Newsletter 28th September 2018

Posted on September 28, 2018 | By Mr Cole | 2 responses

FOWS AGM

A huge thank you to everyone who turned up to the FOWS A.G.M. last night. I am delighted to say we have four new members on your Committee – welcome to Anna, Sarah, Rachel and Poppy. Marie will also remain on the committee and your three officers have agreed to stay on for another year too. Gitta will remain as Secretary, Sarah as Treasurer and Lynsey as Chair.  However, with FOWS having spent £6000 on the Chromebooks last year, and in the process of replacing the Forest School waterproofs, accounts are really low at the moment and the committee will be very busy in the coming weeks planning new fundraising events.

Hallowe’en Disco

Unfortunately, our usual DJ from Nelly’s Disco is undergoing surgery and will not be able to run our disco on 19th October as planned. We really don’t want to cancel the disco as the children get so much pleasure from dressing up in Hallowe’en costume. At such short notice, neither the DJ or the committee are able to find a disco who is free on that night and so we are putting out an urgent appeal for anyone who is prepared to run the music/games side of the disco this year for us. Please let us know early next week if you have any ideas, otherwise we will sadly have to call it off.

Christmas Fayre

We are planning to re-model the Christmas Fayre this year, holding it immediately after school on Friday 30th November. We will have the usual range of stalls and, of course, the children’s Enterprise Challenge sales. The School Choir, and possibly also the Band, will be performing as well. As we won’t be placing a large focus on trade stalls this year, we are looking for parents who are happy to run a table at the fayre – please let us know via the school Office if you are happy to help.

Facebook Page

The FOWS Facebook page is being removed and replaced with a newversion. If you follow the page, please note you’ll need to Like the new page once it’s up and running – we’ll send you out the information when it’s done.

Amazon Gifting

Did you know that if you shop on Amazon, you can also generate funds for the school at the same time, without it costing you any effort or money? Just go to smile.amazon.co.uk and search for Friends of Woolsery School. By signing up, Amazon or their associates donate 0.5% percent of each purchase you make to our PTA. This will happen automatically when you access Amazon through the Smile page. Your normal Amazon account settings such as your Wish Lists, order history and payment cards will all still work through the Smile route.

Photos

You should receive your order pack for your photos today – if not, they will be with you very early next week. Under the new GDPR rules the whole process of administering the ordering of photos is being managed by Alan Schofield Ltd  so the school is not involved other than to give out the order forms. This means that the images of your child will only be shared with you and the company. When you receive your form, it will contain a link to your photos in a secure online album and from there you can order and pay online. The school will only hold a copy of thumbnail-size individual photos for our school records.

School Field

Unfortunately, we are having a few issues with the school field at the moment. There appears to be someone routinely letting their dog foul the field and children are picking this up on their shoes and clothes. We are also seeing quite a lot of debris (such as glass bottles and other items) on the field after the weekend. Although we are doing our best to check out the whole field each day, it’s a very big space! If you see people using the field inappropriately, please call 101 or let the school know, with as much detail as possible. As I have written before, the ACCT (who own the field) and our Governors are committed to keeping the field open to the public outside of school hours, but this can only happen if the field is in a useable state for the children for whom it exists so I am hopful we can nip these two problems in the bud and keep the space open into the future.

Also, we are still looking for anyone who is able to fit the foundation tubes into the school field for us so the football goals can be properly reinstated in their new, air-ambulance-friendly positions. If anyone is able to help, please let us know.

Macmillan Coffee Morning

Please remember, the coffee morning is HERE TOMORROW and it would be great to see lots of people turn out to support both this amazing charity and also the Teenage Cancer Trust. Doors open at 10am and the event finishes at 1pm.

Governing Board Vacancies

Please remember,  we have two vacancies coming up on the Governing Board  as described last week:

The first is because Fi Hancock, who has chaired our Teaching And Learning Committee for many years has now come to the end of her term of office so we will be looking for a parent to fill this vacancy. If there is more that one application to join, we will hold a parental ballot. We are looking for someone with an up to date interest in, or experience of, schools and the current curriculum and assessment arrangements. If you have some or all of those skills and also some time to spare, we’d love to hear from you. Our second vacancy has come about due to the resignation of long-serving Governor Phil Spittles. Phil has chaired committees and has also been Chair of Governors for many years. He was also instrumental in Woolsery Primary being at the leading edge of setting up our Atlantic Coast Cooperative Trust back in 2012. Phil has been a Foundation Governor, who are appointed by the ACCT (not elected), but we’d love to hear from you if you have the skills to replace those lost as Phil leaves the Board. To be appointed by the ACCT, you must be committeed to co-operative values and ideally have a good range of organisational skills. Similarly, if you know of anyone in the wider community who may be interested in joining the Governing Board, they might well be eligible to fill this vacancy, so please encourage them to phone the school and talk to Sue Miles about what the job entails.

