Dates For Your Diary
 

Return Date for Academic Year 2019/2020 - Monday 9th September 

Tuesday 12th & Wednesday 13th March - Parent Meetings 
Please use the following link to book a time slot:
https://thesource.school21.org.uk/Parents/Booking/Code?Length=7

Wednesday 13th March - Year 3 Trip to Stratford Picture House

Thursday 14th March - Parent Coffee Morning &
E - Safety Workshop (8:40am - 9:00am)

Monday 18th March - Friday 22nd March 
Bring a Parent to School Week - Storytelling (8:40am)
(Please see Letter for Details)

Monday 18th March - Newton Class to London City Airport
(Please see Letter for Details)

Tuesday 19th March - Parks Class to London City Airport
(Please see Letter for Details)

Thursday 21st March - De Coubertin Class to London City Airport
(Please see Letter for Details)

Tuesday 19th March - Cheap + Healthy Meals Workshop - Come and Cook with your child (3:15pm - 4:30pm)

Monday 25th March - Year 4 Spark Speeches​
(Please see Letter for Details)

Tuesday 26th March - Cheap + Healthy Meals Workshop - Come and Cook with your child (3:15pm - 4:30pm)

Tuesday 26th, Wednesday 27th & Friday 29th March - Book Fair

Thursday 28th March - Inset Day
(Great Oracy Exhibition)

Friday 5th April - Last day of Term
School finishes at 1:00pm

NOTICES:

Important Notices: 

From Monday 12th November, the Primary gates will not be opened until 2:55pm ready for a 3:00pm collection. This is due to the fact that many lessons are still taking place at this time and children may be working in the playground. Thank you for your co-operation and understanding.

Due to the confidential nature of information shared in the front office we ask that parents wait outside if you are collecting from clubs.  Parents should not be waiting in the Front Office reception area after 4:30pm without a staff member.  

Morning break snacks are to be fruit (fresh, dried etc) not biscuits or cereal bars. Please leave these items for lunch or after school clubs snacks. 

Reminder: Football shoes are not to be worn to school, they are dangerous as they do not allow the students to have a good grip when running on hard surfaces and could lead to an accident. Any student who wears them to school will not be allowed to participate in PE lessons or use the playground at break and lunch times. 
 

Break Time Snacks: All children can bring a snack from home to have at break time. This snack MUST be fruit. If any child brings a snack that is not fruit, they will be asked to put it back in their bags to eat after school. 

Birthdays - If you wish to celebrate your child's birthday by sharing a cake with the class, can we please ask that it is brought to the classroom the morning of the celebration and that it is already cut up and packaged. Our teachers do not have the time or equipment to be able to cut up sheet cakes and distribute to the children. We ask that you do not drop birthday cakes or party bags to the front office during the day as they are not always guaranteed to have the time to take them to the classroom, and this can lead to disappointment for your child. 

Lost Property -  We currently have an abundance of lost property in the front office, including winter coats. Can all parents please come and check if any of the items belong to your children. We will be donating all remaining goods to a local charity before half term due to space restrictions. 

It is important that parents model good behaviour for children. Please do not swear or use insulting language in the playground. If a member of staff hears this you will be asked to leave the premises and may be banned.

Please also remember that our staff are always working for the best interests of the children. If you would like to discuss anything regarding your child please speak to the class teacher, Mrs Drummond or Miss Dilger. Please do not shout or be rude to a member of staff as this makes the situation very difficult.

School Attendance - EVERY DAY MATTERS!

The school target for attendance is 97% or better.  As a guide the Education Welfare Service advises that if a parent would go to work with the same condition then the student should be in school.  We ask that students returning to school following sickness observe good hygiene rules as an adult would in the workplace.

We are keen to support all our students to achieve their best and this must include ensuring that they attend school as often as possible.  We will do the following to support students’ attendance:

• Write to you if attendance falls below 95% or is we are concerned about a pattern of absences.

• Invite you into school to discuss any concerns/worries with the Attendance Officer, your child’s Coach/ Class Teacher, Key Stage Leader/Head of Year, or Head or Deputy Head of School if attendance continues to fall.

• Where sickness absence occurs on 3 consecutive days or 3 different occasions within a half term, the school will seek medical evidence, such as a letter from GP, an NHS appointment letter, a prescription from GP, prescribed medication labels etc, so that we are able to support your child in school.  Additional days of absences may no longer be authorised.

