Class Stars 🙂 Well done to…

Our Early Years… Freya-Grace Clerk

Congratulations to Bluebell for gaining her certificate for learning 10 nursery rhymes at home as part of our Preschool nursery rhyme challenge.

Class 2… Mitzy-Rose Guedez

Class 3… Vinny Turner

Class 4… Elowyn Atkinson

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

This ½ term’s school value is…

We are a Community.

We encourage a sense of belonging and responsibility towards each other, our environment and the world we live in.

‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ (Matthew 22 v39)

Attendance so far…

School average for this week
Class 1: 84.4% Class 2: 98% Class 3: 96.1% Class 4: 94.2%

School average for the year so far: 95.7%

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.

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

Welcome back everyone. This week we’ve thought a lot about being a Community. I was at the Licencing Service for the new vicar, Revd. Tim and I welcomed him to the community on behalf of our school. It was a really nice moment. So was setting off the pancake races the next day and seeing our Family Groups working so hard together and supporting each other. Even more so with Class 3 of course, as they grouped and worked together as brave Britons and then as a great and effective Roman garrison. Click here for more info > Roman Workshop

We are a Community. We encourage a sense of belonging and responsibility towards each other, our environment, and the world we live in.

When we have a moment to think, pray, or reflect about our sense of belonging, I hope we also spare a moment to think about the Ukraine war and the people who have been displaced. It’s a complex area to think about, but ‘Loving Our Neighbour’ is the simplest of bible passages that we consider this half-term and we’ll support our children as best we can in all areas of their development, including this one.

Parents may have received the email today regarding the planned strike on Thursday.

The teachers have a again been considerate enough to let me know in advance that they support the strike and so we will therefore have to do what we did last time and only open for Preschool. I have pasted the email’s text at the bottom of the Newsletter if you didn’t receive it.

Gym Club (Thursday) is run by Rob from DTA
and will be taking place as usual.

Rob will be at school from 8am and we’ll put on teas and coffees for any parents who would like to stay and wait.

World Book Day … is on Wednesday
Apologies for the change from Thursday, to Friday then back to Wednesday, but with a whole class out of school for Friday morning, they really wanted to have the opportunity to take part too. (Dear parents, it’s not a competition. We normally dress up, but if some children want to come in non-uniform and just bring their favourite book, that’s fine too!)

Class 3 parents should have received a permission for the St. George’s Residential. There’s also a parents’ meeting on Monday (2.20pm) where we’ll talk about the trip.

Monday – we’re back to our swimming session, and we’ll also be taking year 2 with us this half-term. It’s a really good idea if the children can be dressed in their costume under their uniform, and have everything labelled in a bag. Ilfracombe pool insists that swim hats are worn.

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You may have noticed, or heard through the WhatsApp parent groups, that the dinner menu is on the website and the link is also at the bottom of the Newsletter.

Friday 24th February

Industrial Action / School Closure:
Thursday 2nd March

Dear Parent / Guardian,

As you will be aware from the news and our newsletters, the teachers’ union, the NEU, will be taking industrial action next week on Thursday 30th February.

The impact of this is that our whole school will be closed for the day, with only our preschool open for children on the register for that day.

We are very aware that a school closure inconveniences parents and carers and so I am writing to give you notice of the impact of the action as soon as we were able to.

The next planned strike action days (March 15th and March 16th) will be treated as two separate days, and we will again try to give as much notice as possible about how these could effect our school.

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.

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)

Click here to get to the front page

Dinner Menu…

Click here to access everything about school lunches

The school’s Designated Safeguarding Lead is Julian Thomas
Our Deputy Safeguarding Leads are Emma Hill and, our interim SENDCo, Laura Hapgood
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/