Reedley Primary School22/12 Newsletter
Friday, 22 December 2023
Dear Parents/Carers,
Punctuality
We had 9 hours and 40 minutes of lates this week.
Only Mrs King’s Y1 Squirrel Class had all the children in school on time.
Arriving at school on time would be a good New Year Resolution for some families.
Lessons start at 8.50am and children should be in class by this time.
Attendance
Our overall attendance for this week is 85.05%.
I am aware that here have been a number of bugs around this week but we also have a number of children who have taken unauthorised leave.
To give our children the best education, we need to improve our school attendance.
Events This Week
- Some parents attended the Y1/Rec phonics session with Miss MacKenzie on Tuesday.
Thank you to those who attended.
- Children in Rec, Y1 and Y2 had a visit from a special visitor on Tuesday.
- Year 3 children enjoyed making some pasta salads in DT, which looked amazing!
Awards
- The Hodder team won the team point award for the half term and had their treat today.
- Miss Radcliffe’s Kingfisher Class and Mrs Phillip’s Starling Class have both won the half term attendance award. They will have a non-uniform day on Friday 12th
- Mrs King’s Y1 class won the half term punctuality award. They will also have a non-uniform day on Friday 12th
- Aisha Saleem Y3H and Amanah Rahman Y2 each won a £10 book voucher as their names were pulled out of a raffle for children who have completed quality activities for the Reading For Pleasure Awards.
- All children with 96%+ attendance for the term were entered into a raffle. These children had their names chosen out to win a board game.
Muhammed Ayaan Y4, Bimansa Premarathna Y2, Scarlett Hartley Rec and Micheli Fernando Y6.
Attendance
The children brought home their traffic light sheets showing their attendance for the whole term. Children who are on green on the traffic light have taken part in a treat today where they got to watch a magic show.
There will be another treat at the end of the Spring Term, just before Easter and this will be for children who have good attendance (96%+) between January and April.
Here are Mr Stix and Peanut getting ready for the magic show
Holiday Homework Tasks
There are a number of tasks that your child can do over the holidays to keep their brains active!
I do not expect them to spend every minute of the school holidays doing school work, but it would really benefit them if they could do a few activities throughout the break.
Teachers will be making children aware of the spelling list for the Spelling Bee. This is an annual competition that takes place and the first round will be in January.
Children can also make use of Times Table Rock stars and some children have an account for Maths Whizz.
There will be a ‘battle’ on Times Table Rockstars within the different phases of the school and Miss Radcliffe will be giving certificates for children who make good progress on Maths Whizz from 22nd December to 7th January.
Swimming
An exciting development for Reedley School is that we are having a covered 10 metre mobile swimming pool at school for a number of weeks each year. The first time will be in January 2024. All children in Years 3, 4, 5 and 6 will be allocated some swimming lessons during this time.
The pool will be heated and will be located in the playground. The children will get changed in school and will need a suitable swimming costume, a towel, appropriate slip-on shoes such as flip-flops and a dressing gown. All lessons will be taught in separate genders with no more than 12 children at any time.
A timetable will be shared with you in January so that you are aware of when your child will be able to access the pool. There will be a swimming teacher, lifeguard and at least one member of school staff present at all times. Children will not be able to access the pool unless it is their swimming lesson.
Whilst the pool is in the playground, we will all have to work around it including during pick-up and drop-off times.
As we will have this facility on site for a few weeks each year, the children will no longer travel to the swimming baths for their swimming lessons, saving a lot of travelling time.
Clubs
Clubs will start on the second week back. There are no clubs for the first week.
We have still not had a date from Ofsted as to when we can start our new wrap around Care Club, but we are hoping this will be from Monday 15th January. I will update you when we come back after the holidays. I sent out a newsletter earlier this week with the prices and the session times on.
Amani Hussain in Y3 successfully designed a new logo for the club, but we are still working on a name for it. Thank you to the children who came up with different ideas.
SWAT (Schools Working and Achieving Together)
12 children across Years 3 – 6 work as Learning Ambassadors for our school. This is the same in lots of other schools that we work closely with. Over the last few weeks we have been working on a project to decorate a friendship bench for our playground. The ambassadors have painted the bench in bright colours and they chose some words that they wanted to be on it, all connected with friendship.
This morning in assembly they presented the bench to the children. We have made a short video about the process which we will put on the website when it is finished. All the schools in our cluster have also done the same thing and it will be lovely for us to see how their benches have developed.
Miss MacKenzie
We wish Miss MacKenzie success and happiness for the future as she leaves Reedley School after six years in Reception. If any of our current children have been with us since reception, they have worked with Miss MacKenzie as her first Reception class are now in Year 6.
We also welcome Miss Hume to the role of teacher and Phase Leader in Reception from January.
Thank you
It has been a busy term and I welcome the support we have received from you all throughout.
If you celebrate Christmas, then I hope you have a lovely time.
I hope everyone gets a lovely rest and I look forward to seeing you all again on Monday 8th January.
Mrs Sarah Bell
Headteacher