Dear parents/carers

Wow! What a great start back at school. It has felt so good to have everyone here, smiling and happy. Thank you for everything you have done to get your children ready to return!

All of the risk assessment seems to be working securely, the children are getting into the routine of hand washing / sanitising really well. I have to admit, it has felt very busy out on the playground during drop off times now that everyone is back so can I remind you to try really hard to keep your distance from each other whilst you are waiting to drop your children into class, or to pick them up at the end of the day. Those of you who are dropping children into Y2 classrooms (Foxes and Deer) may also wish to use the Station Road entrance onto site if that makes things easier for you.

I am also hoping that where you can, the children are walking, cycling or scooting to school. Just a reminder that if children are bringing in bikes and scooters they must be locked up, particularly in the front entrance bike rack.

Next week, we welcome our EYFS children to our community. They have had stay and play sessions this week and next week begin two weeks of half days before being in full time on Monday 21^st September. We are really looking forward to them becoming members of our school community!

As soon as they are in, visits for next year’s cohort begin. We are going to limit the numbers of visitors at any one time to 8 adults, but if you have a child who is due to start school in September 2021 and would like to visit please book a slot by emailing or calling the office. Dates for visits are:

Monday 21^st September 11am

Wednesday 30^th September 6pm

Monday 5^th October 2pm

Tuesday 20^th October 6pm

Wednesday 4^th November 2pm

Friday 13^th November 11 am

We will be asking parents to wear masks for these visits.

Staffing news

Having said goodbye to Mrs Pike and Mrs English at the end of last year, you may have noticed that they are back! Mrs Pike is taking our forest school groups, and is very excited about the impact she can have on the children within these sessions. Mrs English is working alongside Mrs Leach in reception – she will be Hedgehogs class teacher on Thursdays and Fridays, because Mrs Brown is expecting her second baby! Mrs Davis has begun her maternity leave – we are looking forward to hearing news of her baby in the next couple of weeks.

Forest School

Children in EYFS, Y1, Y2 and Y3 will be having dedicated Forest School sessions. They will need their wellies in school – please label them and if you could peg them together that will help us to keep them accessible for the children to easily find. We would also like the children to keep their forest school kit in school, on their pegs, unless it becomes really filthy, in which case we will send it home – I hope this helps you! If you are able to bring it into school in a ‘dap’ bag type that will also help us minimise the belongings we have in the corridors.

After school activity clubs

We are hoping to begin activity clubs in the next few weeks. In order to protect our ‘bubbles’ we will only be offering clubs to specific year groups at a time and we aim to make sure this is fair across the year.

Reading

We continue our work this year in helping and supporting children (and the wider community) to take pleasure in reading.  It was great to hear so many children were spending lockdown being immersed in new books and we are hoping that continues into a new school year.

From Monday 7th September, we are re-launching our reading incentive to encourage children to read as much as possible, with the aim of five times a week. Each read needs to be dated and signed (by a parent) on the new card that has been stuck inside your child's reading record - there can only be a maximum of one read per day recorded. 30 reads will be rewarded with a certificate; 50 reads will involve being given a bookmark and if your child reaches 100 reads, they are invited to choose a brand new book from Mrs Haydon's spectacular offerings. Teachers are looking forward to collecting in Reading Records every week to monitor the frequency of reading at home and are hoping to see lots of amazing reading happening.

If you are stuck for ideas for children's books, please see suggestions in class windows.

Thank you for your support.

Lois Haydon, Head Teacher

South Gloucestershire Community Learning and Skills Service are pleased to bring you their Prospectus of new adult learning courses, some of which offer a qualification. These start September 2020, covering health and wellbeing, upskilling for work, maths, English, ICT, ESOL, parenting and first aid. Registration started in August. You can ring 01454 864613 or come and talk to them at a face-to-face enrolment session the first 2 weeks of September, where they will be operating safe distancing measures. Please click on the link below to view the prospectus. 

https://thetynings.schoolzineplus.co.uk/_file/media/2541/sep_final_2020_version_10_2020.pdf

Please remember that you need to let the office know by Friday, if you need breakfast club for the following week. Payment can be made via SIMS Pay, but it is not possible to book slots online. Bookings can be made for the whole month/term/year, if you know you will regularly need a place. Please also let the office know, if you have booked a place, but no longer need it.