Dear Parents and Carers

As you are no doubt aware, The Ridge Primary School was inspected by Ofsted earlier this term. The rigorous two day visit by His Majesty’s Inspector (HMI) Heather Simpson, included visits to lessons, talking to pupils, meetings with staff, governors and parents, listening to pupils read and looking at pupils’ work.

We are pleased to tell you that at the end of the inspection, the HMI concluded that ‘The Ridge Primary School continues to be a good school’. Her report which will shortly be distributed to parents and published on the OFSTED website, lists many strengths of our school.

We should all be very proud of our school. Staff and Governors are delighted with this external validation and along with the school leadership team, we extend our deep gratitude to the staff for their commitment to the pupils and the school. We have taken note of the two areas for improvement, one of which had already been identified in our School Improvement Plan. We will continue to work hard to secure the very best outcomes for all of our children and look forward to the next steps of journey.

Best wishes,

Mrs D Hudson

Headteacher

Our next newsletter will be published during the week commencing Monday 20^th November.

We are pleased to tell you that we have a new parent governor to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of   Sallyanne Tyler. We express our gratitude to Sallyanne for her service as a Parent Governor and in particular, her support on the Finance and Premises Committee where she made very valuable contributions to the challenging area of school budgeting.

Jessica Harley-Arliss, mum of Sophie in Reception, has offered to fulfil this important role in school and we are delighted to welcome her to the team. In addition to Jessica, our other parent governors are Phil Roberts (Dad to Zara in Year 1 and Poppy in Year 4) and Jennie Gough (Mum to Tristian in Reception and Finley in Year 3).

We are looking forward to seeing you tomorrow between 3.30 p.m. and 5.00 p.m. when school will be open for you to pop in and see your child’s work. Once the children have been handed over to parents at the end of the school day, you will be invited to enter by the front door and make your way to the classroom.

On Wednesday we have our Open Afternoon and Evening, which will run in the hall. Please make sure that you arrive at school 5 minutes before your appointment time and wait outside the school office until you are invited into the hall where staff will be waiting for you.  At the end of the appointment time, please leave promptly by the OSCAR door, so as to avoid delaying other parents who are waiting for their appointment.  If there is a matter which needs more detailed discussion, please arrange a separate meeting directly with the class teacher. This can be done via Class Dojo after the Open Evening.

Due to the tight timescale of the afternoon, whist we will make every effort to accommodate late arrivals, appointments may be curtailed and end at the scheduled time. Thank you for your support with this.

On Friday we will be joining the rest of the UK to support Children in Need. The children are invited to wear something yellow/ spotty instead of their school uniform on this day.

We are also asking for 'Pennies for Pudsey'. Please help us to fill in our Pudsey outline by sending in pennies (or any coins) as a donation to Children in Need. Thank you to the school council for sharing their ideas for fundraising.

The RFA are extremely busy preparing for a raft of exciting Christmas activities! 

Christmas Fayre - Friday 8th December, 3.30pm - 5.30pm

Decorate & Fill a Christmas Bag - Paper bags will be sent home with your child today for them to decorate and fill with goodies to be sold at the Christmas Fayre if you are able to contribute.  Please return decorated bags to school by Monday 20th November.

Christmas Raffle - Tickets for the Christmas Raffle are now available, £1 per strip.  Some of the prizes on offer are on display outside the school office, and a full list of prizes will be published on the RFA page of the website shortly.  Please send money in a named envelope, and your raffle tickets will be sent home.

Breakfast with Santa - Saturday 9th December, 9.00am - 10.30am

Tickets are now available for Breakfast with Santa, £10 per child.  There are limited tickets available, and are for the Ridge school children only.  If your child would like to attend, please send the money in named envelope, with your child's choice of breakfast, Bacon, Sausage or Toast, and we will send your ticket home.

Our thanks as ever go to the RFA members for their continued hard work to raise much needed funds for the school.

Please remember that school will be closed to children on Friday 24^th November for an INSET Day.

Last Weeks attendance 

Whole School - 98.03%

Reception - 95.93%

Year 1 – 98.62%

Year 2 – 99.26%

Year 3 – 98.33%

Year 4 – 97.86%

Year 5 – 98.00%

Year 6 – 98.15%

Well done Year 2!

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, Miss Beddoes and Mrs Gledhill.  Where child protection concerns are raised, the school has a statutory duty to refer these concerns to children’s social care.

Full calendar dates for the academic year can be found here........  https://theridge.sch.life/page/detail/parent-dates-2023-2024 

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