St Paul's Newsletter
Friday 29th November 2024
Message from Mrs Evans
We are all really looking forward to the Christmas Fair tomorrow - thank you to the PSA and volunteers for all of the time and effort that has gone into organising the event already and in advance to all of our families and staff who are giving some of their time to support on the stalls. I am looking forward to seeing many of our families there!
The classes have been busy creating the Christmas hoops ready to display in the hall and rehearsals for the Nativity and Carol Concert are in full swing! Our Christmas theatre trips began this week with Year 2 visiting the Polka Theatre to see 'The Nutcracker'. Even though there was some disruption to their journey, they had a fabulous time and we are looking forward to hearing what Year 3 and Year 4 think when they visit next week!
Attendance Update
Since school closures in 2020, we have seen a slip in the level of attendance at our school. Whilst we absolutely agree that children should be kept at home if they are unwell, we are asking that our families try to avoid absence for reasons other than illness wherever possible.
If your child's attendance falls below 90%, they meet the 'persistently absent' threshold which will lead to discussions around reasons for absence with the Education Welfare Officer at the local authority and evidence will begin to be requested for illness related absences. We will be sending letters next week to families who have children who have met this threshold.
Whole School Attendance
| Reception | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | Year 6 |
|
96.42% |
94.82% | 95.80% | 97.27% | 95.20% | 96.49% | 97.21% |
| Our Target | Current Attendance | National |
| 97% | 96.15% | 93.90% |
Holidays in Term Time
I would like to remind all parents that holidays during term time will be recorded as an unauthorised absence. These cause disruption within the class due to children missing parts of the learning in topics which will later be built upon and can lead to children being unsettled on their return to school.
Holidays in term-time should only be taken for 'exceptional circumstances' which means that this would not be a regular (including annual) occurrence.
We are currently reviewing our attendance strategy and are closely monitoring the link between term-time absence and an increase in support needed for some of our pupils and families in school.
If you are considering a term-time holiday, I would really ask that you reflect on the confusion in the messaging to the children when they are taken out of school for a holiday having been told up to that point (and after) that they 'must' attend school.
Please look out for further updates about the changes to our strategy in the coming year.
Birthday Treats
A reminder that we do not allow cake or sweets to be given out on children's birthdays. If you are keen for your child to be able to share a treat with their class to mark the day, please provide a platter of fruit to be shared by the class or a new book to be added to the class library.
School Website
Please remember to make use of the school's website and calendar (which can be synched to your phone) for reminders and updates.
Support with Behaviour Concerns
A plea to parents/carers that if they have concerns about an incident that has taken place at school, that they avoid directly contacting other parents as this can lead to both misunderstandings and upset. We ask that any concerns are brought directly to school staff and that school are then left to deal with these. We will always follow up any concerns brought forward and would always prefer to find out more and resolve these within the school day (wherever possible) as this makes it easier for the children to accurately recall what has taken place. One of our key priorities is developing positive relationships across our community and this is something that our families can do to support us with this.
School Trips/Visits Policy
At St Paul's we have developed a rich programme of trips and visits to support our curriculum. Whilst parents/carers will always be asked for permission for their child to attend, these experiences have been carefully chosen and planned to enrich our pupils' learning and therefore we are always keen to enable as many pupils as possible to attend.
We are always keen to hear from parents/carers if they have any concerns about a trip or visit and will then invite them to come in and meet with us to discuss this concern further in the hope that together we can create a plan of support which will enable their child to take part.
Please do not be surprised to be asked to come in if you have not given permission for a trip/visit - we really value these opportunities to have conversations about concerns and to consider what can be done to support.
Developing Healthy Online Habits
We are aware that even our youngest pupils have regular access to devices such as iPads and phones to access activities online. We wanted to share some top tips with families to support them in helping their children to develop a healthy relationship with this technology. Parents and carers can do this by:
- Setting clear limits on the amount of time that these are being used daily
- Ensuring that devices are being used in an area that allows adult supervision at all times
- Discussing with children how to respond if they see something online that they do not like or if they are contacted by someone that they do not know
- Having regular conversations about what they are accessing
- Setting boundaries around online device use and bedtime – ensuring that there is a period of time when children are not using these before going to bed.
- Creating healthy habits, open discussion and clear boundaries early in children's lives is extremely important as it is much harder to put these in place once unhealthy habits have been formed. The following guide gives some suggestion
If you would like any further support with this please see the information on our school website here: Online Safety Advice for Parents
Alternatively, please contact Mrs Evans or Mrs Griffin to arrange a time to discuss this with them further.
With Me in Mind - Mental Health and Wellbeing Support for Families
This newsletter is a place where we can share with you: resources, strategies and thoughts to consider. We are keen to reach more families with messages and resources that we use with your children at school. We look forward to receiving feedback on this new venture for us.
