Class Stars 🙂 Well done to…

Our Early Years… Ben Sanders

Class 2… Tess Hill-Dymond

Class 3… Jess Betteridge

Class 4… Isla Hopgood

Could you ensure our teddies come back the following week please? …thank you!

This ½ term’s school value is…

We are Confident.

We 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 v11)

Attendance so far…

School average for this week:
Class 1: 100% Class 2: 97.6% Class 3: 94.2% Class 4: 97.7%

School average for the term: 95.3%

Illnesses and holidays impact our attendance data and the children’s learning opportunities.
It can also be a trigger for Ofsted, as they expect attendance to be in the high 90’s.

The only way to bring this back up towards the DfE target of 97%… is improved attendance.
(However, we really do appreciate that when a child is ill, they’re ill.)

(Please have a look at our Attendance page on our website for more information.)

Kung Hei Fat Choi everyone!  (Chinese New Year – starts on Sunday – do have a quick look at the lovely photos from our early years!)

What a mixed bag of information we have for you this week.

Firstly… attendance at school is really imprortant as it can have a negative impact if a child is frequently late or has more than the odd few days away for illness.  The DfE has set targets for all schools, and Devon County Council has recently asked us for information regarding our school data and pupil’s attendance and, as a result, we’ve sent a few letters out this week highlighting pupils’ attendance and asking for it to be improved.  Don’t forget, we can’t authorise holidays in term time and DCC issue penatly notices for absences over 10 sessions (5 days).

Secondly… if we have any adverse weather that leads to the difficult decision to close the school, this will be communicated via the blog.  A blogged post, just like this Newsletter, goes onto the school’s website, gets posted to Facebook and also comes through as an email to our subscribers.  We also inform Radio Devon and Devon CC so that it goes onto their school closures website.

and Lastly…

UNION STRIKE ACTION

You will be aware from the news that the National Education Union (NEU) have balloted their members and will be taking strike action on the following dates.

Wednesday 1 February – all England

[Tuesday 28 February – Northern, North West, Yorkshire & the Humber regions]

[Wednesday 1 March – East Midlands, West Midlands & Eastern regions ]

Thursday 2 March-London, South East & South West regions

Wednesday 15 March-all England

Thursday 16 March – all England

This is a national dispute and is not confined to just our school.  Regrettably, the industrial action may mean that we will not be able to provide our usual level of service on those days.

As yet, I do not have confirmation of exactly what classes will be effected by the strike action, but there is a strong possibility that at least some classes will be affected.

I will inform you as soon as possible, once I’m aware of which classes the strike will affect.  If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact me.

The Braunton Learning Cooperative Trust is putting on another Internet Safety Session for parents (not for children) on Wednesday the 1st February at 8pm.  The session last year was extremely informative and I hope as many of our parents log in as possoible.

Please follow the specific set of ‘joining instructions‘ just prior to 8pm on the 1st.   Link < just there.

Thursday 2nd March – is World Book Day. Please note that we dress up as a book character for the day, so do please have a think about who / what you could dress up as!

If this can’t go ahead on Thursday the 2nd, it will be rolled over to the Friday.  We’ll keep you informed.

We’re a Nut free school, so that means that most kinds of tree nuts (such as almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, pine nuts) and also peanuts shouldn’t be brought in to school. Sadly, this also means that pesto sauce shouldn’t be brought into school as it contains pine nuts. Sorry if this causes any inconvenience, but I hope you can help us as best as you can to keep our children safe.

As a result of the resounding success of the Let’s Talk Teenagers programme… South Devon and Dartmoor Community Safety Partnership are pleased to offer FREE online sessions for parents and carers of pre-teens this month.

The Let’s Talk program is designed to increase parents’ and carers’ knowledge of the key risks, whilst giving simple tools and techniques to help them support their child.

As a partnership we acknowledge that parenting can be really difficult, especially in such challenging times. We want to get these resources to as many parents and carers as possible and would be really grateful if you could share this information with your parents and carers.

Attendance is free, and access and registration is available at Let’s Talk Pre-Teens .

The topics covered will be:

already held – Biology, Difficult emotions, Substance misuse

24th January 2023 – Relationships, Exploitation, Pornography, Societal Stereotypes

31st January 2023 – Physical risks, Safety planning, Mental health, Self-care

Clubs Webpage for more info…

Wrap Around Provision & After School Clubs

Attendance… We frequently report the attendance of individual year groups as it’s a really good way to see if school attendance is at a good percentage… with it as high as possible of course! The DfE have a target of 96.5% but sadly, we finished the year, last July, being slightly below this.
Attending school regularly is vital to help children achieve and to give them the best possible start in life. It’s also a legal requirement of parents once children are of school age and enrolled in mainstream education. Ofsted has a strong view about attendance of course and, therefore, too many absences can lead into difficult discussions about how we can support children to achieve and do well – we could even be downgraded for our current Good status as a result.
Absences will only be authorised if they meet exceptional circumstances. With only 190 statutory school days in the year, there are 175 days (weekends and school holidays) left to plan for family visits, non-urgent medical/dental appointments, holidays etc. School holidays are published well in advance and parents are expected to plan and take family holidays at this time so as not to disrupt their child’s education. We also try to arrange our Inset (training) days to provide time for travel… such as this term’s October 21st.
Holidays… are almost always not recognised as meeting ‘exceptional circumstances’ and therefore an absence would be unauthorised. This could result in a penalty notice being issued by DCC.
Punctuality is important too, and the earlier we get our children into the right habits, the better. You may not realise that being just 5 minutes late every day equals 3 days of school lost a year. Please bring your child for 8.45am when they door is open and the classroom has a learning activity ready for them.

Dates in the diary… bottom of the front page…

https://georgehamceps.wpengine.com/

Dinner Menu…

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

The school’s Designated Safeguarding Lead is Julian Thomas
Our Deputy Safeguarding Leads are Emma Hill and Laura Hapgood (our interim SENSCo)
You can contact us on dsl@georgeham-primary.devon.sch.uk

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

[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]