All of us connected in any way to Woolsery Primary School owe a massive debt of thanks to both Fi and Phil who have given a significant amount of time and experience to all aspects of the school over their time with us. Much of their work has been behind the scenes, but has been no less important for that. They will both be missed enormously, and we wish them both all the very best for the future.

Being a governor is actually really rewarding and gives you the opportunity to understand the workings of the school from “the other side”. Of course, there is some accountability and you’ll be expected to visit school and carry out monitoring tasks to help inform the Board – but these are fully supported until you are confident of carrying them out alone. There is a Full Governing Board meeting once every half term (usually evenings) plus a committee meeting and monitoring activities described above. The more diverse range of views and backgrounds around the table, the stronger our school becomes, so please give this some serious thought if you think this might appeal to you.

If you would like to apply to become a Governor, please fill out the online form here or by visiting https://goo.gl/forms/xP0fqtJmKtrYyfD83 and we will contact you. Forms must be received by noon Friday 19th October 2018.

Threadworms

We have a couple of children with threadworms at the moment. Please check your children over the weekend as they are highly contageous. Treatment is easy and, rather like headlice, your child can return to school as soon as they’ve begun treatment. You do, however, need to treat the whole family. Threadworms are only transferred from human to human and their eggs live for a long time outside the body and can easily be picked up under fingernails, on towels, toothbrushes etc; they are not the type of worms that can be picked up from animals. For more information see: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/threadworms/

Headteacher Awards

Our amazing learners this week, who have all received a Headteachers’ Award are:

• Cranford: Henry and Jack
• Burscott: George and Ella-Mai
• Stroxworthy: Faris and Alyssa
• Alminstone: Morgan and Brandon
• Ashmansworthy: Lizzie and Chester

 

Our Family Group Points are steadily totting up as well… Here are the scores as of Thursday afternoon…

• Beech 129
• Elder 125
• Hazel 130
• Oak 127
• Silver Birch 123
• Sycamore 107
• Willow 131

 

Points are awarded for children striving to develop good Learning Behaviours, which we represent with six animals across the school, from Sunflowers to Ashmansworthy Class. At the end of this half term, the winning Family Group will be able to come to school in non-school uniform for the day. As you can see, Willow are narrowly in the lead with most of the rest hot on their heels. Even Sycamore aren’t really that far behind, when you consider that the average Family Group sub-total for this week was 80 points.

The next Learning Animal to introduce to you is the Tortoise. The tortoise reminds children how important it is to be resilient in their learning; that even if things don’t go well at the start, keeping trying will get you there in the end.

Lunch Booking Forms

Forms for booking your child’s lunch will now be sent to you by email. However, if you would like us to continue to supply a paper copy, they are available in the document racks by the Office hatch. Please remember that lunches must be ordered on these forms, and you can do this week-by-week, or order ahead for any block of time to suit you up to a maximum of the weeks remaining in the term. We are delighted with the numbers of children having school lunches so far this term and hope the children like the new heated service gantry which will not only light the food up nicely, but also keep it much warmer during service. This has been bought in direct response to parental feedback about our school lunches – so thank you for helping us improve the quality of our food in this way.

Teachers Rock the Cathedral at Christmas

Seven of our children and four members of staff will be performing at Exeter Cathedral on November 26th for a concert of Rock, Gospel and Christmas music. The concert begins at 7pm and includes over 250 children from across Somerset and Devon. There will be a collection in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust too. If you’d like to go, tickets are available at https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/teachersrock 

 

---

The Week Ahead

• Saturday: Macmillan Coffee Morning here at School 10am to 1pm
• Monday: Mrs Kersey out all day. Mrs Cole supply in Stroxworthy (no relation!)
• Tuesday: Mr Cole out (pm) to DTSA 
• Wednesday: 
• Thursday:  
• Friday: Mrs Oyarzabal and Miss Butler out all day – Marjon. Mrs Cole supply in Ashmansworthy (am)

---

With best wishes,

 Matt Cole

Headteacher

 

Posted in Newsletters