School Road, Rowledge, Farnham, GU10 4BW
Telephone 01252 792346

2nd February 2018

Dear Parents,

It is hard to believe that January hasbeen and gone! Thank you for all your kindness and support with my recovery.

PUNCTUALITY –Please keep up the good work. I know mornings can be hectic, however routines are important in getting children set up for their day ahead. We would like our children to be ‘early’ or ‘on time’ so that they can see the benefits of settling into school without any additional stress. If you would like any help with this please let me know.

If your child is ever late (after 8.55am) please can you ask them to enter via the main office as I keep a record and talk to parents who are struggling.Please aim for 8:50am.

ATTENDANCE – Thank you for working hard to make sure that your children are in school every day. It is much appreciated and fundamental to their learning.

FOREST SCHOOL CHILD CARE–Remember to book in if you need after school care.

INSET DAY – Please remember that Monday 19th February is an Inset Day. We are using this day to look at pupil progress across the school. Teaches and support staff will be working together to look at each child in their class and plan for the next half of the year to ensure that all their needs are met. If you do have anything to add to this please email the class teachers. We would value you input.

FORS QUIZ NIGHT –Saturday10th March.See attached Newsletter for full FORS details, including details of

FARNHAM CARNIVAL. We need your support with this for this to go ahead.

PARENTS EVENINGS–Spring Term Parents Evenings will take place on Tuesday 13th March from 4 – 7pm and Thursday15th March from 4 – 7pm. Forms will go up in the school entrance hall for you to sign up with your relevant class teacher after half-term. We have previously separated the Year R parents evening, however this is for Year R also.

YEAR 6 SATS MEEETING– 2:30pm Thursday 22nd Februaryin the Year 6 classroom.

PARENT QUESTIONNAIRE – I will be sending out a parental questionnaire after half term, however please do come and see me if you have any burning issues. I believe we can find solutions to almost any problem.

REINDEER RUN – You may have seen the flier from Phyllis Tuckwell informing us that the school raised an incredible £1,703.64. Even more than last year! They are obviously delighted and thank us for all the support.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO BECOME A TEACHER?

Our Schools Teaching Alliance are recruiting students for our Initial Teacher Training programme. Please come and talk to me if you would consider training with us. We want more recruits.

HEAD LICE – Please regularly check your children’s hair and if you see anything suspicious treat them with your preferred method. Here is some guidance

I understand that it is very frustrating if your child is re-contaminated, however I know that none of our parents would wish this to be the case and we need to be supportive of one another. Sometimes they just seem to like certain children’s hair. I remember the joys of having them a lot at school!

PARKING AT DROP OFF & PICK UP – As ever, please be reminded toalways consider how your parking/driving affects others. We are very fortunate with support from our local residents, however increased traffic does have an impact on them and I think it can become difficult. Please turn off your engines if you are parked outside anyone’s property. Can I remind you that you can park at the club, in the Hare and Hounds or on Fullers Road to decrease the parking on School Road. Thank you.

I have also just been informed of a road closure, which will impact on us. I will look into and let you know the details and some suggestions next week.

HELPFUL WEBSITES - While I was off I did a fair bit of reading and found some great sources for information that I think you may be interested in. Growth Mindset is so important in our modern world and the mindshift website is really useful.

The Big Life journal website has great resources (if you sign up you get free some resources):

MONITORING VISIT - We had our county monitoring visit yesterday. Our Leading Learning Partner visited and looked at teaching and learning across the school, along with behaviour and safety and several other ‘Ofsted’ foci. She was very pleased and we remain ‘low priority’ for the county. This means that they don’t have any significant concerns and we don’t need external support. She was particularly impressed with the teaching and learning during a learning walk into each classroom. She commented positively on the way we useall adults in the classroom, the way children are being challenged from appropriate starting points, the way we use breakaway groups (children starting challenges at the beginning of lessons, rather than all listening) and the use of practical resources.

Our next steps are to refine and embed our assessment strategies that the teachers to use, to ensure consistency. This isin conjunction with creating a new tracking system, which is currently being developed. She felt that whilst we do know where each of our children are in terms of their learning, we need more specific evidence to demonstrate how we know this. We are in agreement. She also suggested that we should do further work on our maths learning journey, which is something we had identified as a senior leadership team. We discussed our progress in teachers choosing the right tasks to suit the children's needs and she would like us to continue with the work we are doing on this.

DINNER SUPERVISION – Thank you so much to all of you that volunteer to help at lunch times. Many of you will know Mrs Gubby – one of our dedicated dinner supervisors. Mrs Gubby’s lovely husband has booked them a trip of a lifetime in May. Mrs Gubby will be away from April 30th until the half term holiday – 19 working days. Would any of you like to take on the challenge of covering this position? Or know of anyone competent to try some work experience? A month in the life of a dinner supervisor? This could be paid or unpaid depending on your preference! Thank you in advance if you are able to give this any thought.

DINNERS – Please remember to book you dinners for next term. I’m very pleased to say that fruit is back on the menu! Also, please remember to cancel dinners if you have booked them for days where your children are going on trips etc. We have quite a few coming up.

Have a wonderful month and enjoy your half term!

Kind regards

Ms Sarah Oliver (Headteacher)