Newsletters

Dear parents and carers,

I hope you are all well and re-adjusting to this period of lockdown. As you will appreciate, the tightening of restrictions has meant that a number of our proposed changes to the school day are still on hold. For example, it is not possible for us to have mixed bubbles eating in the school hall together. We are not able to set up for maths lessons or group bubbles together at playtime or for larger, group interventions. We have also had to change the way we operate after school sports clubs; we can no longer have bubbles mixing outside for sport and we are only able to open school to a very limited number of visitors.

Please be assured that although we are not operating as usual, all our staff are working extremely hard to ensure that your child’s school experience is as normal as possible. Having spent the first half of term focusing on English and Maths, we are broadening our curriculum to include all subject areas. In addition, we are finding ways to enrich our curriculum in virtual ways, virtual whole school assemblies for example or enhancing history lessons using VR headsets. Outside of lessons, we are trialling our first remote Book fair and are still running some parts of school life as before - our current whole school focus on Remembrance, for example.

On Wednesday 11 November we will be marking Armistice Day by observing a two-minute silence at 11am. This will be optional and will be focused on paying respect to our Armed Forces community, past and present. If you would prefer your child not to observe the two minute silence at 11am, please just email your child’s class teacher beforehand. 

Also, on this day, we are giving children the option to wear their uniform if they are in Rainbows, Brownies, Beavers, Cubs or Scouts. Please remember that children may need warm clothing to wear over their uniform as the classrooms are well ventilated and cooler than usual.

Pastorally, teachers are well aware of the additional pressures on friendship groups at the moment. Children are obviously mixing with a limited group of children and this can sometimes make minor issues feel much bigger. In addition, as many children are spending more time online, some of the associated behaviours (use of inappropriate language for example) are spilling over into school. We will always deal with issues as they arise but please let us know if you feel your child needs additional pastoral support at present. Mrs Cahill and Mrs Judd support children and their families across all age groups within school and are always willing to offer advice or intervene if you need them.

Introducing the Pastoral Team.

We see ourselves very much as a team and plan to both work across the whole school. We hope this will offer a high level of continuity in terms of our support to children and their families. We are able to offer social and emotional support independent of the class setting.  Currently we are working with children individually rather than in groups and offering support to their families by phone, email or some face to face meetings.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can be of any assistance. You will find our addresses on the school website,  here.

S Cahill and C Judd

St George’s Crypt

Many thanks for your generous food donations to St Georges Crypt. Volunteers came to school collect the tins this week and were very appreciative of all your efforts.

Thank you

House Points Totals Term Total

Online Safety

As we have been so aware of the increased use of the online game Fortnite, we thought it might be useful to attach links to these one page guides for parents. The guides are designed to provide the information needed to have an informed conversation with your child and are well worth a read if your child is using Fortnite.

Fortnite Battle Royal

Fortnite Chapter 2

Mrs Hahnel

Parents evening

Next week, we will be holding the first of our planned telephone appointments with parents. These have been scheduled and distributed to you already. Please help us by:

• Emailing your child’s questionnaire to your class teacher before your appointment.
• Only requesting a change in appointment time if you are not able to attend.
• Sticking to your allocated time of 10 minutes.

Children In Need Day

On Friday 13 November we will be celebrating Children In Need day. The strapline for this year is ‘Together we can change Young Lives’ and we’d like to invite all children to wear their home clothes on the day. If your child would like to take part, we will ask for £1 to be donated to the charity. Children are very welcome to change something about themselves that day-wearing their hair differently for example or wearing something inside out or in an unusual colour/pattern combination-we don’t mind if you break the rules just for one day! Please remember that children still need warm clothing (as windows are left open) and will need shoes, clothing and a coat that they can play outside in.

Time capsule

Thank you to the children who have brought in contributions for the Miller Homes Time capsule. The deadline for contributions was today 6 November, so we will keep you informed as to which lucky entries Miller Homes chooses for the capsule.

Lunches

We have started providing hot meals three times a week in school, all of which are delivered to classes on a daily basis. Although we are very happy for parents to switch to school meals, unfortunately we cannot offer a mix of packed lunches and school meals from week to week. This is because food needs to be ordered in advance. At present, a small number of children are coming to school without a packed lunch and requesting a school meal with no notice. Parents who are paying for a school meal should be opting in for all meals for a whole half term.

