Dear Parents,

It was great to meet some of you on Thursday afternoon, to introduce myself as interim headteacher. It was good to talk with parents about what they appreciate about the school, as well as how we could work better with parents and families.

I will repeat this meeting as a later session in a few weeks, in the hope that it will be a more convenient time for some of you to meet me. Details will follow.

In this newsletter, there is an update from Ali Smith (Chair of Governors) about the recruitment for a permanent headteacher for the school and about the school’s work with Ventrus Multi-Academy Trust.

Can I also draw your attention to the Harvest Festival – which will be at the church on Monday 9th October. It will be during the school day – we haven’t confirmed exact timings yet and will let you know as soon as we do.

Thank you all for your continued support,
Jonathan Gower

and from Ali Smith Chair of Governors:
It was a pleasure to join Mr Gower and meet parents yesterday.  The session was timely – Governors met on Monday to talk about the key priorities for the school in the year ahead.  One of our first and most important tasks is to recruit a permanent Head to lead the school.  I’m delighted to share that adverts for the position have now gone live and we are looking forward to meeting potential candidates, showing them around the school and interviewing those shortlisted.  We have received huge support in this process from Ventrus, through the Management Partnership we have.  Their team have considerable experience of senior leadership recruitment and, along with the Diocese of Exeter and our colleagues at Devon County Council’s education team, will support us throughout. We will keep you posted and update you when an appointment has been made.

Please give a big high five to this week’s class stars who are:

In early years… Rowan Carter

Class 2… Rosamund Tonge

Class 3… Reuben Brooks

Class 4… Isla Hopgood

Next week the NHS flu team are on site… have you given consent? If a consent form is not submitted your child will not be vaccinated. 

We are visiting your child’s school on 27 th September 2023. In order to access the online consent form, please enter or click on the following link https://www.kernowimmunisations.co.uk/Forms/Flu

PLEASE ENSURE YOU ENTER THE FULL UNIQUE SCHOOL REFERENCE CODE. The code for your child’s school is: DV113375

Please submit your consent form by midday 25th September 2023 to ensure your child receives their vaccination. If you experience any problems accessing the form please telephone  01392 342678

If you decide you do not want to vaccinate your child against flu, it would help us if you still complete and submit the consent form giving the reason.

We are community

Our school is a community, but we are also part of a wider local and global 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 this week

Here are this week’s attendance stats…
Whole school attendance this week is 94.99%
C1  95.3%      C2 97%      C3 91.5 %     C4 96.7%
our Autumn term whole school figure is 95.3 %

there has been some illness this week, do keep them home if they are poorly, but it would be good to see everyone here next Wednesday for the flu vaccination.

Please email or call the office before 9am should your child be too unwell to attend, stating the reason.
Please remember to inform us every day that you are keeping them at home. Thank you.

There is more information on the Attendance page  of our website.

Para Olympian visit – how is your sponsorship coming along ? are you practising the moves…!?!
Triathlete David Hill will be here the afternoon of Monday 2nd October. There are prizes for the amounts you raise, and the school will benefit too. Please read the sponsorship form if you have not done so already.

Christmas Shoe boxes – you should have had a leaflet in your big brown envelope this week. Find a shoe box, start collecting some small gifts, dig out the Christmas wrapping paper and you’ve got a half term activity to wrap it all up! Boxes will be collected on 13th November so please bring them in a few days beforehand.

Extra curricular reminders:
Ms McCormick (our sports lead) will be putting in an entry to the local schools cross country running events – look out for information on that soon…. its usually once a month on a Sunday. Your child would be representing the school but you will be responsible for getting your child to and during the events. Details to come next week…

Parent WhatsApp groups:
Are you on your class WhatsApp group ? Ask someone you know if you’d like to be added to your class group.
Its run for parents, by parents, but is a quick way to get information eg football is cancelled ! or what time do I have to be at xx? Do remember there will be quite a few parents on it so please don’t abuse it with too much personal chat 😉 Ideally its for important or urgent school matters only!

Diary Dates of note: 

Tues 26th Sept– Class 3 River Lynn all day trip.  *** EARLY START  LATER FINISH***
We are a community ! Do help each other out if this is tricky for you – maybe consult your WhatsApp group? or let us know and we will see how we can help.

Wednesday 27th Sept – whole school flu nasal spray vaccination – please follow the links to opt in or out. https://www.kernowimmunisations.co.uk/Forms/Flu

Thursday 28th and Friday 29th – the Appledore book festival are sending us an Author or two – get your books in advance if you want the author to sign it for you… Ms McCormick sent out an email on that…

Monday 2nd October – David Hill visit – whole school to come in  PE kit please.

Monday 9th October – Harvest festival – more on this next week.

Fri 20th October – the last Friday of this half term – is an INSET day 

Click here  for the school calendar which can be found at the bottom of the website home page.

Attendance… We report the attendance of individual year groups as it’s a really good way to see if school attendance is at a good percentage…  as high as possible of course! The DfE have a target of 96.5%
Attending school regularly is vital to help children achieve and to give them the best possible start in life. It’s also the legal requirement of parents once children are of school age and enrolled in mainstream education. Ofsted has a strong view about attendance of course. 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 Friday October 20th.
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.

Nut free !  This is really important as there are nut allergy sufferers in the school.
Peanuts and most kinds of tree nuts such as almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, and pine nuts, should not be brought into school in any form i.e. in snack bars, peanut butter sandwiches, or even as pesto pasta !

Keri is super aware about keeping our staff and children safe by ensuring the kitchen and surrounding areas are kept allergen free; she is very happy to speak with you if you have concerns.

The school’s Designated Safeguarding Lead is Mr Jonathan Gower
Our Deputy Safeguarding Lead is  Emma Hill and our interim SENDCo is 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/