Class Stars 🙂

Our Early Years… Blossom Hall

Class 2…  Henry Carlino

Class 3… Arwen Brooks

Class 4… Edie Springett

This ½ term’s school value is…

We are Curious

We encourage a sense of joy, wonder and curiosity in the wider world…  “Live life in all its fullness.” John 10:10

Next term it’s “We Are Confident”

To help our children lay foundations for the rest of their lives by helping them develop self-esteem and belief in themselves…  “I know the plans I have for you; plans to bring about the future you hope for.” Jeremiah 29 v.11

 

We made it!  (Well, we have several children away for one reason or another but most of us made it to the last day of term… so well done!)

After all the hard work the children put in for their shows, and the staff prepping it all too of course, it was such a shame that we had to postpone the productions.  We did try, but sometimes these things get the better of us and we just couldn’t go ahead.

However, Preschool children did manage to put on their Christmas production and the link for this has been emailed to the parents this morning.  We hope to do something similar in the new year for Cinderella and also for Hey Ewe. 

Thanks to all the staff for being so upbeat, positive and supportive during what’s turned out to be a very tiring term! 

I wish everyone a lovely Christmas break.  I hope it’s a healthy and restful one and I look forward to seeing everyone back in the New Year!      

What’s happened this week? 

Our EYFS class had a snowball fight in the playground… they watched Preschool’s play… they also wrote some lovely letters to Santa and the Elf… and played with their new fire Truck!  

Class 2 made dragon puppets and I have to say, they’re gorgeous!  As well as writing instructions for how to wash different types of dragons, they also did some end of year tests just to find out what gaps we needed plugging next term!

Class 3 also had an excellent time this week finishing off their river work, and the art work they produced of water coloured fish with crayon highlights certainly deserved a few photos being blogged!

Class 4 extended the writing theme and wrote some information pages on a Wallace and Gromit invention.

We issued Warn and Inform letters the previous week, but on Monday we also issued outbreak letters to Class 4.  School guidance changed at the start of the week and because it’s so difficult to keep up with what to do, we blogged about this with a very handy flowchart.  It explains really clearly what you need to do if you’ve not got symptoms, if you do have symptoms and if you’re a contact with someone.  Blog link here… and Infographic link here.  The only addition to this is to say that everyone should really use the two week break to get their booster, if they’ve not done so already.    

DfE guidance for schools in January is simply to be aware of changes and prepare for any possible impact.   Of course, we’ve no idea what’s going to come about from Covid cases doubling so frequently and any possible impact from families mixing so much over Christmas, but we still need to be prepared.  Google Classroom is our go-to for supporting children who need to be at home and we will email and blog details of our remote plan and login information if or when we need to. 

We’ve been extremely fortunate that staff have all tested negative over the term (something to do with being distant, bathing in sanitizer and wearing masks almost 24/7) but our plan for staff absence is to use the bank of supply staff we usually use.  

Schools have found that Test and Trace hasn’t quite worked as well as it should do, so even though schools are not involved in tracking and tracing at all (and the parents’ Whatsapp and Facebook connections are working really well) please feel free to email me (address at the bottom) about a 18th, 19th and 20th December positive case and I’ll email the class’ parents.  This does not replace Test and Trace and you should most certainly follow the instructions on your positive case notification.   

 

Attendance so far…

Year 6 96.5% … Year 5 97.2% … Year 4 95.5% … Year 3 96.7%
Year 2 96.6% …  Year 1 92.8% …  Reception 93%

School average 95.47%

Today’s attendance… 72.4%

This week The school and Government’s target is 96.5% 

We’re still being cautious regarding Covid-19 in the area.  Please keep an eye out for the three main symptoms (temperature, new cough, lack of taste) and book a PCR test if they come about.  Devon’s Risk Assessment and the guidance from DfE says that 

  • positive cases should isolate

  • people with symptoms should go for a PCR

  • contacts should also go for a PCR and do 7x daily LFD tests.  

“Live life in all its fulness.” 

John 10:10

Dates in the diary… bottom of the front page…

https://georgehamceps.wpengine.com/

Dinner Menu…

https://georgehamceps.wpengine.com/dinner-menu/ 

Our school’s Designated Safeguarding Officer is Julian Thomas
We have three Deputy Safeguarding Officers; Lucy Rinvolucri, Emma Hill and Jo Benfield.
head@georgeham-primary.devon.sch.uk     

If you have any concerns that you’d like to discuss, please call through to Jo and ask for an appointment with one of us.  You may also find some useful or helpful information on our Safeguarding webpage…  https://georgehamceps.wpengine.com/staying-safe/