The link to the online order form and the weekly menus can be found here on the website.

Thank you.

Times Tables Rock Stars

As part of our commitment to make maths exciting and high profile in our school, this November we are taking part in a competition for Maths Week England. It’s called Rock Out 2020 and it’s all done online via https://play.ttrockstars.com/

For every correct answer to a multiplication or division question, your child will earn their class a point. The Times Tables Rock Stars platform will calculate the class average (the number of correct answers per pupil in the class who play during the competition hours). Winning classes in the school and in the country as a whole will be the ones with the highest average.

All game modes (Gig, Garage, Studio, etc.) will count but only from games played between 7.30am and 7.30pm on Monday 9^th, Tuesday 10^th, Wednesday 11^th, Thursday 12^th, Friday 13^th and Saturday 14^th November.

In the spirit of the competition, please don’t play on their behalf but by all means encourage and support them to the extent that it doesn’t cause high stress levels or impact on family plans. We suggest a limit of half an hour a day outside school hours – some will play more, some will play less.

Thanks for your support,

Mrs Laws

Pick up

Thank you to those parents who are leaving the playground as soon as possible after drop off and pick up. If you are waiting for siblings (due to the staggered finish times) please stand away from other parents who are waiting to collect their own children. If you are unable to maintain a 2m distance from other parents, please consider wearing a face mask. Please also note that if your child is self-isolating, they should not be coming onto the school site to pick up or drop off siblings.

School photos

The last day for ordering school photographs with free postage has now passed however you can still order online through Tempest Photography, here.

Thank you and have a lovely weekend

R Colbourn

PTA

As mentioned in last week's newsletter, the next PTA meeting will be held by Zoom at 8pm on Tuesday 10 November and it would be great to (virtually) see as many people as possible.  Please let Maike know (maikemuldoon@hotmail.com) if you would like to attend and the Zoom details will be sent – all are welcome.  We also promised further information on PTA related matters:

Great Outdoors Project – for the new parents to school, the PTA is currently raising funds for the Great Outdoors Project, which aims to rejuvenate and upgrade the outdoor space at BPS.

Fund raising last year – despite missing out on a couple of regular events, including the fun run and the scarecrow hunt / summer fair (which is typically the biggest fund raiser of the year), the PTA raised over £6,500 last year.  Thank you for all of your support, whether that be attending events, organising events or making donations.

New books for school – some parents will remember the library project which the PTA raised funds for, before the focus became the Great Outdoors Project.  Some book funds remain and we are delighted to have funded 550 new books for school over the last half term.  We hope the children enjoy the new books.

New playground bins for school – the PTA funded the new colourful playground bins that you may have seen at school, as part of the Great Outdoors Project.  There are further plans in place to spruce up the outdoor space at school but Covid-19 has caused some delays to those.

 Wreath making competition – next half term we will be organising a family wreath making competition.  We'll be selling wreath rings and 4 candles and giving families a couple of weeks to decorate their wreath ring using whatever they wish – feel free to use garden clippings or go foraging further afield.  Once decorated, submit a photo of your wreath to the PTA and prizes will be awarded for the best 3 entries.  Look out for more details early next half term.

 Mothers' Day secret rooms – unfortunately lockdown prevented the Mothers' Day secret room event taking place.  We sold 203 tickets for the event (at £3.50 each) and are conscious that the children weren't able to select the presents.  We incurred the cost of buying some presents (and the platform fees for receiving the payments), which we plan to re-use at future events.  If anyone would like a refund on their ticket price, please let Maike know (maikemuldoon@hotmail.com). 

If we don't hear from you by the end of next half term, we'll assume that you are happy for the ticket price to be donated to the PTA (in which case, thank you!).

Finally a new Facebook page has been created by the PTA, entitled 'BPS Preloved Uniform Shop'.

We are selling outgrown uniform that is still in great condition at excellent prices. Please get in touch on this new page (or by direct message) to check if we have stock for your needs.

All funds raised through the shop will go to the school.

If you have uniform you no longer need, please bring your items to the school office clearly labelled 'PTA uniform for sale'. 

Your PTA team