Dear Parents and Carers,
I hope your child has enjoyed their first full week of school and you are both getting used to new school routines, timings and timetables. I have been very impressed with the positive start children have made after the long summer break and how well our new Reception children have coped with the start of school.
Our forthcoming curriculum information evening on 26 September will be an opportunity to find out about your child’s year group, their timetable and our expectations. In the meantime, I have summarised some key information which you might find useful at the start of term. Please note that all information and our Parent Handbook are available in the ‘Virtual Office’ section of our school website.
Uniform
Thank you for supporting us in ensuring all our children have full, correct uniform and PE kit. Please ensure that all items are named so that lost property can be returned to your child as soon as possible. Water bottles and whiteboard pens are available in the school office priced £2 and 50p respectively. Please ensure that your child has a coat in school with them everyday as we always aim to take the children outside at playtimes whenever possible.
Safety
Please could I remind all parents that the car park near the medical centre is for staff only? In the interest of safety, we encourage all parents to park offsite and walk into school. If there is a reason to park on site, please ask for a parking permit from the school office. Please teach all children that the only safe route into school is to walk across the KS2 playground as opposed to crossing the medical centre car park.
In KS1, all children should be supervised until the bell is rung at 8:50am. In KS2, children are supervised from 8:40am. Please do not drop children off at school before this time. At the end of the day, KS1 children are dismissed from their class door and KS2 children are escorted onto the playground. The KS2 playground is supervised until 3:25pm. At this time, any children who have not been collected will be escorted to the office and a member of the admin team will contact parents and carers.
Medicine
We encourage all families to administer medicine at home wherever possible. If your child does need to take any form of prescribed medication, please call into the office and complete the appropriate form.
Lunches
Please note that new menus are now available on our school website. Following pupil feedback, our catering team have made some changes:
The summer picnic day has become ‘Pizza Wednesday’ ( lots of healthy toppings, crudities and salad)
There will be a roast dinner every week
Fish caked and fish fingers have come off the menu and the battered fish will be served every Friday
Tuna salad, crudities and hummus will be available on the salad bar
We know that many parents prefer their child to have a hot lunch in the autumn term and you are most welcome to move your child to school meals -simply call into the main office and speak with either Jill or Natasha. School meals are £2.50 per day and are payable via ParentMail. We are planning some more parent taster opportunities this term and if you have any question at all about the menu or your child’s allergies, please email bramhope@harrisoncatering.co.uk
Clubs
Our priority at the start of term is always to ensure that children feel safe and settled. Once this is the case and we have established our learning expectations, we encourage all children to make the most of opportunities outside of the school day. We have now added more detailed information about extra -curricular clubs to our website and streamlined when clubs take place, so that there are ten weeks of clubs per term.
Dates for clubs for the whole year are as follows:
Term one: clubs start on w/c 23 September and end on w/c 9 December.
Term two: clubs start on w/c 13 January 2020 and end on w/c 23 March 2020
Term three: clubs start on w/c 27 April 2020 and end on w/c 6 July 2020
As you are aware, sign up for paid clubs is on a first come first served basis. Information about signing up to clubs will be issued over the next couple of weeks so that all clubs can be confirmed ahead of the start date of 23 September.
Polling station
We have been notified that school will be used as a polling station on Thursday 7 May 2020. Please note that school will remain open on this day.
Holidays and training days 2019-2020
In addition to the published school holidays and the amended early May bank holiday on 8 May, school will be closed on the following days:
Monday 4 November 2019
Monday 6 January 2020
Monday 20 July 2020
Monday 7 September and Tuesday 8 September 2020
Our Reception team have an additional training on Friday 8 November. This means that Reception children should not attend school on this day.
Finally, we have now reached the end of one cycle of our ‘Growing Bramhope’ garden project. Every child has planted, harvested and cooked and we are now ready for stage two of the project, developing a community garden club. We already have some interested volunteers and if you are interested in joining them, either working with your own child after school or during the weekend, we’d love you to join us. This opportunity is open to parents, carers, grandparents, neighbours or friends of the school. We will be meeting to talk about ‘what next’ for our school garden next week, Friday 13 September at 2pm. Please come to the school office and we will meet in the library before spending some time in the garden. No expertise required!
I hope you all have a lovely weekend.
Rachel Colbourn