- So what do you want to know more about?
- Are there challenges that you are facing that you would like to consider differently? Please let us know your thoughts on this Google Form
In this issue:
A Book: A book about how we can be as friends to one another.
A Look: A video from our prefects on how to have good relationships.
A Hook: What do you want to be?
Book..
Look...
//www.youtube.com/embed/ODknDEEqJUA#t=0.5
Hook...
Our Mental Health Team...
Sharon Griffin Lianne Cook Fahmida Wadud
Mental Health Lead Emotional Support Mental Health Support
PSA Updates
St Paul's PSA: ‘Bringing our school community together to create lifelong memories’
The PSA have done such a fantastic job in their fundraising over the last year which has made a visible difference to a variety of areas around the school. Our current focus project is updating of the two libraries. We have had some initial designs completed for these spaces and will be looking at these with the staff and children before picking our final designs.
Along with the improvements outside, here are some other examples of the fabulous resources that have been purchased for the school through last year's fundraising:
PSA Purchases
Remember to check out our events guide on the PSA page which is a guide for families about what our different events involve and how you can help:
Events to look out for this term:
- Christmas Fair: Saturday 30th November
PSA Store
Don't forget to head over to our PSA store to get involved in the latest events using the link below:
Second Hand Uniform
We have a large amount of good quality second hand uniform available, please use the link below and follow these instructions:
- Once on the website click on the three lines to the right.
- Scroll down to ‘find your school’
- Select Kingston upon Thames as our Local authority.
- Select St Paul’s C of E KT9 1AJ
Please carefully read the instructions on when to collect your items.
Easyfundraising
Easyfundraising turns your daily shopping into every day magic!
Easyfundraising partners with over 7,000 brands who will donate part of what you spend to a cause of your choice. It won't cost you any extra. The cost is covered by the brand.
Brands pay Easyfundraising a commission because when you start your shop from the Easyfundraising website or app, they can see we sent you to them. If you make a purchase, a commission is generated, and we turn that into a donation - magic!
Click the link above to register to use Easyfundraising - remember to search 'St Paul's Primary School, Chessington' when searching for your cause and turn on the donation reminder. Every little bit helps!
Class News
Reception
Last week in Reception we had a very exciting week - we celebrated Paddington's birthday. We did this by making cakes, guessing what was in Paddington's present and on Friday we had a birthday party for Paddington. This week we have been writing our lists to Santa ready to post for our trip next week. We have looked at an artist called Kandinsky and have made our own versions of his work using paint and shapes. We have also been writing the sounds that we have learnt in phonics and using these in our independent writing.
Reception 2024 Newsletter
Year 1
In Maths we have been looking at money; we have enjoyed recognising different coins and adding them together to make different amounts. In English, we have been looking at writing letters for Beegu. We thought about the questions that we could include in our writing and practised using question marks at the end of our questions. In Science, we have continued looking at different materials and the properties of them. We have been thinking about the materials that our school is made from and why these were the best choices to use.
Year 1 Newsletter 2024
Year 2
Year 2 really enjoyed their trip to the Polka theatre in Wimbledon. We would all highly recommend The Nutcracker which was innovative and entertaining. We really enjoyed join in! We have spent time practising for our Nativity this week and are enjoying putting our speaking parts and the songs togtether with Reception and Year 1. We can't wait to share it with our families! We have also been busy creating our hoops to hang in the hall and are excited to see them all displayed with the hoops created by the other classes!
Year 2 Newsletter 2024
Year 3
Year 3 have really enjoyed writing poetry over the last couple of weeks. We have learned how to effectively include metaphors, similes, personification and alliteration into our writing. We are becoming confident with our understanding of three digit numbers and can describe the place value of these numbers with the dienes blocks and on number lines. In Science, we have learned about the force of magnetism and carried out a fair test where we discovered that all magnetic materials are metals, yet not every metal is magnetic. In Geography, we have been learning more about the Americas and learned about some of the key geographical regions of North America this week.
Year 3 Newsletter 2024
Year 4
This week has been very exciting for Year 4! We have been continuing our learning focused on the Romans. We looked at what life was like for a Roman soldier at Hadrian's wall and wrote diary entries to show what we had learnt. We looked at lots of primary sources, including the Vindolanda tablets, which are real letters that Roman soldiers sent to their families. Did you know that all they had to eat was a pound of meat, dry bread and a biscuit made from flour, salt and water? How boring! This week In Science, we have been looking at circuits and had an expert visitor come in to show us how circuits work. We are very excited for her to come and show us more next week when we will be testing conductors and insulators with her special equipment!
