Dear Parents and Carers

It was wonderful to welcome so many of you to join our Harvest celebrations last week; we hope that you enjoyed the assembly. Thank you too, for your generous donations for the Black Country Foodbank, which were collected earlier in the week, ably assisted by our school council representatives!

Another ‘Thank You’: this time for your amazing effort to ensure that our uptake of school meals was the best that it could be on census day last Thursday. Nearly all of our pupils booked a school lunch which will go a long way to ensuring that this element of our school budget is maximised. The figures are averaged out over the Autumn and Spring Census so we will be asking for your help again in January. We will let you know the exact date nearer the time.

It was lovely to see so many parents from Year 2 in school on Wednesday for Family Learning. I know that you really appreciated the opportunity to come into school and see how we teach phonics. Next week we are looking forward to seeing parents of pupils in Years 3 and 4, who will be sharing in reading lessons.

I hope that you all have a good weekend.

Kind regards

Mrs D Hudson

Headteacher

Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility. Mrs Hudson is the Designated Safeguarding Lead and any concerns should be shared with her or the Deputy Safeguarding Leads – Mrs Hadley and Ms Gledhill.  Where child protection concerns are raised, the school has a statutory duty to refer these concerns to children’s social care.

We want to share the information from the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS).

OPSS has issued a safety alert for a product commonly known as ‘water beads (https://www.gov.uk/product-safety-alerts-reports-recalls/product-safety-alert-water-beads-psa7), alongside a news story (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/opss-issues-safety-alert-to-warn-of-the-risks-of-water-beads).

Water beads are marketed to fulfil a variety of different purposes, which can include being used as a toy, or in crafting, home decor and floristry. The alert highlights the harms caused by the dehydrated bead/s when swallowed that can expand post-ingestion, causing a blockage along the gastrointestinal (GI) digestive tract requiring surgical removal. Additionally, a hydrated or dehydrated bead can cause asphyxiation from aspiration if swallowed. 

We have recently received a grant from the Department of Education to install CCTV.  Over recent months the school has experienced a number of incidents overnight where there has been damage to the school site and property. The CCTV, which covers all of the exterior of the site, will help protect the school buildings and assets, help increase personal safety of pupils, staff and visitors and support the police in a bid to deter and detect crime. In addition the grant will also fund some new fencing which will be installed once we have the required planning permission. 

Our CCTV Policy and Privacy Notice can be found on the school website - https://theridge.sch.life/page/detail/policies-1 

Both our Attendance and Safeguarding Policies have been updated to reflect recent national changes. These can also be found on the school website - https://theridge.sch.life/page/detail/policies-1 

Our second INSET day on Monday 18^th November has now been confirmed. On this day, school will be closed for pupils.

This Weeks attendance 

Whole School - 95.63%

Reception - 97.00%

Year 1 – 95.67%

Year 2 – 95.86%

Year 3 – 94.00%

Year 4 – 96.33%

Year 5 – 92.96%

Year 6 – 97.33%

Well done Year 6!

The RFA are hosting a disco on Thursday 24^th October.  Tickets will be available next week through ParentMail. 

• Key Stage 1 - 5.45 and 6.45p.m. (Tickets cost £3.00 and include a drink and a biscuit)

• Key Stage 2 Disco - 7.00 and 8.15 p.m. (Tickets cost £2.50, with refreshments available to buy).

Reception – Discos are very noisy and some children can get overwhelmed. We strongly recommend that this early in the year, parents delay this experience until next term’s event.

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