Here you will find the latest news and information about school events. Please subscribe to the calendar to keep fully informed.
-
School Blog Friday 27th May 2022
Wed 25 May 2022Dear Parents and Carers,
The term is flying by and we are at half term already. Most pupils (Y2-Y6) have completed their first Welsh Government Personal Assessments on line and we will be releasing the reports to you via Hwb after half term. Don't worry Mr G and Mr D will help and support you all with this. Please can I reiterate that these are not "tests" and they to not carry high stakes. They are merely another piece of information that we can use to plan the next steps for your child. Assessment has changed greatly in Wales, and we are no longer asked to submit numerical data to the Welsh Government. This is replaced with the expectation to "use" data in a way that supports progression. We do this well in Llanrhidian and we are constantly drawing on a range of information, including talking to your child, to plan their next steps. We welcome this change in mindset in Wales, and we hope you do too. Remember we have developed a useful page on the website to support you with the personalised assessments. This can be accessed here. Here are this week's headlines:-
School Volunteers - As we are opening up the school for events and trips, it is always useful to have volunteers to help the staff. However, the school has to follow "safe recruitment" processes for all volunteers which involves an enhanced DBS check, two references and completion of a volunteer application form. If you are interested in being a school volunteer, please contact the office.
Parent Questionnaire Reminder - Firstly thank you for supporting our journey through yet another challenging year. As always we welcome your views on many aspects of our school. These will feed into our self evaluations and help us to formulate our priorities for next year. 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
Weekly Premises Plea and Update - Over the Summer holidays we hope to have a new roof over Pod PryCop; new decking over the old sandpit; new windows in Pod PryCop; new internal fire doors and corridor walls repaired and painted. Much of this is grant funded, and we are excited to be replacing some "very old and worn" aspects of our school. Big thank you to those fabulous dads who are helping us with the polytunnel, raised flower beds, and much more - you know who you are and we are really grateful! 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
Summer Raffle - As always we are are running a termly raffle to raise money for pod resources. These will be sent home with your child soon. 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
Nursery Pupils 2022-23 - If you have a child due to start nursery in the next academic year, please ensure you have contacted the office staff who can help you with your application. It is vital that we are aware of forthcoming applications to plan for staffing. Please also pass this information on to families you may know.
Please remember to check out our website calendar for key dates this term.
Have a great weekend
Mrs Caswell
-
School Blog Friday 20th May 2022
Fri 20 May 2022Dear Parents and Carers,
It is that time when we start to evaluate all our actions against our targets for the year. You are always a great help in evaluating our school, and we would really appreciate if you could take a few minutes to complete our parent questionnaire. This, together with the views of the pupils, the governors, the local authority and the results of monitoring across the school will enable us to set our targets for the coming year. We will share these with you in Autumn when we invite you to a "Stakeholder Curriculum Design Event" where you can also have your say in helping us design a curriculum that meets both the needs and the interests of our pupils. A good school will always seek to improve, and although we will never please everyone, we will listen. Here are this week's headlines:-
Parent Questionnaire - Firstly thank you for supporting our journey through yet another challenging year. As always we welcome your views on many aspects of our school. These will feed into our self evaluations and help us to formulate our priorities for next year. 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
Amser Tost a Dydd Mercher Maeth - We are always looking for opportunities to support our pupils well-being and their learning. These are intrinsically linked and teachers report that when pupils are hungry, they lose concentration and do not perform at their best. For this reason we are introducing a snack during their "Relax and Refuel" time each morning. This is in addition to any fruit you wish to send in. Obviously it will not be compulsory, but I am sure many of our pupils will enjoy this, especially in those dark and dismal winter months. This obviously comes at a cost to the school, but we do think it is worth it. On Dydd Mercher (Wednesday) pupils will have a different snack prepared by our wonderful Dreigiau. If you would like to send any cash or cheque donations into the school (however small) it really does help us to provide our pupils with the things that make their time in school one to remember.
Weekly Premises Plea - Big thank you to those fabulous dads who are helping us with the polytunnel, raised flower beds, and much more - you know who you are and we are really grateful! This week we need:-
1. Decking planks (New floor for the Pengwin house)
2. Plants, soil, bark chippings and outside planters (To improve our gardens and fill our new raised beds)
3. Good quality toys eg lego, cars, role play etc for Pengwins and Pili Pala
5. Artificial plants to soften our indoor environment
Please remember to check out our website calendar for key dates this term.
