Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope that you’ve had a good week. It has certainly been a busy few weeks in school!

Our Reading Ambassadors along with Miss Wesson and Mrs Rouse did a wonderful job organising our World Book Day events. The children enjoyed having a choice of what to wear to school, they listened to stories, had guest readers and a special assembly. A very fabulous ‘Wonka Bar Event’ organised and run by the Ridge Friends caused much excitement as the lucky winners discovered their golden ticket! Huge thanks to the RFA for organising this and particular thanks to Sally and Ben Baker, parents of Rosie in year 6, who after donating the gifts at Christmas, were again incredibly generous, designing, printing and cutting all the wrappers.   This amazing generosity is much appreciated.

It was lovely to see so many of you at our Consultation Afternoon and Evening this week to hear of your children’s progress. We have one class to catch up with, and are communicating directly with parents affected to arrange appointments.   Finally, it has been wonderful for our children to take part in a range of enhancement activities over the past few weeks. What with the gymnastics competition, RE debate, Girls’ football tournament and the joint Stourbridge School’s Council Climate event, it has been hectic but very rewarding! Thanks go to all the staff who have organised our participation in these events.

Kind regards

Mrs D Hudson

Headteacher

• INSET Day - please remember that next Friday (21^st) is an INSET Day and School will not be open for children.
• We are still waiting for a report from our catering provider, AIP, following the recent parent survey. We will share the outcome and any resulting actions as soon as we are able.

We have recently completed our recruitment to Pre-School and I wanted to share the news with you. Mrs. Kate Morley, an experienced EYFS teacher, has been appointed to lead Pre-School and will officially start with us on 7^th April. Kate has previously lead a school based pre-school and most recently has been a Reception class teacher covering a maternity leave. We are looking forward to her joining the team.

We are grateful to Miss Homer who has covered the post since January and very quickly settled into The Ridge family. I am delighted to tell you that she loves being here so much that she applied for, and was successfully appointed to a newly created post in Pre-School, which sees her being Mrs Morley's Deputy and having a particular responsibility for pupils with SEND in Pre-School. We are so pleased that she is joining the staff on a permanent basis!

Please can we remind you that if your child has pierced ears, any earrings worn to school should be plain simple studs. Please can we also remind you that hair clips, bobbles and headbands should complement our uniform expectations. They should be simple, unadorned and flat to the head (i.e. no ‘ears’ or other protruding parts.) Thank you.

I have recently had contact from a resident in Gregory Road expressing concerns about the safety of pupils being collected from school. As well as observing pupils being driven in cars without seatbelts or appropriate car seats, he has shared alarming footage of a pupil and an adult on the footplate of a motorised scooter travelling at speed down the middle of the road. There also remains the ongoing issue of double parking, which could prevent emergency vehicles reaching the school, unsafe manoeuvring and cars parked on pavements. Clearly all of this is very concerning: we want to do all we can to ensure that the children are protected from harm during their journey to and from school.

As an aside to these safety concerns he also commented about children running across his property when walking to school. We shall be speaking to the children in assembly about respect for other people’s property (including their drives, paths and walls) and we ask you to reiterate these messages at home. We know that the vast majority of parents and carers are vigilant supervising their child on the school run but it is not always parents who collect children and can be older siblings or grandparents. Please share this with them. Thank you

This Weeks attendance 

Whole School - 93.33%

Reception - 85.00%

Year 1 – 97.66%

Year 2 – 96.55%

Year 3 – 92.58%

Year 4 – 95.00%

Year 5 – 90.37%

Year 6 – 96.00%

Well done Year 1!

Towards the end of term we will be holding a number of Easter Events including our traditional Easter Assemblies.

• Thursday 10^thApril  2.00 p.m. – Key Stage 2 Easter Assembly in hall (This event will be ticketed to comply with fire regulations)
• Friday 11th April 9.00 a.m. – Reception and Key Stage 1 Easter Bonnet Parade on the playground – we look forward to seeing your creations!

For the KS2 assembly, one ticket per child will be issued in the first instance. Please return any unwanted tickets to school. If you require an additional ticket, please contact the school office.

In addition, Key Stage 2 children can enter our competition to decorate a hard boiled egg.  Please bring the eggs to the school on Wednesday 9th April and take them to the classroom. The eggs will then be taken to the Bungalow where they will be on display after school for children, parents and carers to see.

More information can be found about Easter bonnets and egg competition on our Easter leaflet here.

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.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) - Tips for Parents

AI generated content and AI tools like chatbots, content generators and summaries are quickly appearing across popular online apps and services. There are also popular AI tools appearing like ChatGPT

There can be many positives to the use of AI in helping to find information, making creative content and getting support quickly through chat functions. However, as with other areas of online use, it comes with risks to children as well.

For example, the content that children see might not be age appropriate, legal or promote healthy behaviours. They can also experience harms such as bullying and sexual abuse through the misuse of AI content generators to create realistic looking content intended to cause harm.

This useful article from the NSPCC helps you to understand these risk and the conversations you can have with your child to help minimise them.

https://www.nspcc.org.uk/about-us/news-opinion/2025/artificial-intelligence-safety-tips-for-parents/ 

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