Dear Parents and Carers,
Parent Consultations
Thank you to all parents who attended the parent consultations this week. It’s an important time in the school calendar when staff get to share your child’s strengths and also their next steps. We value the support from our families and are keen to work closely with you to ensure your child flourishes and can be the best they can be. I hope that you found your meetings helpful.
Bonfire Night
Thank you to our amazing PSA and volunteers that helped make Bonfire Night at St Mary’s a real success. It appeared to be a great success and was enjoyed by all. I also wanted to highlight the amazing work that Mr Bruce does to help prepare and keep us all safe at Rectory Gardens school events, but also every day. He is our expert in ensuring our grounds and building are not only looking great, but also that they are safe for us all. Similarly, Mr Murphy is our expert at Church Lane. I’m sure you will agree that they both do an amazing job.
Black History Celebrations
As you will be aware, Black History Month is celebrated in October, however having Black history embedded into our curriculum and reflecting our community is our aim. Please ask the children throughout the year about some of things they have been learning about and participating in. This week it was wonderful to see the children at Church Lane enjoying African drumming and similarly the children at Rectory Gardens enjoying the steel pans. There was a real buzz around both sites with not only with the sound of the music but also the chatter of excited children participating! I was blown away this morning by the children at Rectory Gardens performing in assembly. Each class performed a poem by Black poets, three of them female. The poems were read with enthusiasm, passion and meaning, engaging the other children and adults throughout. It is important that we celebrate and learn about our similarities and differences in the amazing diverse community of which we are part.
Book Fair
I hope that you had the opportunity to visit the book fair at each site this week. It was fantastic to see children enthusiastic about choosing new books to read or to share with their families. You may be aware that we are rewarded with some free books from the company depending on how many are sold, which is amazing for our children. We had sold £500 pounds worth of books at the last count, although I suspect we have sold more, so thank you to all of the families that used this opportunity to purchase some new books.
Christmas Fair
As you will be aware, the Christmas Fair is fast approaching and I hope that we will see you all there on Friday 1st December. There will be Santa’s Grotto, tombola, raffle, a giant snow globe and much more (see information below).
St Mary’s Christmas Bake Off
Do you enjoy baking? Are you competitive? This year we will be having a St Mary’s Christmas Bake Off. This will involve parents, staff and children baking a Christmas themed cake or cakes at home. These will be brought into school the day before the Christmas Fair (Thursday 30th) where we will have a special panel of judges to select winners. Winners will be announced, and prizes given out, at the Christmas Fair and cakes will be sold to the school community on the Thursday and the Friday. Watch this space for more details. As someone who enjoys baking, I have already started my entry. My nut-free, fruit-filled Christmas cake has been baked and is waiting to be decorated. Happy baking everyone!
Wishing you all a happy weekend and see you on Monday!
Best wishes,
Jane O’Brien
Headteacher
