ST MARY’S CE(C) FIRST SCHOOL & NURSERY

Helping Each Other To Do Our Best

Phone: 01785 840314

Email: office@st-marys-wheatonaston.staffs.sch.uk

Newsletter 24 18th May, 2018

Key dates: Spring term 2018

W/c 14th May Christian Aid week The children have learnt about others less fortunate than themselves and have considered finding strength in the face of adversity.

Wednesday 23rd May Hope ‘Share a pencil day’ The children will be invited to ‘share a pencil’ for the day to help them to appreciate the things that they have and think again about those who are not as lucky.

Thursday 24th May Year 4 Science lesson delivered by Mrs Kimber

Thursday 24th May Educational Visit to the Exotic Zoo for Years 1 & 2. Please return tear off slips by the 21st May and pay via Parent Pay please. Thank you.

Multi Sports Mayhem

Course.

Tuesday 29th, Wednesday 30th and Thursday 31st May. 9.00 a.m.—4.00 p.m. £15.00 per day. Football, Basketball, Cricket, Tennis, Dodgeball, Tag Rugby, Handball and much more! Your child will need to bring a packed lunch.

Friday 25th May Non uniform day Please donate £1 for - donations will be made to Christian Aid Break up for Half Term

Monday 4th June First Day Back

Friday 29th June Sports Day—Weather permitting. Alternative day (if required) 13th July, 2018

Dear Parents,

As the warm weather continues the children have been enjoying learning and playing outdoors as much as possible. We all also enjoyed a superb street party banquet on Thursday and the children looked wonderful in their red, white and blue clothing. Our sponsored fitness circuit with world champion sport aerobic medallist Stefania Lenart has been a huge success and, as always, we thank our fantastic community for their ongoing support for these school events. We couldn’t do it without you! St Mary’s truly is a wonderful place to learn.

Mrs. C. Stanford

Clubs: NEW DATES!!

Football

Yrs. 2,3 & 4

Thursdays

3.15 p.m.– 4.15 p.m.

2018

June 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th

July, 5th & 12th

Multi Sports

Yrs. 1,2,3 & 4

Mondays

3.15 p.m.—4.15 p.m.

2018

June 4th, 11th

18th & 25th

July 2nd & 9th

EKO

Yrs. 2,3 & 4

Tuesdays

2018

TBC

J-Team

Yrs. 3 & 4 age 7 and up

Wednesdays

2018

TBC

For Football and Multi Sports Forms

Please contact the office.

With half term fast approaching, it is an ideal time to have a clear out and raise money with our Bag2School collection. Bag2School have increased the range of good quality, re-usable items that they will accept. Please donate men’s, ladies and children’s clothing, paired shoes (tied together or elastic band around), handbags, hats, bags, belts, scarves and ties, jewellery, lingerie & socks, soft toys and household linen, curtains, towels and bedding (bed sheets, pillow cases and duvet covers). Collection bags will be sent home this week. Bag2School do accept items in any bag, however should you wish to use one of their bags, additional bags will be in the school reception. Please encourage friends and family to support us too.

The deadline for receipt of bags is 9am on Wednesday 13th June.

Please remember breakfast club and after school club places are available at St Mary’s

Breakfast club opens at 8am and afterschool club is available until 6pm daily.

Please speak to Mr Alexander in the school office for further details

CELEBRATION ASSEMBLY

Year Writing Maths Reading Creative

Nursery Amelia

Reception Alexia Rose Michael

Year 1 Skye Sam Imogen

Year 2 Jensen May Ellen

Year 3/4 Peter Darcy

Other Awards

Swimming Alexia and Ellen

Gymnastics Alexia and Freya

Well done to all our

Celebration Children!

