September 2020, Reception & Yr3 places

WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

w/c 27th April 2020 Head Teacher: Mrs Sharon Hillyard

Tel: 02476 316 034

Trenance Rd, Exhall,

Coventry, CV7 9FJ

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Teacher

Phone Calls

All offers for Warwickshire Schools have now been made. You should have received an e-mail in the on-line portal confirming your child’s place for September.

www.warwickshire.gov.uk/admissions

If you have not had anything, then you urgently need to contact the Admissions

Team by e-mail only. admissions@warwickshire.gov.uk We are unable to help in School, as we do not have access to their systems.

All Teachers will be phoning the parents of their class

children regularly.

This is a great opportunity to keep in touch and ask any

questions that you may have.

The teachers would love to speak to the children too!

It is a Government Directive that we contact you, so

please make every effort to answer the phone when we

call! Thanks.

Letters from Mrs Hillyard

Please find attached a ‘Welcome to the Summer Term’ letter and a Free School Meals letter from Mrs Hillyard. These were sent out on our Schudio

App last week.

Schudio is the best way to keep in touch with the latest updates. Download it from the Apple Store or Google Play and select

Exhall Cedars as your school. Instructions are attached at the back of the newsletter.

School Closed

School remains closed until further notice, apart from a limited number of childcare places for our Key Worker parents. There is no-one available in the School office so

please do not telephone. All contact should be made via our e-mail address:

admin2635@welearn365.com

Hello and Goodbye

We said a hurried goodbye to Mrs Whittle on our last day before the schools closed. Mrs Whittle had been with us since Christmas in Daffodil Class. We

enjoyed having her with us and wish her well for the future.

We are delighted to welcome Miss Hunt as our new

permanent class teacher for Daffodil. She has been working closely with

Miss Jackson, Miss Wheatley and Mrs Lee already and is looking forward to meeting all the children when we are

back in school.

She has sent out a video to Daffodil class parents, this is on our website.

Useful Numbers

Mrs Kapadia has beaten her £1,000 target for Marie Curie’s Daffodil appeal. Thanks to all

who donated!

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/hazra-kapadia

Domestic Abuse Help

Children in School - Lunches

Well done Mrs Kapadia!

Home Learning

Our Home Learning is on the main page of our website

www.exhallcedars.org

It will be updated each week by 10am on Monday mornings.

We are really enjoying seeing the photos of the children enjoying their activities and these are passed onto each Teacher, who will write

back with a personal message.

We are working on setting up Google Classrooms,

where you will be able to directly upload your child’s work, but please continue

to use admin2635@welearn365.com until further notice.

Please encourage your child to complete the

activities. There are lots of fun things that you can do together. The work

is topic-based and should just re-inforce their existing learning, rather than

introducing something new.

Please ask if you have any questions!

If your child is attending our Key Worker/Vulnerable children childcare, then

please ensure you send a cold packed lunch.

We have no facilities to reheat food and the School kitchens are not open. Thanks!

Family Information Service

The Warwickshire Family Information Service (FIS) is a great source of information and

is brilliant for pointing you in the right direction if you need help.

https://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/fis

They have a Facebook page too:

https://www.facebook.com/WarwickshireFIS

You can sign up for their newsletter here:

https://mailchi.mp/warwickshire/familyinfoservice

URGENT!!! FUNDING FOR SCHOOL MEALS It has been brought to my attention that 'Free School Meals' funding is causing some confusion. UNIVERSAL SCHOOL MEALS All children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 are provided with a daily school lunch under the 'Universal Meals' funding. Government definition - Universal infant free school meals (UIFSM) provides funding for all government funded schools to provide a daily school meal to pupils in Reception, Year1 & Year2. FREE SCHOOL MEALS (FSM) Some parents might also qualify for Free School Meals funding depending upon household income and/or benefits. This is additional funding that school receives to ensure the children have access to wider range of resources. Families who receive at least one of the following are eligible for free school meals:

income support

income-based Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA)

income-related employment and support allowance (ESA)

guarantee element of state pension credit

Universal Credit (with an annual income of less than £7,400)

Both income-based and contribution-based JSA/ESA if you receive the same amount for both. You should also qualify if you receive both but the income-based amount is greater, but not if the contribution-based amount is greater.

Families who are awarded Child Tax Credit and have an annual income, as assessed by HMRC, not in excess of £16,190 are also eligible to claim free school meals providing there is no entitlement to Working Tax Credit (unless in respect of a 4-week ‘run-on’)

If you have applied before and have not been eligible, please re-apply again if your circumstances have changed. You can re-apply each time your circumstances change. All that is needed is your National Insurance Number, the system does an automatic check and you will receive an instant answer. Once you are eligible, this will remain in place until 2022, to protect families during the Universal Credit transition. Once your child is in Year 3 or above a school lunch costs, at current rate, £2.25 per day. However, should your child be eligible for FSM, this will be transferred to the Junior School and your child will receive free school lunches. Therefore, we are asking all parents/carers of children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 to apply for this funding. During the current school closures, each eligible child can access a £15 voucher per week which can be spent in the majority of the supermarkets. When we return to school, as a thank you, each new child will receive £15 uniform voucher for the Toye, Kenning and Spencer shop and will be eligible for free school milk. If your child is eligible, the school will receive an automatic notification. We will then be in touch regarding the voucher set up.