• Refer the student to our Education Welfare Officer if attendance falls to 90%.

• Please contact the Attendance Officer or Head of School if you feel your child is well enough to be in school, but not well enough to go to all their lessons.  We may be able to make special arrangements

• If you believe your child is well enough to be in school, but is refusing, it is essential that you talk to the Attendance Officer, or the Safeguarding Leads.  We can offer a variety of options to support you in getting your child back to school.

• If required, prescribed medicines can be brought to school – including those needing refrigeration, and stored in the Medical Room.  A form should accompany any medication, stating that the school has permission to administer it, along with the times that this should happen. This should also be signed off at the front office.

What you can do to support your child:

• Never grant days off for birthdays, shopping trips or any other reason other than illness.

• Lessons begin at 8.30am prompt.  We ask that all students arrive at 8.25am to avoid them starting their first lesson late.  Students who are ‘dropped off’ at 8.30am on a daily basis will be late to their lessons and therefore late for the start of the day.

• Please leave a message on each day of absence by 8.30am at the latest - please email attendance@school21.org.uk leaving the name of your child, their Coach or Class Teacher and the reason for absence.  It is for school to decide if an absence is authorised or unauthorised.  Stating ‘Unwell’ or ‘Poorly’ gives insufficient information for us to make that decision, and the absence could be unauthorised.

• Please phone or email daily unless you have made alternative arrangements with school.  We do not know if you have sent your child to school and need to know this in order to keep them safe.  If we do not hear from you we will endeavour to contact you, but we must have at least two up-to-date emergency contact numbers on record to be able to do this.

• Last/First Day of Term, Non-Uniform Days or ‘Off-Timetable’ days are full curriculum days with content that is required by the national curriculum.  It is unacceptable, and against the law, to keep students off on such days for any reason other than illness that renders a student too ill to attend.  Any absence on days such as these could be unauthorised unless medical evidence is received, or prior agreement has been reached with school.

• We have adopted a pragmatic approach towards the authorisation of Leave of Absence for Exceptional Circumstances where other schools have imposed blanket bans.  Each Head of School considers every case personally and may ask for additional information.  Taking leave of Absence in Term Time without authorisation is against the law, and phoning-in daily stating a student is unwell causes a breakdown in trust between home and school.

• We approve up to two days of religious observance over the course of the academic year that fall during term time.

We understand that the majority of parents and carers support us fully in terms of ensuring their children attend school regularly and that you may have received this message on more than one occasion. However, we share this letter with all as it is important that we all understand the responsibilities school has to uphold to avoid any misunderstanding.

Attendance Team

Mrs Drummond's Challenge 

Thank you to everyone who took photos for our challenge! They are on display in our Primary Hall. Try this weeks challenge below:

Primary Attendance Winners W.C 25/02/2019

Reception Newton 97.8%

Year 1 Mandeal 97.2%

Year 2 Coleman 98.7%

Year 3 Einstein 99.2% Overall Primary Winner

Year 4 Seacole 98.3%

Parent Meetings 

This term our parent meetings will be held on Tuesday 12th March and Wednesday 13th March, 3:30pm - 5:30pm. Please use the link below to sign up for a slot with your teacher. You will need your child's unique code (which you used last term) to be able to access the system to book a time. You will then receive an email confirmation of your meeting time. If you cannot remember your child's code, please see your class teacher as they will have a copy of these. 

https://thesource.school21.org.uk/Parents/Booking/Code?Length=7

Bring a Parent to School Week 

You would have received the letter regarding this on Monday 4th March with the details of dates that your class is hosting parents. Please be aware that each day will start promptly at 8:40am and parents will not be taken to lessons if they arrive after 8:45am due to the disruption this will cause.

First Aid Update

All First Aid Incidents will now be reported online using Medical Tracker. Parents will be notified by email automatically when a First Aid Incident occurs. Phone calls will continue to be made for more serious incidents. Please ensure that the School is notified immediately of any change of Personal Details.

Parent and Child Cooking Session

Come and make some healthy meals with your kids.

We will be learning about making healthy meals and getting the kids involved too. You will prepare a meal that can be taken home.

There will be 2 sessions:

Tuesday 19th March 3:15pm - 4:30pm

Tuesday 26th March 3:15pm - 4:30pm

THERE IS A MAXIMUM OF 10 FAMILIES FOR EACH WORKSHOP. Spaces will be allocated on a first come basis.