Have a great weekend
Mrs Caswell
-
School Blog Friday 13th May 2022
Mon 09 May 2022Dear Parents and Carers,
We have some exciting news to share with you. The Governing body, ably assisted by the school council, has appointed a new deputy head teacher for the school. Mrs Sarah Archard will be joining us from September, and we are all looking forward to working with our new colleague. Mrs Archard is an extremely experienced teacher and school leader, and will be supporting our school in developing and designing our new curriculum. I know you will all join me in welcoming our new deputy to Team Llanrhidian, and she will hopefully be able to introduce herself to you when she visits the school this term.
It is at this time of year that we start wondering about which staff will be in which pods next year. As always, when this is finalised we will let you know.
Thank you to those parents who are helping us with our school grounds! We really appreciate your help and will continue to list our needs via our "Weekly Premises Plea" each week.
Here are the headlines this week:-
Sports Day Friday 8th July 2 – 4pm – You are all invited to watch the pod/year group sports day races. All pupils will have the opportunity to participate in a range of different races. Nursery AM are also invited back to the school for this event, however, they will need to be accompanied by an adult the whole afternoon. During the afternoon there will also be other events that pupils can participate in whilst they wait for their race. We encourage you to bring a picnic and blanket to sit with your family in the school field. We are also looking for participants to join in the parent vs teacher race. Mr G is already in training mode. Let's make this a great community event for all! Aunts, Uncles, Grannies etc all welcome!
Weekly Premises Plea - This week we need:-
1. Decking planks (New floor for the Pengwin house)
2. Plants, soil, bark chippings and outside planters (To improve our gardens and fill our new raised beds)
3. Good quality toys eg lego, cars, role play etc for Pengwins and Pili Pala
4. Help to repair our polytunnel (Which looks a very sorry state)
5. Artificial plants to soften our indoor environment
Please remember to check out our website calendar for key dates this term.
Have a great weekend
Mrs Caswell
-
School Blog Friday 6th May
Mon 02 May 2022Dear Parents and Carers,
We are well and truly into the throws of the Summer term now, and there will be a lot going so please make sure you and your family members are keeping up to date with evens via this blog.
As you are now aware, schools have now been placed in a low alert. However, COVID-19 has not gone away and will remain with us globally. For this reason, it remains important for us to consider what we can do to reduce the spread of the virus, and protect our learners and staff. We will be continuing to implement some public health control measures to help keep the spread of the virus low and to minimise the potential of further disruption. Further guidance is expected for schools and we will, as always keep you informed. In the mean time, we thank you for all you have done to help us through these difficult times, and look forward to better days ahead. Here are the headlines this week:-
Personalised Online Assessments Y2-Y6 - You may be aware that Welsh Government have developed "Personalised Online Assessments" for schools to use with pupils. These are not used as "tests" or have any form of high accountability stakes for pupils or the school. They do however, provide us with some information about what you child can do well, and needs to next. Please note that the "score" is not important, but understanding where your child needs support next is the main purpose of these activities. These will be run informally by pod staff during the school year, along side our other current assessment arrangements, to help us plan effectively for the progress of your child. We have developed a dedicated page on our website to help you understand the purpose of these assessments. Please click here or visit https://www.llanrhidian.swansea.sch.uk/online-personalised-assessments/ We will provide you with information to help you access the reports when we have completed the assessments. Please be assured that pupils will not be put under any pressure, and will see these as just an activity like any other. Your final school report at the end of term will reflect these assessments, as well as a range of other information we use to plan the way forward for your child.
The Big Llanrhidian Bedtime Story Week 9th-13th May 2022 - Next week is our very first "Bedtime Story Week". Throughout the week, all pupils will immerse themselves in a variety of activities linked to our love of reading and imagination. Staff and pupils will all share some of their favourite stories and become their own authors and write their own fairy tales. On Tuesday 10th May 2022 we will have a Llanrhidian 2nd hand book sale to help raise much-needed funds for our school. We are now collecting any good quality children's storybooks for this sale, if you have any books that you would like to donate to our 2nd hand book sale then please send to school with your child. Books will only be sold on 10th May and all books will be £1. Please send your child in with £1 so they can attend the sale. Finally, on Friday 13th of May we will end our exciting Bedtime Story week by having our very own Pyjamarama event. Pupils will be invited to come into school in their pyjamas where they will enjoy some exciting bedtime treats and activities.
Weekly Premises Plea - This week we need:-
1. Decking planks (New floor for the Pengwin house)
2. Plants, soil, bark chippings (To improve our gardens)
3. Removal of old willow sticks (we are rather over run with sticks and branches that need to make way for summer fun)
4. Good quality toys eg lego, cars, role play etc for Pengwins and Pili Pala
5. Good quality children's books (see below information about a book sale event)
Please remember to check out our website calendar for key dates this term.
Have a great weekend
Mrs Caswell