As you are aware, all schools have a statutory obligation to ensure pupils are in school as much as possible so that they get their entitlement to good quality learning and teaching. Regular absences from school can affect:

Attainment levels — the quality of school work and qualifications gained. School routine — disrupting your child’s learning and that of the other pupils. The chances of children and young people being involved in anti-social behavior. A child or young person’s general well-being and long term life opportunities. Improving regular attendance at school is therefore a key priority, both locally and nationally. We have to make sure that we follow up any poor or worrying attendance issues by ‘phone calls, letters, meetings, home visits or referrals to the Education Welfare Service. As such, our office staff or Education Welfare Officer will now carry out home visits when we have not been informed of a child’s absence; this ensures our safeguarding procedures are followed as quickly as possible. Thank you for supporting our procedures as many families ensure their children are in school on time and every day. We also reward good attendance with certificates at appropriate times. We also refuse holiday requests unless for exceptional reasons. To support this process every school in the Wolgarston Collaboration of schools has signed an agreement with ‘Attend’ - which is an Independent Education Welfare Support Service that will support us with Attendance and Punctuality and Welfare needs. The staff who work for ‘Attend’ have a wealth of experience supporting pupils and families. They work in many Staffordshire Schools and have helped families get their children into school more regularly and helped the schools increase attendance levels. Whilst our usual attendance procedures will continue, we will be supported by Louise Evans. She may contact you from time to time if we have any concerns regarding your child’s absence, however, if you feel you need this support then please contact the school office who will pass your message to her. We will be writing to all parents again shortly with details about Attend and inviting you to a general meeting with their Educational Welfare Team.

Louise Evans—Education Welfare Officer of Attend, pictured.

Royal Wedding party lunch

The children had a fantastic time celebrating the upcoming marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markles by joining us for a Royal Wed-ding buffet lunch on Thursday. We hope that the children enjoyed the food kindly prepared by our kitchen staff. Thank you to every-one that made this possible.

We hope that many of our families will be able to join us for the PTA tea and cake after school this Friday.

This term our Year 2 children have enjoyed a variety of art projects as part of the topic on Africa. Our art room has been decorated with some superb pastel pictures and the children have even designed and made

their own African inspired necklaces. Well done all!

HAPPY FACES WEARING THEIR OWN CREATIONS Fabulous Artwork, beautifully illustrating the majestic

plains of the Savannah!

Share a pencil day—Wednesday 23rd May 2018

Next week the children at St Mary’s will be taking part in Share a Pencil day. Share a Pencil Day aims to teach children in the UK about global education; why millions of children still don't have access to a basic education and understand a little more

about the issues faced globally by millions of children affected by extreme poverty, natural disasters, war and conflict. On this day, the children will be asked to share 1 pencil between 2 to help them appreciate what learning is like without the most basic

materials we take for granted.

Sports for Champions

The children have had an amazing time this afternoon meeting sport aerobic champion Stefania Lenart and learning all about her sport. They enjoyed watching her presentation and the video of her medal winning performance. We all then enjoyed taking part in our sponsored fitness circuit in the hall.

Thank you to all of our families who sponsored their children to take part in this event. The school raised a staggering £1,153.00. These donations will be shared between the school and the Sports for Champions charity to support upcoming GB athletes.

Safeguarding update

Fabricated or Induced Illness

Fabricated or induced illness (FII) is a rare form of child abuse. It occurs when a parent or carer, usually the child’s biological mother, exaggerated or deliberately causes symptoms of illness in the child. In fabri-cated or induced illness, the parent may present the child as ill when they are healthy, deliberately induce symptoms of illness, manipulate test results, or exaggerate or lie about symptoms.

Fabricated or induced illness is often unreported, undetected, and is emotionally harmful. It is a very com-plex issue and very rare. Some of the indicators of fabricated or induced illness, include:

the medical history doesn’t make sense

treatment is ineffective

the symptoms disappear when the carer isn’t around, and

they can be seen repeatedly by different professionals looking for different things.

In all cases, the child’s normal life is restricted.

C Stanford

Mr. D. I. Swift, Executive Head Teacher Mrs. C. Stanford, Acting Deputy Headteacher

IMPORTANT HEALTH AND SAFETY/SAFEGUARDING MESSAGE

As noted in our previous newsletters, we MUST insist that children are supervised by an adult when on the school site. Please ensure that your child is supervised until the gates open at 8:45am.

Thank you for your support.

Just a few of Stefania’s Medals.