Mufti Day and Raffle Thursday 22^nd October

All years groups (Nursery-Y6)

Normally we would hold discos and cake sales etc to raise money for school, but we are unable to do this at the moment. Any money raised we use to buy resources or treats in school which our school budget does not normally pay for. For example, we have recently bought new picnic benches for the playgrounds and last year we bought lots of new play equipment for playtimes and lunchtimes.

To help raise money for school, we are having a mufti day on Thursday 22^nd October where the children are kindly asked to bring in £1 to wear non-uniform.

Also, on this day, each class will be holding a children’s raffle. We have bought one prize per class (age appropriate prize) and tickets can be bought on the day for 50p per ticket. If your child would like to enter the raffle, please send in ticket money on the day with your child. It would be helpful to us if this could be in a labelled envelope and state how many raffle tickets you are buying.

Thank you to Mrs Bowyer, one of our Teaching Assistants, for organising the fundraising raffles.

Please do not forget that Friday 23^rd October is a PD Day so school will be closed to pupils. Children will start back after half term on Monday 2^nd November.

Many thanks for your continued support.

Thursday 8^th October 2020

Dear Parents,

I wrote to you a couple of weeks ago and said that I wish I could send you more positive letters rather than constant reminders about COVID. Well I’m doing that now! We have so many things to celebrate at St George’s and I often have parents comment that their children tell them little about what they have been up to in school. So, this letter is a snap shot of some of the things we have been getting up to but please do take time to look on our school website as we regularly post news on there too.

Well done to all our new children who joined reception classes in September. They have settled in so quickly and it has been lovely watching them making lots of new friends. We have been particularly impressed with how they eat their lunch in the hall and they all seem to have great appetites!

We have had building work completed in the summer holidays including outdoor canopies for nursery and reception. This has meant that the children can have lots more opportunities for play and learning outdoors, whatever the weather.

Mrs Blair and the Year 2 teachers have all had their classrooms converted into rooms with a 4th wall- up until this summer, there were just curtains across the 4^th wall space which meant some children could become distracted as they could hear what was happening in other classrooms. Teachers have said that the conversions of the classrooms into proper rooms has made a huge difference to the children’s learning. We will be also converting the remaining four ‘curtain classrooms’, which are in the Y3/4 block, during the October half term.

In Years 1-6 we have managed to celebrate Stars of the Week in Celebration Assemblies each Friday using Microsoft Teams (the Y1 children keep telling me that they have seen me on the television!). It has been great to watch the children proudly hold up their certificates to the camera so each class can see on their screens. Nursery and our reception classes also have a Star of the Week but I visit in person to give out the certificates rather than via a Microsoft Teams link.

We will continue to give out special Mentions Certificates at the end of each half term.

I am sure you are aware that our school values are honesty, responsibility, respect, happiness, friendship, and kindness. We talk to the children throughout the school day about our values and it is great when we see children making such an effort to live these values in their daily life. For extra special examples of following our school values, children may be given a Values Award. Should this happen, you will know as they will come home with a values sticker followed by a special letter to parents.

Our curriculum across the school has continued to be broad and balanced, even with time pressures and trying to catch up missed learning due to the summer term lockdown. Examples of some of the learning activities in school are:

• Nursery have had a merry week in school! They have been making Christmas cards which will be printed and then parents can buy at a later stage. They have also been singing and moving to music.
• Reception tell me they have been enjoying lots of fairy tales and I have had the absolute pleasure of reading them a story too (my own children are teenagers so this was such a treat to be able to read to little ones again).
• Year 1 are very excited to start making teddy bears next week as part of their history lessons.
• Year 2 pupils have been busy emailing questions to senior staff and I know Mrs Watts, our deputy head, particularly enjoyed this.
• Y3 have been learning about Roald Dahl and enjoying lots of his stories. There are some great displays of their Roald Dahl artwork up in school.
• Y4 enjoyed a great Italian food tasting feast and then went on to having a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory sweets and chocolate tasting experience (lucky Year 4!).
• Year 5 have really enjoyed learning about the planets and so many fabulous homework projects have been brought into school.
• Year 6 have been learning about Edmond Hillary and the challenges of mountain life.

The collection of food donations from you all for our Harvest Festival was fantastic. I have received a lovely email from Maninplace which said,

‘Words cannot express how amazed I was when I arrived and saw the generosity of your staff and parents. There was only just enough room for me to sit in my car and drive back to the office. The food has been split between KiP@Maninplace were it will be used to make up food parcels to be given out as needed and our emergency accommodation where it will be given to residents as we bring them in from the streets as they take their first steps towards recovery.’

One of the highlights for myself, Mrs Watts and Mrs Foxley is the start and end of the day when we are on duty on the playground. We love how friendly and happy the children are and hearing so many voices saying, ‘Good morning!’  and ‘See you tomorrow!’. What a great way to start and end the day!

Don’t forget that tomorrow is a mufti-day in school so children can wear their own clothes. We are taking part in World Mental Health Day and the theme is Hello Yellow. If your child would like to wear something yellow that would be great. Children do not need to bring in a donation of a pound.

I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you once again for helping us keep our school community safe, especially at the start and the end of the school day. As a school, we feel very much supported by our parents which I know from speaking to some of my friends who teach in other schools is not always the case. As I always say, any issues please let us know so we can work together to get them solved.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs Sally Sixsmith

Head Teacher