Friday 7th January 2022

Happy New Year to our lovely community!

We hope you all had a great holiday. We have loved hearing all about the children’s adventures. They have especially enjoyed being able to spend time with their families and some of their most favourite moments have been the simple ones - watching movies together, going for a walk, being allowed to stay up late or lay in bed all morning! The staff have been very quick to agree that not having to get up super early is pretty special!

We are now all back to the early mornings and the children, as expected, have returned to school beautifully. The number of children who have wished their peers and school adults a ‘Happy New Year’ has been wonderful to observe. On many occasions this week I have seen a child appear at my door to enquire about my Christmas and New Year and that has made me smile each and every time. It also gives me the opportunity to ask the same. I have learnt a lot about different phones, games consoles, board games, the latest dolls and I could possibly now get employment at a toy shop.

A reminder that the school gates close at 8.55am and children arriving after this time may not make it to class before the registers close.

We often have to remind our community about the importance of parking and driving safely near the school site, the possible consequences of not doing this are unthinkable. A recent flyer from the Halesowen North Conservatives further highlighted the importance of safer road use around schools. Operation Park Safe is an initiative that allows dangerous parking to be reported to the police and fines can be given retrospectively. Thank you to all of our families who really think about their journey to and from school - those who walk, those who arrive early to make sure they can park safely and those who park further away and walk the rest - you are supporting our community to stay safe.

This week we have welcomed a new member of staff, Mrs Collins. Mrs Collins is joining us as a Family Support Worker. This means we now have even more capacity to support our families. Please do phone the school to arrange a chat with Mrs Collins if you feel you are in need of support - sometimes the world can feel a lonely place and it is not always clear where support can be found, Mrs Collins will be happy to spend time with you and pinpoint you to different services that are available. Parenting is the most rewarding job in the world, but it can also be the hardest - Mrs Collins can provide support for parents in different situations or just a listening ear. As this is a new role for our school, it is very much developing and we do hope that our community will benefit from this.

As a school, we very much encourage our families to share any concerns they may have with us. Please always come and talk to us if you have any questions regarding your child’s education and wellbeing. We will always endeavour to find a solution.

Prior to Christmas we had a delivery of new books. This caused great excitement amongst the staff and Mr Priest has needed some persuading in order to part with them and allow Miss Walters to actually put them into our book nooks. The book nooks have been set up across the school so that our children continually have access to high quality texts. Along with the book nooks, the staff in each year group were given a budget to spend on books for the classroom, and our year six curriculum ambassadors have selected a huge range of books that represent the diversity of our community. The children have loved having access to the new books and our shelves were cleared pretty quickly! We are looking forward to hearing about what they have been reading and I am sure we will be getting lots of book recommendations. In October we sent out a letter regarding funding and how it relates to the uptake of free school meals, well this is the impact of the amazing support our community showed us on census day - we can afford lots of lovely new books! There is another census day coming up soon, I hope we will receive the same support so we can buy even more books!

I have just asked Miss Walters if there is anything she wanted included on the blog this week. Her answer: please tell the community just how wonderful the children are!

Unfortunately, I know that Covid19 continues to disrupt our daily lives. Both our staff and our families found that Covid had an impact on their Christmas holiday. One member of staff described having to eat her Christmas dinner at the back door to avoid spreading Covid to the rest of her household. I know that many of you found yourselves in similar situations. Please remain vigilant to the symptoms of the virus and continue to test your family using LFDs. The national guidance has changed several times already, if you suspect or know that your child has Covid19 then please keep them at home. Mrs Bird will be available to take your calls regarding any absences and she will talk you through the guidance and what actions you must take and those that you are strongly advised to take.

Wishing you all a good weekend.

Stay safe.