Newsletter: 11th December 2020
Posted on December 11, 2020 | By Mr Cole
End of Term Arrangements
Photos
Your photo orders from Tempest should be in your child’s book bag tonight. These have already gone through a period of quarantine so are safe for you to open when you get them.
Rosemoor Visit
Just a reminder that Burscott and Alminstone are at Rosemoor on Monday. The visit this week for Cranford and Stroxworthy classes was excellent and we hope these other two classes have an amazing time too! Please remember that your child will need comfortable shoes but not wellies: The paths will be muddy but your child won’t be able to change footwear during the day and can’t wear their boots in the education centre classrooms.
Christmas Dinner Day
Tuesday is our Christmas Dinner Day and we’re asking all children to come to school in their Christmas jumpers to help with the festive feel. All classes will also hold their parties after lunch – due to bubble restrictions, these will all be held in classrooms. Please do not send in any food in for parties this year. Any prizes or treats your child may receive, either from the party or incidentally up to the end of term will have been through our rigorous quarantine measures beforehand so they will be safe to take home.
Carols Round The (virtual) Tree
We will be holding a virtual version of our traditional carols assembly on Friday morning. I know classes have been working hard on preparing their contributions for this important point in the school year. It will be a good time to come together as a school and reflect on what’s been a very long and “different” term as well as prepare for the big day…
Early Closing
In case you missed the SMS message sent out on Wednesday, the DfE put an announcement out at 2:10pm on Tuesday saying schools could move one training day from the Spring or Summer Term to Friday 18th December in order to aid the Test and Trace system. This is because school staff are required to work with NHS Test and Trace for 6 days after the end of term in case there is an outbreak within your child’s bubble – schools are clearly well placed to contact you to tell you that you need to begin a 2 week isolation. However, I have decided that we won’t close early and will stick to our original term dates: for a school our size, if we did need to contact families it would not be very difficult but early closing would be massively disruptive to families at a very busy time of year. Your child should therefore attend school as normal next Friday.
Gifts for Staff
As previously advised, please do not send your child with gifts for school staff at the end of term, nor send your child in with Christmas cards for friends. Whilst we very much appreciate your kind thoughts, this would breach our bubble integrity.
Residentials Update
The DfE have confirmed that no school residential visits can take place in January, February or March but that it is “highly likely” that we will be able to resume offering these experiences after the Easter Break. This has implications for two of our usual residentials so I wanted to update you before the end of term so you know where we are at…
Heatree – Years 3 and 4
It is highly unlikely Heatree will take place this year. We have been unable to contact the centre to discuss our booking, but our original date falls within the prohibited dates. We will continue trying to contact Heatree and attemt to re-book for the Summer Term but availability is likely to be under immense pressure and we are unsure what cost difference there would be moving the trip to high-season.
London – Year 5
The London residential also falls within the prohibited dates but fortunately our Tour Operator, NST, have offered to move the residential dates into the “safe” period of the summer term. They have also confirmed that this will be at no extra cost which is brilliant news. The new dates for London 2021 will therefore be 6th – 8th July 2021 by which time we envisage the Capital getting back to normal and all our usual visiting locations accepting guests once again.
Adventure International – Year 6
Our planned date for Adventure International 2021 is 27th June to 2nd July but as yet we aren’t in a position to confirm this with the Centre in Bude. After the Christmas break, however, we will begin the process of collecting staged payments in anticipation of the visit going ahead as expected. We will not pass on these payments to Adventure International until they are able to confirm our booking which means if it doesn’t go ahead we will be able to return your payments to you without any difficulty. The anticipated cost of the residential will be around £350 per person and places will be able to be secured with a £60 deposit by the end of January. Payment options for the deposit will appear on your ScoPay account from January 4th. As usual, if you would like your child to take part but will struggle to make the payment, we have several options to help you. Please discuss them with Sue Miles after the Christmas Holiday.
Spring Term Lunches
The Lunch Menu for the Spring Term is now on the Website for you Please remember that booking for school lunches is only through the ScoPay portal. Please do not email in requests because these are easily missed as both Sue and Tina are very busy at the present time completing daily Covid returns to DCC and the DfE, meaning emails may not be checked until after lunch orders need to be in the kitchen. Thank you for your understanding.
There are several events taking place in the next few weeks – please support them if you can:
The Nativity Trail (see below) features the voices of our very own Alminstone Class who recorded their narrations a few weeks ago. The trail culminates in two Nativity Services, the first one of which is already fully booked. If you would like to book places at the second service at 5pm on Wednesday 23rd, you can do so at www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/
Finally, the local parish churches are organising a Tower Climb event in January and, in each parish, the proceeds will be split 50/50 with their corresponding primary school. More information will be out in due course, but in the meantime, please see the details below:
Well done to the chidlren who received Headteacher Awards in the final presentation of the Term:
- Cranford: Elsie and Seren – amazing patterns when making paper chains
- Burscott: Mia – persevering with subtraction this week; Louie – trying really hard with his maths
- Stroxworthy: (from last week) Harrison – hard work and staying focussed with his report writing; Seren – fantastic gymnastics work in Real Gym
- Stroxworthy: (this week) Aaron – great artwork on his information text and good concentration in Maths, Georgia – a beautiful Christmas poem and always being very polite
- Alminstone: Paddy – amazing creative poetry writing; Maisie – beautiful, careful home learning this week
- Ashmansworthy: Arthur and Jasmine – writing emotive diary entry based on a character in The Highwayman using effective language from the poem
Merry Christmas!
From everyone at the school, we wish you a very Merry Christmas with your loved ones. This has been an extraordinary time for everyone and no less for the school. Without your support, patientice, understanding and determination to help us make things work, I am really not sure we would have come through these last few months intact. So thank you.
What ever you are doing over the break, have a wonderful time and stay safe. School reopens on Monday 4th January for the Spring Term. there will be no Newsletter next week.
with best wishes
Matt Cole, Headteacher