Year 4 Newsletter 2024
Year 5
Year 5 have had a brilliant two weeks. We have begun a unit of work in Maths focusing on short multiplication and division. We have reached a point where we are regrouping multiple times within one calculation. In English, we have written our setting descriptions for Camp Green Lake and have edited our work checking for spellings, punctuation and grammar corrections as well as self-assessing ourselves against the Year 5 writing success criteria in order to create next steps. Finally, in Science we have been testing the solubility of different solids in groups.
Year 5 Newsletter 2024
Year 6
Year 6 have had a fantastic week delving into their new Science topic. We've explored and recapped our prior knowledge about electricity and have learnt about how different components are used with a flow of electrons to create different types of circuits for different purposes. This is linked to our DT topic where we are creating electrical toys. We were taught by Mrs Velzeboer who gave us a fantastic opportunity to work with components from secondary school as we started to investigate how the brightness of the bulb is affected by the number of cells. We thought about the current as a flow of energy and that each battery (voltage) provided the push to make it brighter. We used our computing skills to build online circuits to further explore the effect of voltage on the circuits. We have also continued our non-chronological reports and developing our formal voice in English. We've thought about how our audience would feel with our formal tone and how this might give us a more authoritative voice.
Year 6 Newsletter 2024
Team Points
Congratulations to Year 4 and Sapphires who were the Team Points winners for the week beginning 18th November and to Year 3 and Rubies who were the Team Points winners for the week beginning 25th November.
Wider Community News and Events
Junior Parkrun comes to Chessington
The Junior Parkrun is a 2k fun run which takes place weekly at many different locations across the country. We are excited to announce that they have launched a weekly event at Lovelace Primary School on Sundays at 9am. It is a free event, but you do need to register in advance using the link here:
https://www.parkrun.org.uk/lovelaceprimaryschool-juniors/
It would brilliant to hear about some of our families taking part!
Family support Workshops
Achieving for Children’s Mental Health Support Teams are delivering a series of webinars for parents of primary-aged children. The ‘Helping Children with …’ series of webinars will cover a range of common difficulties experienced by children and will aim to share evidence-based strategies to help parents and carers support their children with these difficulties. Please use the link below to find further information.
Safeguarding Information
What if I have a Safeguarding Concern?
A reminder to parents and carers that if you have a safeguarding concern about a child this should be brought to Mrs Evans (Designated Safeguarding Lead) or Mrs Griffin (Deputy DSL).
There is lots of information on the school’s website to support parents in keeping their children safe (particularly linked to online safety) which can be found by clicking on the link below:
Road Safety Around Our School
We ask that parents and carers are considerate of the other members of both our school and local community when parking for drop off and collection. Please do not park on yellow lines or on the corners of local roads - markings have been placed on the road in spots where it will become dangerous if a vehicle stops. Parking in these places makes it very difficult for families to check that roads are safe for crossing and we are aware that this also applies to our Year 6 pupils who are walking home alone. Please leave time to find a suitable place to park safely and work with us to make the local roads as safe as possible for our pupils and families.
Key School Policies
Please take some time to familiarise yourself with our School Policies: 'Separated Parents Policy' and 'Communication and Conduct Policy'. These have been put together in consultation with the governing body who have now adopted these. Click on the links below to access them; they can also be accessed on the 'policies' page of the school's website.
Separated Parents Policy Communication and Conduct Policy
Key Dates for Your Diary
New or changes to dates shown in blue
- Sat 30th Nov: PSA Christmas Fair - 12:00pm - 3:00pm
- Mon 2nd Dec: Choir singing at Star and Garter Surbiton
- Tues 3rd Dec: Reception Postbox and Library Visit
- Weds 4th Dec: Year 3 & Year 4 Polka Theatre Trip
- Mon 9th Dec: KS1 Nativity - 9:15am (siblings welcome)
- Mon 9th Dec: iRock Parent Concert at 2:45pm
- Tues 10th Dec: KS1 Nativity - 9:15am (adults only)
- Weds 11th Dec: PSA Children's Christmas Market
- Thurs 12th Dec: PSA Children's Christmas Market
- Thurs 12th Dec: Choir singing at John Lewis, Kingston
- Fri 13th Dec: PSA Children's Christmas Market
- Mon 16th Dec: KS2 Choir singing at Trafalgar Square
- Tues 17th Dec: KS2 Christmas Concert - 9:15am (date change)
- Tues 17th Dec: Christmas Jumper Day (date change)
- Tues 17th Dec: Whole School Christmas Lunch (date change)
- Tues 17th Dec: Reception & Year 1 Christmas Movie Treat
- Weds 18th Dec: KS2 Christmas Concert - 9:15am
- Thurs 19th Dec: Year 5 & Year 6 Rose Theatre Trip
- Fri 20th Dec: End of Term - 2:00pm
- Mon 6th Jan: INSET DAY (school closed to pupils)
- Tues 7th Jan: Children Return
Remember to visit the calendar page using the link above and to link our school calendar to the calendar no your phone for automatic updates.
