Dear Parents and Carers

I hope that you all had a good half term and were able to make the most of the sunny Bank Holiday. I can't believe that we are in the final half term of the year, after what has been another challenging time of lockdown and restrictions. We trust that brighter days are ahead.

Covid continues to be a concern and currently the Local Authority and Public Health are urging us to maintain all the protective measures which have served us well in school. Usually this half term is crammed with activities which bring people together. You will understand that this year things will be very different and our usual events such as sports days, picnics, performances and fayres, will either not happen or take place differently. Unfortunately, with all the current uncertainties it is best for us to take the decisions that all activities will take place 'behind closed doors' and should there be a change in the advice, we will of course review each event on a case by case basis. We know how disappointing this is for everyone.

Sharing Your Views

• Thank you again for sharing your thoughts on our proposed policy for teaching Relationships and Sex Education. Parents were overwhelmingly supportive of our plans. Understandably, some parents wanted to know more detail about what would be taught and when. We will communicate this to you as we roll out our new programmes of study. Thank you for your feedback.
• Before the pandemic struck, the staff and Governors had been working on refreshing our school's vision statement. This work is still in progress but we are happy to share a draft which has been produced to reflect the school's ambition for its pupils:

'To nurture respectful, well-rounded, resilient young people who make positive contributions to the community. Through a personal commitment to learning, our children will make excellent progress, are increasingly independent and demonstrate confident life-skills.'

More importantly however, we want to agree a set of shared values, which underpin our ethos. We want all of our school community to know and share our values so it is important that they are clearly defined.  They need to be agreed, memorable, explicitly modelled and taught and will form the foundation our behaviour policy which we will be reviewing next term.

The values we are considering are:

R             Respect

I               Independence

D             Determination

G             Gratitude / Generosity

E              Empathy

We will soon be consulting with you to collect you views on our proposed vision and values - please look out for the questionnaire.

PE Kit Reminder

Please can we remind you that children should be in the correct uniform PE kit on days when they have PE.  This comprises of:

• Plain white tee or polo shirt
• Blue shorts or PE skirt
• In colder weather, blue joggers or a track suit may be worn
• Pumps
• Trainers for outdoor PE and Games lessons (Key Stage 2 pupils)

We have seen a number of tops and shorts which are more appropriate to save for a mufti day: thank you for your support in ensuring that the children have the correct uniform.

Cake Sale for The Child Accident Prevention Trust

Thank you for your incredible generosity for this fund raiser!  We will look forward to letting you know how much we have raised for The Child Accident Prevention Trust as soon as the proceeds have been counted up.

Times Tables Rockstars

We have taken the decision not to renew our subscription to Times Tables Rock Stars at the current time. We will review this if we need it in the future to support Remote Leaning but in the meantime, Doodle Maths and Numbots continue to be available for use at home.

Forest School

Finally a big 'thank you' to the Ridge Friends who have so generously funded Forest School for Years 1 and 2 last half term and now for  Reception and Year 6. All the children have really enjoyed the experience and we hope to continue to offer sessions to the remaining children in the new year, subject to the funds being available. We know that their fund raising has been severely hit due to the pandemic so please support their activities whenever you can.

I hope that you all have a great weekend.

Kind regards
Mrs D Hudson
Headteacher