If you are interested in taking part please email Miss Dilger

cdilger@school21.org.uk 

Stating your name and your child’s name and which session you would like to come to. You will be emailed back if you have a place. This will not be a drop in session.

Parent Workshop and Coffee Morning

Tuesday 14th March - 8:40am

Run by Miss Dilger in the Primary Hall

The Aims of the session are:

•Know which apps may be high risk to your child and which ones have age restrictions.

•Discuss how you can restrict the amount of time your child spends playing games online.

•How to help avoid certain risks for children when using the internet.

Inclusion Drop In

On Friday 22nd March from 8:30am -11:00am parents are invited to meet with Laura Tutty - Head of Inclusion and Empowerment 4-18. and Hannah Coles - SENCO for a 10 minute meeting to discuss any SEN concerns you have. 

Ahoy!

This week in Reception we visited the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. All the children had a great time exploring the museum galleries, learning about different types of boats and we even got to see a penguin in Antarctica! Children really enjoyed travelling on the DLR and acted very responsibly and professionally. Thanks again to all the adults who came to support us.

Inverted Commas at the Ready!

Year 1 have been introduced to speech marks and how to use them in our writing.  At first we found it challenging to find where speech starts and stops in different sentences, but we persevered and created some wonderful writing.  We are going to continue to use inverted commas so that we get even better when using them. Challenge: Can you find inverted commas in your reading book?

Beautiful Bug Hotels!

This week, Year 2 have been learning about habitats and micro-habitats as part of our learning about the history of the earth. We have focussed on the habitat of a forest and micro-habitats such as a pond, a tree or under a log. We explored our Forest School to see what different bugs we could find in different habitats and used this information to plan our own Bug Hotel which we will use to test which micro-habitat is the most popular. Watch this space for our results!

Videos are live!

Parents - Please watch our Year 3 videos.  Who's the pharaoh-est of them all? After watching the videos, vote for who convinces you! 

https://www.school21.org.uk/y3pharaoh

Journey Creations

Y4 really enjoyed their text for World Book Day, Journey by Aaron Becker. We turned our own doors into an imaginary world using a lot of different art techniques.

World Wildlife Day Photos!

Thank you to all the Parents who supported our World Wildlife Day and donated to raise £130 for the Charity!

Grit Certificate Winners 

Well done to those students who went above and beyond showing our attribute of Grit! This week we celebrated Misha, Harry Jack, Elemag, Ezekiel, Ashton, Daniel, Kiah, Naomi, Zayne, Hannah, Laila, Alicia, Tolga and Marco.

Mysterious Books

Congratulation to Hiya, Year 4 for guessing the correct book title in our 'Book In A Jar' library competition. The answer was George's Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl.

Thank you to all the students that took part.

Mrs Fisher

Newham NCT

Newham NCT has an open evening to recruit more volunteers on Tuesday 12 March 8:00pm at the Sawmill café. We hope to see you there!

We are running a very successful club every morning from 7:45 to 8:25  (last entry 8:10).

I would like to remind everyone of the Breakfast Club Code of Conduct so that parents can share this with their children.

• All pupils are expected to pack away resources and tidy the area.

• No pupils to leave the club area without the permission of an adult.

• Middle School pupils to stay in the club until 8:20. Pupils are not allowed into Middle School until this time.

• Pupils should help each other and be supportive of each other.

• Pupils will be warned about inappropriate behaviour twice then parents will be informed.

• If the behaviour continues pupils will not be able to attend for a week.

• If conduct does not improve they will not be allowed to attend the club for the rest of that half term.

• Extreme behaviour will result in a ban.

The club is for everyone to enjoy themselves in a friendly and safe environment. Thank you for your support.

Book People Book Bus

A book bus will be visiting School21 on Friday, 15th March. 

Primary students and parents will be able to visit the bus after school (until 4.30) and will have the opportunity to buy books. 

This is a great opportunity to raise funds for our school library.

Look out for leaflets coming home soon.  

Mrs Fisher

Librarian

Recieving Emails from School 

Those with Yahoo email accounts need to add: 

3164001@capita-intouch.co.uk  as a safe contact so that they can receive emails from the school.

Overdue Library Books

Please return your overdue library books! We currently have over 500 books overdue. This means that students are unable to borrow popular books. 

Students are allowed to borrow up to three books for a loan period of one month and can be renewed after this period should the need arise. Any books that are lost or damaged must be replaced. 

Mrs Fisher
Librarian

Next Week's Lunch Menu is Week 3!