Blandford St Mary Primary School Newsletter Headteacher: Mr Paul Lavis Deputy Headteacher: Mrs Sam Harris
10th September 2010 Volume: 3 Issue No.1 Contents:
Hrmph...
2
Home-School Agreements
2
School Admissions
2
Useful information
3
Dates
4
Upcoming Events School to be validated for UNCRC (Rights Responsibilities) 29th September.
Harvest Festival— Friday 24th September (in school) and Sunday 26th September (at Blandford St Mary Church)
Clubs begin next week...
Dear Parents Well, Summer went very quickly didn’t it? I hope you had a great summer break. We all did at school and are raring to go once more... well, almost anyway! Welcome to our new additions, apart from our new Reception Class (Jurassic Coast Base no less) we have five new pupils who have joined us from all over the United Kingdom. We are glad to have you all. Blandford St Mary Primary School now has now topped 180 pupils—the most we have ever had! Only another 30 to go and we’ll be full. It was only 5 years ago that we had around 100 children here. How times have changed. There will be many exciting things happening over the coming months—all the usual stuff like school productions, sporting fixtures, talent shows, parties, discos and much, much more. One thing that I’d like to draw to your attention is our Meet the Teacher event on 22nd September. This year it will be coupled with an opportunity for you to share in our positive behaviour policy here at school and discuss how we can all work together to support our children in becoming fantastic human beings and focussed learners. You may remember in October last year, we had nearly 80 parents take part in our Rights Respecting evening at school. If we could better that, that would be fantastic and benefit the whole
school community. There are more details inside this newsletter. Let us know if you are attending by filling in the form found on the main page of the school website. Please come along, support the school and then meet your child’s teacher. Local Food Links will be there to showcase some of the hot food they provide for the school too. You will know that we always try to give our children the opportunity to have their say in school matters and we have already started this year by asking the children to help us improve clubs and golden time in school. All the children have had the opportunity to complete surveys on both issues. The results have been very interesting and some opportunities have arisen that we hadn’t thought of before. Have a look inside the newsletter to see what’s on offer this time around. The school website has developed further and there is now the opportunity for you to follow updates from the office on Twitter!! If you are a follower please keep your eyes open. We’ll try to get information out regularly from the office and from myself—all relevant stuff of course! Finally—some rather sad news awaits you inside the newsletter... I need say no more, so read on...
Page 2
Blandford St Mary Primary School Newsletter
Volume: 3 Issue No.1
Sad News... Well, it had to happen one day I suppose—but it is with real regret that I have to inform you that Mrs Roberts (cornerstone of the school) is moving on to pastures new and an exciting new challenge in China and Hong Kong. (Cue the jokes about getting as far away from Blandford St Mary Primary School as possible.) Whilst she will be a huge loss to the school and all of its community—we are thrilled that she has the opportunity to spend more time travelling with her husband who already spends much of his time on the other side of the world. We will make more of a fuss I’m sure nearer the time, so, until she leaves in December, we will all have to make the most of having her wonderful personality and caring character around and use all of her vast knowledge and skills to try—desperately— to replace her... ...if anybody knows a hardworking, committed, patient, kind, selfless, cheerful, funny, loyal, talented miracle –worker; you’d better let me know...
(This is the Chinese symbol for ‘sad’.)
Home-School Agreements
This is the time of year when we like to get our paperwork in order! Every child in our school should have a home-school agreement signed by their parents and handed back to the school office. This document is important as it shares the school’s aims and objectives as well as setting out how we envisage working together with you and your child to make their time at Blandford St Mary Primary School a successful one. It also has important information on it relating to permission to take pictures and share on our school website etc as well as permission to allow your child to visit the local community as part of their learning without us having to ask permission over and over again.
School Transfer & Admissions
Believe it or not the deadline for admissions to secondary or upper schools in Dorset is fast approaching.
The magic date is: 31/10/10 If you visit the school website you will find a copy of the parents’ guide and a link to the local authority webpage that deals with admissions. Also—for those of you who have younger one’s starting school in the future—the deadline is 15th January 2011. This is a little way off but a gentle reminder anyway!
Blandford St Mary Primary School Newsletter Volume: 3 Issue No.1
Some Useful Information
Page 3
Blandford St Mary Primary School Newsletter Blandford St Mary Primary School Birch Avenue Blandford St Mary, Dorset DT11 9QD
Phone: 01258-453331 Fax: 01258-455865 Email: office@blandfordstmary.dorset.sch.uk www.blandfordstmary.dorset.sch.uk
Diary Dates: Monday 13th September 9am—School Nurse Drop-In Wednesday 22nd September 6pm—Meet the Teacher Friday 24th September 8.50am—School Harvest Festival Assembly Sunday 26th September 4pm—Blandford St Mary Church Harvest Festival Monday 25th October—Friday 29th October—Half-Term Sunday 31st October—Deadline for applications for Secondary Transfer Monday 1st November—Staff Training Day
………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
HAND IN THIS SLIP TO HAVE A CHANCE OF WINNING A PRIZE! September NEWSLETTER
Child’s Name……………………………………………………….
Base Name…………………………………Year Group…………………..
Please remember to look for the latest online survey—if you went to use a computer in school then you are more than welcome.