Dear Parents and Carers,

Kind regards

Mrs D Hudson

Headteacher

• We are sending our best wishes to Year 6 who have their SATs next week. We know how hard they have worked and whatever the outcome, we are very proud of each and every one of them. Good Luck!

• Congratulations to Mrs. Warren after her success in the Virtual London Marathon last weekend. She completed the 26.2 miles and together with her team raised over £5,000 for St. Agatha’s Trust which is a charity based at Russell’s Hall hospital supporting breast cancer patients and their families. It is not too late to make a donation to this wonderful cause and any donations can be given in at the school office. Well done, Mrs Warren!

On Wednesday, the children took part in the School Council elections to elect their class representative. After a very busy round of campaigning, everyone voted. We replicated the local elections, even down to using the booths used by the members of the public yesterday, giving the children a practical experience of how democracy works.

Congratulations to everyone who put themselves forward as candidates and to those who were elected

• Year 2 – Lilly-May and Ben
• Year 3 - Ethan and Sienna
• Year 4 – Seb and Eloise
• Reps for Year 5 – Holly, Jemima, Chloe, Grace
• Reps for Key Stage 1 - Wilf and Darcie-Mae

Mrs Melia is looking forward to working with you all!

We are pleased to share with you the news that Dudley MBC have appointed a new crossing patrol or ‘lollypop’ person.

After completing his training next week, we look forward to welcoming Mr Chris Darby to the school community. Please say “hello” to him!

We look forward to seeing you for our Chocolate Bingo Night on 19^th May!

This Weeks attendance 

Whole School - 95.56%

Reception - 94.44%

Year 1 – 93.89%

Year 2 – 96.11%

Year 3 – 91.67%

Year 4 – 95.56%

Year 5 – 98.31%

Year 6 – 98.85%

Well done Year 6!

Next week, Mrs Nicola Povey will be joining the school admin team to work alongside Mrs Brown and Mrs Davenport. Alongside other administrative tasks, Mrs Povey will have a particular responsibility for managing pupil attendance.

The usual routes for informing us of an absence (phone call  or email to attendance@ridge.dudley.sch.uk) remain unchanged but after her induction, Mrs Povey will be the first point of contact for any attendance related matters.

Her working hours are 9.00 – 12.30 p.m.

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

As part of our PSHE curriculum, this week we have welcomed Loudmouth Theatre company who presented their ‘Helping Hands’ workshop to Year 5. This programme helps children to stay safe in their relationships with others both on and off line. It uses age appropriate drama and discussion workshops to support children in learning about safe and unsafe secrets and body contact as well as recognising the feelings that may occur when you feel unsafe. The programme explores difficult topics such as domestic abuse and child sexual abuse and exploitation in a safe and gentle way. The feedback from both staff and children was incredibly positive.

Over the coming weeks, Loudmouth will be visiting again to work with Year 6, delivering ‘My Mate Fancies You’, a fun and informative drama plus discussion workshop to help children and young people to understand transitions and puberty reassure them that it is normal/not something to worry about and advise them where to go for support. We have been proud to work with Loudmouth over a number of years and have always found their approach to delivering on these issues, to be sensitive, informative and fun.

Further information about our PSHE programme and Relationship and Sex Education can be found on our website.

Every now and then, we are made aware of comments posted on WhatsApp or other social media platforms which are concerning. These WhatsApp groups, are often set up by parents and carers of children in a particular year group with the purpose of being a useful support for parents (reminders, requests for help locating lost property etc.). We know how valuable this can be and support this way of communicating amongst members of our school community. However, sometimes posts on these groups are based on misunderstanding, speculation and occasionally, untruths. When this relates to individual members of staff, who have no voice to respond, this is very distressing for the individual concerned and also for the wider school community.

We want to do all we can to address any concerns but this can only be achieved if you share them with us in the appropriate way (face to face, telephone call or email).

Thank you for your support.

Our annual ‘Amble Ramble’ is a sponsored walk in fancy dress around the local area, which raises money to enhance our school. This year’s project is to raise funds to enable us to develop the bungalow garden to create a space for children to grow fruit and vegetables but also to spend time, relaxing and enjoying being outside and learning about nature. 

The money raised by this year’s Amble Ramble will enhance the fund raising of the Ridge Friends Association and will be used for landscaping, to build raised beds, purchase a greenhouse, plants, tools and benches. This is an ambitious project but we are looking forward to seeing our ideas become reality.

Further details and sponsor forms have been sent out and we hope that you will be able to support us through gathering sponsorship but also joining us on the day.

(The date for this event was originally the one we had for our reserve date. We have had to use 19^th May because of changes to SATS. Our new reserve date is now 16^th June, rather later in the term than we would wish but the earliest Friday we can do because of other events scheduled in school.)

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