Dear Parents and Carers,
The weather has certainly changed and it looks like we are in for some wetter and unsettled weather over the half term break so have your rain jackets at the ready! Can you believe that the half term break is here already? The time has flown. Whatever you are doing next week, I hope that you manage to spend some quality time with loved ones and have a bit of a rest as the next half term is extremely busy. We are looking forward to our school community Bonfire Night, the Christmas Fair and I know that the Y6 children are looking forward to their trip to Pendarren, so ensure you have all the dates in the diary.
School Development Priorities and Coffee Morning
It was fabulous to see so many of you at the School Development Coffee Morning on Tuesday 10th October. We had 20 parents attend the meeting and I was able to share the priorities for the school year. It was also great to hear your thoughts about St Mary’s and how we can continue to improve. I will be having another coffee morning in the Spring term and hope that we will have even more families attend. Watch out for the next date! In the meantime you can read our Development Priorities School Improvement Priority Areas
Harvest Festival
For me one of the highlights of the half term, was the Harvest Celebration this week. It was a special moment seeing the whole school together in the hall at Rectory Gardens, with staff, families and friends from the community. Thank you to everyone that donated items to the Foodbank, it will make a huge difference to people during these financially challenging times. This was a celebration that made everyone smile because of the wonderful music and singing (a special thank you to Ms Peacock) and the participation of the children and the school community to help others. In keeping with tradition, the children formed a very long queue to give me food items that I had to sing and put on the Harvest table! My singing was not as wonderful as the children’s however it was great fun.
Year 3
As part of the transition to Rectory Gardens the Year 3 children have been entering school at a different entrance to Years 4, 5 and 6 for the past few weeks. Now the children have settled and are familiar with the site, we are asking that children enter through the main gate after half term. The start time remains the same and, as always, parents are welcome to escort their children into the playground.
Parent School Association (PSA) AGM
The Annual General Meeting of the PSA took place this week sharing information on how much money had been raised in the past year and how money had been spent to further enhance your children’s experience at St Mary’s. It was great to see some new faces join the meeting to help us think about future events however, we still need more members of the PSA to ensure we can have things like Bonfire Night and the Christmas Fair. It is not too late to put yourself forward, so please contact the school office if you can help in anyway. We are also looking for 4 new class representatives, please see further information below.
Israel / Hamas conflict
Like me, I’m sure that you have all felt sadness at what is happening in Israel and Gaza. Simply, there are innocent people both in Israel and Gaza who are suffering because of this conflict. After careful consideration and taking advice we talked about the conflict with our older children at Rectory Gardens. We shared facts about where this was happening, the people that are affected and reflected on how the people felt. We talked about how our school vision and values should always guide our actions, words and choices, however in times such as these we should be even more mindful of our wonderfully diverse community and show compassion to those impacted.
Social media
I am sending a reminder to remind families that that none of our children should be accessing social media. The age limits for different platforms are shown below. We teach the children this at school however it is useful for you to know this information when having discussions with your children. Often the communication on social media at such a young age can lead to upset which we are trying to avoid. I hope you will support us in enforcing this message.
Wishing you all a lovely half term break and we look forward to seeing everyone on Tuesday 31st October as we have an Inset day on the Monday.
With best wishes,
Jane O’Brien
Headteacher
