End of year Newsletter

Last day of term - Friday 20th July: school closes at the usual times

We would like to wish everyone a happy summer holiday, congratulate the children on their numerous achievements during the year and thank the staff and governors for their outstanding work this year.  A big thank you also to all our parents and carers for their encouragement and support.

All children will return to school at the usual times on Wednesday 5th September.  

Children need to line up in their current class lines for the last time.  By the end of the day they will go to their new lining up positions.  Children in the Junior classes may have different positions: we will mark the playground surface for them on the first day back.

Building works
The appointed contractors are due to start building the works compound in the playground space on the first day of the summer holidays.  They are then due to conduct the heavy excavations for the foundations and construction of the steel supports over August.  By the time we return in September we should see the building site in full swing.  This is an exciting opportunity for the school to expand it support for the community and we are looking forward to making the most of this challenge.  There will be opportunities for the children to further engage in the design of the playground spaces and to learn about the construction process itself. We will share more news as it becomes available.

Staffing News
At the end of term we sadly bid farewell to a few colleagues; Mr Ali goes off to teach abroad, we wish him all the best in his new career challenge.  Mrs Matharu leaves us to take up a post with our neighbours and partners, Highlands Primary; we wish her all the best in her move.  Mrs Raymore leaves us to relocate with her family: we hope the move is productive and wish her all the best in her future career.
As the year draws to a close we will be greeting some new colleagues who will join us in September.  We formally welcome Miss Yates to the teaching staff as a permanent teacher.  Our teaching team will be joined by Mrs Narwall, who joins us from her current school in North London to take up a post in Year One.  We also welcome two new teachers next year: Miss Ross and Miss Lee.  We will be supporting two School Direct Teacher Trainees over the coming year: Miss Yerosimou and Miss Sacco.  Please extend them every support with their training in the coming school year.  During the last week of term we will be interviewing for vacant positions in the Midday, Early Years Practitioner and SEND Practitioner teams.  News of the decisions will be shared with you once they are confirmed.

New communication App coming in September
We have reviewed our communication methods and have invested in the introduction of a new system called “School Ping”.  This is an App based system that allows us to combine the featues of our blog and texting services with new features such as online booking for parent consultations and text alerts for school events.  We are looking forward to using this next year.  We have planned an introductory meeting for you to attend at 9am on Wednesday 12th September in the Infant hall.  This will be backed up with a letter to let you know what to do to download the App onto your phone.  We hope to go live early in September.  Please watch out for more details.

End of year pupil results
We have now received all of the children’s end of year attainment results from the DfE.  The results notices have now all been given out or sent home.
We will publish a full summary of these results in September.  We have noted again some wonderfully high standards.  Highlights include:
• Higher than national results in all areas of the Early Learning Goals
• 95% of children in Y1 passed the Phonics Screening Check
• Average pass rate in Year Two for Reading, Writing and Maths was 84%, significantly higher than the national average
• Attainment for the most able children in year two is at least twice the national average
• Attainment in Year Six is above the national and local averages for all subjects
• Our biggest gains this year were in writing in Year Six where over 41% of the children achieved the higher level, nearly three times the national average
We would like to congratulate the children on their successes and pay tribute to their teachers who worked tirelessly to support their achievements.  We are really pleased with a very successful year, again!

Summer Fun Day – 13th July
We enjoyed a fabulous event last Friday.  The attendance was amazing and the atmosphere was great.   Feedback from the PTA, our children and their parents was very positive indeed.  As soon as the total of monies raised has been calculated, we will share this with you.
We extend a big thank you to all the families who attended our milestone community event of the year.  Our grateful thanks also go to the hard working members of the PTA itself who organised the whole event.  They worked tirelessly to ensure the event went well.  Their support is especially special to the school.

    

Summer Reading Challenge
We would encourage all children to sign up to take part in the local Libraries’ Summer Reading Challenge.  This a free event and will help the children to stay engaged with developing their reading skills over the summer holidays.  All you need to do is to go to one of the local libraries, register and then start reading and reviewing as many books as you can.  We hope you enjoy taking part.

We would like to wish everyone a happy summer holiday.  We hope you have a well deserved rest and look forward to supporting your children when they return in September.