I am publishing my blog a day early this week as I am on a course tomorrow. I will still be looking at my email if you need to contact me but Mr Gradwell will be in school and will be available for you if feel you need to talk to someone in authority about any issues.

I am afraid that I need to have a little moan. As always we have been finding a lots of items of clothing on the playground and field which have been left behind by the children. However, we cannot return many of them back to their rightful owner because they do not have the child’s name in. I do feel that I am like a stuck record but I cannot emphasize how important it is for the children’s uniform to be clearly labelled with their names. I have a lot of parents complaining about how many items of uniform their children have lost but if it does not contain their name, we cannot return it to them. If you have not done so, please label all items of your child’s uniform over the weekend.

Next week we are holding our Harvest Coffee morning. This year, due to the restrictions caused by the pandemic we are providing all the refreshments but we still ask that you give generously to our designated charity which is Breast Cancer. I have chosen this because one of our members of staff has been treated for this during this last year and thankfully they are on the road to recovery. As I explained in my newsletter you come to the Harvest Festival at your allocated time and your child can join you for some refreshments. If you have more than one child, you can come have all your children join you at the best time for you. The children will be entertaining you with some harvest/food songs that they have been learning in music. The allocated times for the different sessions are listed below:

9.30 – 10.00am – Years 1 & 2

10.00 -10.30am – Nursery & Reception

10.30 -11.00am – Years 5 & 6

11.00 – 11.30am – Years 3 & 4

You will all probably have noticed that the weather has definitely turned cooler. I have therefore been surprised that many children are coming to school without a coat. Even if they travel to school by car please make sure that your child starts bringing a coat into school with them so they do not have to freeze outside. Even if they do not use it is better to be safe than sorry.

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend and I look forward to seeing many of you at the Harvest Coffee Morning next Friday.

 

The children came into school looking very smart today in preparation for their school photographs. Let us hope that all their/your effort was worth it and you are pleased with the results. We should get the proofs back in about a week and then you can judge for yourself.

There has been a strong European feel in the school today because we have been having a Spanish Day in school. All the classes have been carrying out a number of activities in class so they have a better understanding of the Spanish way of life and the day culminated with the whole school meeting for an assembly and sharing some of their learning with the other classes. The children all appear to have had a great time and I am sure they will share their experiences with you if you ask them. (Please see the picture from our assembly below.)

There is great excitement in Year 6 because they have all been preparing their speeches in readiness for the election of the house captains. These roles are much sought and I know that the other children really look forward to hearing the speeches as they take the whole voting process very seriously. I am sure that if one of your children is involved you will be helping them rehearse this weekend and that you will be there on Monday to either celebrate or commiserate with them at the end of the day.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend. I think that the weather is going to remain quite warm even if it is not going to be sunny. We all need to make the most of this weather before autumn really starts to set in.

 We have certainly had a mixed bag of weather this week with pouring rain on Tuesday and bright sunshine on Thursday. This is typical weather for this time of year so as the weather is so changeable can I ask that you do send your children into school with a coat. As we have heard many times from all the health officials during the pandemic, fresh air is very important both for our physical and mental well-being so we do try and get the children outside as much as possible to help support this and to make this effective they do need the proper garments to help them manage the elements.

As I highlighted in my blog last week we have had some positive cases of Covid in school and we have also had a lot of cases of the common cold going around too. The problem is that the symptoms are very similar so if your child does develop a cough, has a temperature or loses their sense of taste or smell (the last one is much more common to Covid) you cannot assume that they just have a cold and you need to take them for a PCR test and if the result is negative they can then immediately return to school. If it is positive you have to follow government guidelines regarding isolation.

We have a lot going on in school next week. The Year 6 class are doing their cycling proficiency so those taking part will need to bring their bicycles into school every day. If pupils wish to leave their bicycles in for the duration of the week we do have facilities to store them securely overnight. On Friday it is school photographs so you may want to make sure your children take extra care with their appearance on that day because it will be a year before they have the next one taken. We are also having a ‘Spanish Day’ in school on Friday in celebration of the European Day of Languages. The official day for this is actually September 26^th but as that is a Sunday we are holding our day on the Friday. The European Day of Languages (EDL) is celebrated across Europe on the 26th of September every year. It aims to promote the rich linguistic diversity of Europe and raise awareness of the importance of lifelong language learning for everyone. It was set up by the Council of Europe and was first celebrated in 2001.

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend and I look forward to seeing you all again next week.

 The end of our first full week in school and it feels like everything is back to the way it should be – once clubs start again next week things will truly have returned to how they were. Everybody prefers the school this way - especially the younger children who are taking great delight in being part of whole school assemblies and being able to be near the older children. Let us hope that this lasts.

However, we cannot pretend that Covid is not still with us and like many of the other schools in Potters Bar we have had cases of Covid in the school since our return. Following national guidelines, we do not send classes home anymore and Test and Trace will contact you if your child has been considered a close contact. Even then they will not be sent home but should take a PCR test and only if the test comes back positive will they then need to isolate. If we do get what is considered an outbreak in the school, I will then have to seek guidance on how we proceed. There is further explanation about this in my latest newsletter.

We had our annual ‘Meet the Teacher’ meetings on Wednesday (except for Year 4 who will now have their sessions on Wednesday,15^th September at the same times) and I know that all the parents who attended found them very informative. Many parents were just glad to be allowed back in the school –especially Year 1 parents whose only experience of being in the main school was from their initial visit to the school. I know some of you were unable to attend but the teachers will be putting details of what they discussed on their class blogs.

As I wrote earlier, school clubs start again next week. If you have not signed your children up for any of these, you will need to do so before next week on School Gateway. At ‘Meet the Teacher’ some parents said that they were unsure of how to do this but you can find details of how to access the School Gateway on my last newsletter.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend. I know that the weather is not going to be as good as it was at the beginning of the week but I think it is still going to remain warm which is one good thing. I look forward to seeing you all again on Monday morning.

 Welcome back, everyone. I hope you all had a fabulous summer and are all feeling refreshed and looking forward to the new term. I know I say this all the time but within an hour of being back it did feel like we had never been away. It is good that we can now have parents back on site and we can mix the children which enables us to have whole school assemblies and combined lunchtimes. Let us hope that this will be able to continue.

You will have seen from the newsletter that we have our ‘Meet the Teacher' sessions next week. We were meant to hold these last term but we delayed them so you could meet your child’s class teacher in person. As I stated in the letter these sessions are for parents only so please do not bring your children with you. These sessions are for you to ask questions about the upcoming year and not for getting a progress report on your child’s academic achievement – you will get this at the parent consultation sessions in October. If you cannot get someone to look after your child ‘Kids and Clubs’ will provide child care for you on this evening for a one-off payment of £5. If you are unable to make these sessions the information provided will be uploaded onto your child’s class blogs – you will not be able to meet the teacher at a later date to get the information.

That is all for now. I hope you all have a great weekend – we have been promised sunnier weather which always happens when we return to school. I look forward to seeing you all again on Monday.