A reminder that we are closed to the children on Wednesday 12^th December for an Inset Day. The staff will be working with a trainer to help us further develop ‘Talk for Writing’.

Thank You For Supporting Children In Need. We raised £141.50 to support this worthy cause.

Our school governors do a wonderful job, supporting the strategic direction of our school. They act like a company board and bring their enthusiasm and expertise over a wide range of fields to ensure that The Ridge is as good as it can possibly be.

We are delighted to welcome two new faces to the governors

We thank them both for taking on this important role in our school.

Safety in Gregory Road – Alongside reminding you of the messages about considerate and safe parking, please can I also ask you to ensure that when you are walking up to school with your child, you are aware of their safety and hold their hand where necessary. This comes after a concern from a resident about children running across driveways whist cars are manoeuvring.

Operation Encompass - Our school continues to participate in a Police-led initiative called Operation Encompass, a scheme which ensures that we can we can better support any child where a domestic incident at home has been reported to the police. Following a domestic incident, the Police will make contact with the school via telephone and communicate relevant information to a nominated, fully-trained member of staff. This ensures that we are made aware of the support that a child may need and help them to feel safe, supported and listen to. Each school has a member of staff called a key adult who is trained to liaise with the police, when required, whilst ensuring support is available to the child. The key adult at The Ridge is Mrs Hudson.

If you would like to speak to someone further about the initiative, or require any additional information, please do not hesitate to contact me. We are committed to working in partnership with local relevant organisations to safeguard and protect children and provide the best possible care and support for our pupils.

Please remember that when children have had an episode of sickness and / or diarrhoea, they are unable to return to school until they have been clear for a period of 48 hours. There are some nasty bugs about and we want to do all that we can to stop them from spreading to others. To help limit the spread, please reinforce with your children, the importance of handwashing routines. Thank you.

Over £1,000 donated to The Ridge at no cost to parents and carers!!

In common with most schools, we are feeling the squeeze of funding pressures.

But you can help! Over the past two years we have received over £1000 from easyfundrasing and this has made a real difference! Every penny mounts up and means that we can continue to fund our school to be the best that it can be.

Many of you will have begun to think about Christmas shopping and if you are buying gifts online you can attract donations to our school easily and at no cost to yourself. Or perhaps you are thinking about booking a break away?

How does it work?

There are over 3,00 retailers easyfundraising including big names such as Amazon, Ebay, Argos and Marks and Spencer. Starting your online shopping first at easyfundraising and check if the retailer that you want to use is part of the scheme, then go to the retailer’s website from easyfundraising and shop as normal. retailers make a small donation to say “thank you”. easyfundrasing also rewards searches on comparison sites (don’t forget those insurance renewals!) and many holiday companies such as Bookings.com and Travelodge. (Maybe travel for work and could raise funds for us?)

Once you are signed up codes are sent through, which gives a donation when you recruit a new member to easyfundraising – so please spread the word to grandparents and friends.

Christmas starts early in school and the children are busy preparing for our celebrations. The sound of Christmas music has been in the air for some time and we are looking forward to seeing you at our performances !

As you may be aware, our fire risk assessment means that admission to all the Christmas productions and Carol Services is strictly by ticket only. The number of tickets available is limited by the number of children taking part in the event and we do not have the flexibility to have extra people standing at the back unless they have been allocated a ticket.

To make this as fair as possible, we issue tickets on the following basis.

Please feel free to make your own arrangements to swap tickets with other parents and carers. There will be a limited number of additional ‘Standing Tickets’ available. Further details of how to obtain additional tickets will be sent out with your invitation to the relevent performance.

Please could we emphasise that no-one will be allowed entry without a ticket so please make sure that you have it with you before leaving home.  

With our Christmas performances quickly upon us it is useful to remind you about photography at school events. We are delighted that you want to capture happy memories, however, please do not post photos on social media of children other than your own, unless you have explicit permission from the parents of any other children appearing in the photo. For some pupils in our school, photos on social media could constitute a safeguarding risk. Thank you for your support.

Friday 7^th December

Please send in contributions of chocolate for the Christmas Fayre chocolate game in return for a non-uniform day.

We are also collecting donations of cuddly toys (Freshly washed, please!)

Friday 14^th December – please look out for the letter with the menu and order form for Key Stage 2.

On this day the children may come to school wearing a Christmas Jumper (if they have one) with their school trousers or skirt. The children can also wear festive colours, reindeer antlers or a Santa hat: please don’t feel that you need to go out and buy a Christmas Jumper if your child doesn’t have one