Dear Parents and Carers,
Welcome back to the final half term of the year. And what a busy one it will be, so please remind your friends and family to read this blog to keep up to date with all the news and events. We had a fabulous INSET day on Monday where we evaluated the year to date. Identifying our strengths and areas for development enables us to plan the year ahead. Please help us with this evaluation by completing the online parent questionnaire. Your views really are important to us and I can assure you that every comment is read and discussed with school leaders. Please be assured that your responses will be kept anonymous. Click here or paste the following into your browser. https://forms.office.com/r/HDbyj305TM
I have to say a huge thank you to those parents who have come forward with donations and help as a result of our "premises plea". We really are grateful. The environment for learning is so important, and we pride ourselves in giving the pupils a place which is clean, comfortable and supportive.
Sports club has resumed and will take place after school until 4.15 every Wednesday, until further notice. Please pick up promptly as teachers often have meetings to attend at 4.15.
Here are the headlines this week:-
Punctuality and Attendance - I am sure you have seen the media raising concerns over how much school pupils have missed over the last two years. Has it affected their progress? Yes of course it has, and we want to support your child so they have the very best life chances. Whilst we understand pupils cannot attend school if they are ill, please help us to help your child by keeping attendance high. As directed by Welsh government, we are monitoring attendance and punctuality and our well being officer will be contacting any families who appear to need support in raising their child's attendance. Arriving to school on time (between 8.40 and 8.50) also gives your child the best chance for learning as they can settle into their pod before the day of learning begins. Teachers report that pupils who arrive early have a far better day of learning than those who arrive late.
Pods 2022-23 - As promised, we are now able to share the teaching structure for next September.
Pod Pili Pala - Mrs Gosney
Pod Pengwin - Mrs Marchant & Miss Walters
Pod Pysgodyn - Miss Colwill & Mr Goremano
Pod Pry Cop - Mrs Archard (Deputy Head) & Mr Dowsett & Miss Weatherly (Student Teacher PGCE)
We will let you know where teaching assistants will be placed when this is finalised.
Summer Raffle - As always we are are running a termly raffle to raise money for pod resources. Please sell as many as you can as every £1 helps us to provide our pupils with the little extras that make their life in Llanrhidian memorable. We will be making up hampers from smaller donations and larger items will be stand alone prizes. We are asking for donations of the following prizes. If you know any local business who can help, please let them know that we will always "Tweet" a thank you. We are collecting:-
- Sweets, biscuits, chocolates, wine, summer toys etc for hampers
- Bottles of champagne, liquor, spirits, vouchers, etc for stand alone prizes
Personalised Assessments - We have nearly completed the personalised assessments with every pupil. Once we have developed a guide to help you access the reports, we will release these to you. Please remember, these are just a snapshot of how your child performed on one particular day. We have far more informative and useful information about your child's progress, which we share with you through meetings and our written reports.
Weekly Premises Plea and Update - This week we need:-
1. Decking planks (New floor for the Pengwin house)
2. Soil, plants and outside planters (To improve our gardens and fill our new raised beds)
3. We need bark chippings for our paths - does anyone know any landscape gardeners or tree surgeons who could sump their chippings in our field?
4. Good quality toys eg lego, cars, role play etc for Pengwins and Pili Pala
5. Artificial plants to soften our indoor environment (Thank you to the generous parent who sent us an amazing order of pots and plants!)
Gower Cycling Festival Sunday July 10th (morning) - We have been asked to be a "pit stop" again for this traditional event. White Rock Events have already sponsored us a wonderful football kit and are also sourcing us some free portaloos for our sports day. We have a few staff able to support this event, but if there are any parents who would like to help us run some refreshments and raise some funds for the school or their pods, please let me know. Thank you to those parents who have already offered to run the bacon butty BBQ.
Please remember to check out our website calendar for key dates this term.
Have a great weekend
Mrs Caswell