their “My Rights Badge”.

Thank you again for thinking about the Brownie community.

WOW! We had an overwhelming amount of support for the Poppy Appeal this year. We raised £513.61 - which was amazing. We thank you and the children so much for your generosity in supporting this great cause.

Thank you for supporting this worthy cause – we raised £279.06. This is fantastic!

The Christmas post box will be in the library from Monday 3rd December. A plea - could children please write surnames and classes on the envelope otherwise they become impossible to give to the right people! We will not be issuing class lists for GDPR reasons.

Our Rights Respecting Champions and School Council had a super time working with teaching students from Newman University extending their learning through exciting projects.  The Rights Respecting Champions created a video all about their rights and our current campaign to improve air quality for all children around the world. 

Henry M said ‘It was fun making the video and we can share our learning with everybody in school.’ 

The School Council enjoyed using resources from the UK Houses of Parliament to learn about debates and democracy. 

Seth D said ‘We had an exciting time dressing up and debating!’ 

A big thank you to Phil Wade, our Rights Respecting Governor, for coming along to meet the students and watch the video during a sharing assembly at the end of the week.

Last week, children from Year 5 and 6 represented the school at a swimming gala at Ellowes Hall Sports College. The girl’s team came an impressive 4th place out of the 13 local schools represented. The event was thoroughly enjoyed by all competitors and Abby (Year 6) reported that it was a fantastic experience to work with a team particularly in the medley relay race.

We understand that it may be difficult to collect children at the end of the day from different key stages. Please collect the eldest via the KS2 gate and walk around to the KS1 gate via the outside pathway or vice versa. Please DO NOT walk through the inside pathway via the KS1 and KS2 playground for health and safety reasons. E.g. children are being released via the doors, doors are being opened or left open, adults children can run into them, it also eliminates the number of adults entering the site etc. Could we also remind parents to wait for children outside the perimeter fence and NOT inside the gate entrance, as this hinders safe dismissal of the children. We really would appreciate your support with this matter as safety of the children is our prime concern.

Safeguarding is the responsibility of everyone in school and we take this responsibility seriously. At the governor’s meeting on 16th November 2018, governors completed their annual review of our policy. This is an extremely important document and has been reviewed to comply with the most recent national guidance (Keeping Children Safe in Education 2018, Working Together to Safeguard Children etc.), as well as guidance from Dudley Safeguarding Children Board. A copy can be found on the school website (information pencil, statutory information).

Please have a look at the policy so that you are familiar with the procedures to be followed in school if there are concerns about a child’s safety and wellbeing.

Congratulations to the following children on gaining their pen license:

Year 5

Alexander

Amber

Benjamin

Chloe

Danny

Ella-May

Isabelle

Max

Melissa-May

Year 6

Aaron

Clothing – all children are expected to wear winter uniform to school – this means that children should ear the following:

Winter

Boys (From year 1 to Year 6)

Blanford Mere sweatshirt

Or

Red pullover

Grey trousers

White shirt

School tie

Sensible shoes or boots (not trainers) - black

Grey or white socks

Girls (From Year 1 to year 6)

Blanford Mere sweatshirt/ cardigan

Or

Red pullover/ cardigan

Grey skirt or pinafore dress

White blouse

School tie

Sensible shoes or boots (not trainers) - black

Grey or white socks

Can we just clarify boots should be plain black matt leather style. These can then be worn in the building throughout the day.

We appreciate that in poor weather children may have to travel to and from school in a variety of footwear e.g. wellies. Uggs etc. Could you please ensure that they have black shoes or their pumps to wear inside the building. They can then change back into their outwear at playtime and lunchtime.

We send a lot of information by notification and email throughout the schoollife app. You will need to be logged into the app to receive the notifications instantly. If you have not logged in for a while or have forgotten your password – please call into the office.

As Christmas is rapidly fast approaching, you may be interested in events and activities taking place locally, both in the build-up and during Christmas. You can see that there is plenty going on!

Also, Dudley Leisure Centres are once again offering the festive fitness membership offer which is available now till the 31 January 2019. Information about this can be found on the link below.

All of the information is also on the Dudley Council website which is kept up to date on a regular basis.   When you access the site, if you click on the ‘Events – what’s on’ section, the information will be on there. There is a ‘Search for Santa 2018’ section where information on where Santa will be appearing can be found.

Thank you for your support over the last few weeks, looking forward to the Christmas events.

Mrs Miller

Headteacher