January 2012 newsletter

Dear Parents, Carers and Friends,

Happy New Year to you all. For those of you who are interested, it is the year of the dragon, how apt!

Welcome to the first newsletter of 2012, it promises to be a good year for us at school and I hope it is a good year for you at home. After the busy Christmas period we return to a quiet and calm January. Can I take this opportunity to tell you how wonderful your children were in the run up to Christmas. They were kind, helpful and really good fun. I hope that continued through the Christmas holidays!

Some dates for the diary:

Thursday 5th January

• Lower school children will be walking to Ninesprings today as part of their project
• Year 5 swimming. Please can the children be in school by 8.30am.

Friday 6th January

• DKS swimming. Please be in school by 8.30am

Monday 9th January

• Strong and Cole class swimming. Please be in school by 8.30am.

Tuesday 10th January

• Year 6 swimming in school time.

Wednesday 11th January

• DKS swimming, please be in school by 8.30am.

Thursday 12th January

• Year 5 swimming. The coach leaves at 8.30am.

Friday 13th January

• Ahlberg swimming. Please be in school by 8.30am.
• At 2.30pm Cole class will be holding their class assembly. All parents of Cole class pupils are welcome to attend.

Friday 20th January

• 2.30pm Shakespeare class assembly.

Monday 23rd January

• We will be holding Art week. We have visiting artists coming in to work with our children. If you would like to come and take part and are CRB cleared, please see your child's class teacher.

Tuesday 24th January

• There will be a PTA meeting in the library at 3.30pm. Please come along and help organise the events for the year.

Friday 3rd February

• 2.30pm Morpurgo class assembly.

Please note that the above swimming arrangements will stay in place all this term. I would be grateful if you could ensure that your child is in school on time and that they have the correct swimming kit, together with their payment.

Can I remind you to send in your swimming money regularly please as we are running at quite a considerable deficit. Each swimming session costs £1.50 for the Lower School and £2 for the Upper School as that includes the coach fare.

The Spring Term lunch menu is now available from the School Office, so please take one and make your child's food selections. Remember that extra funding is available for children who have a parent in the services. If you think your child may be eligible for free school meals, please come and see Mrs Redman in the School Office before Thursday 19th January. Equally importantly, if your circumstances have changed and you are no longer eligible for funding, please let us know as soon as possible.

Thank you to all of you who came and supported the Young Enterprise craft fair after school last term. It was hugely successful and the children made lots of profit. They will be holding events throughout the year and all monies raised will go towards a particular piece of equipment for their classrooms or a trip out. The year 6 classes are already well on the way to raising enough for their annual trip to Crealy in the summer.

A big thank you must also go to Sharon Bradford who organised this year's Christmas Fayre. It was hugely successful and a brilliant opportunity to bring our local community into the building and for you, our parents, to purchase really lovely gifts. The School Council, together with Miss Clements and Mrs Chant, ran a very popular Tombola stall for adults and children and raised the incredible amount of £235. The governors ran a raffle that raised £140. The PTA, who worked tirelessly selling beautiful homemade cakes and cups of tea and coffee, raised £100. Altogether we raised over £600 towards our Trim Trail that will be built at the back of the school. Well done team Grass Royal!

Parents of children in Year 4 and 6 will have already received paperwork about their residential trips to Kilve and London respectively. Attached to the paperwork is a payment card that enables you to make weekly payments. Children in receipt of Free School Meals will have their trip paid for them. Please make sure you are claiming if you are eligible, as we access £488 per child as a school to cover swimming, school trips etc. If you are not eligible for FSM but are finding things hard financially, please come and see me and we can come to some agreement. It is really awful organising these fantastic trips and then having to leave children behind.

Thank you to all of you who have been sending your children to school every day. The Autumn term saw 57 children achieving 100% attendance and 155 children achieving attendance of 95% or over. A huge well done to all of you. We are already in a much better position regarding attendance than this time last year, which is fantastic.

So far this year we have been lucky with the weather but in the event the snow comes please be aware that information concerning school closure will be posted on the website by 7.30am if at all possible. There will also be a message on the school answer phone. Mrs House wakes me up very early if there is snow and we make the decision as soon as we have been notified of weather conditions by our caretakers. We will do everything we can not to close the school, but of course if we cannot get staff in to teach we will have no alternative. Hopefully the snow will hold off.

Talking of websites, please have a look at ours on a regular basis. It is a super site, full of information as well as interesting activities in which your children have taken part. School information is updated regularly by Mrs Maloney; it's also a great place to find a copy of the latest newsletter if you've misplaced yours at home.

It only leaves me to say how much I am looking forward to working with each of you again this term. I was very happy to see the staff and children returning to school looking so bright and well rested, ready for another super term.

Judith Barrett

Headteacher

Posted: Thursday, January 5, 2012