A Review of Last Half Term

This was one of the shortest half terms that we have had, but a great deal of work was done by staff and pupils. The children are to be congratulated for the way in which they all approached the assessment work that took place in May, both the statutory SATs and the interim tests. These are almost completed now; hopefully by the end of this week year 2 will have finished all their assessment pieces. You will receive the results of statutory SATs (years 2 and 6) with the end of year report. All reports include an assessment of whether the child is working towards, at or beyond expected levels in each subject.

Cool Kids' Café again supported year 6 children during what can be a stressful week for them. We are grateful to all the staff who made it a success and to the PTA for sponsoring it. Year 2 had some additional treats when they had completed much of their assessments.

Years 4 and 5 have been involved in road safety work with local authority safety experts and year 6 had an excellent day at the Yorkshire Cricket Club. A number of our violinists represented the school at the Festival Concert in the Town Hall just before the holiday and found it to be a wonderful experience.

We were saddened to hear of the death of the Bishop of Knaresborough who lived locally and had been linked to our school through the attendance of his grand-daughter at our Nursery. Our thoughts and prayers go to his family.

Absence from School

There were a few sickness bugs around school last half term. May we remind you of the advice given to us from the Health Authority; children should remain off school for at least 24 hours after their last bout of sickness or diahorrea; younger children may need longer. This should help to prevent the spread of disease to other children.

The local authority has given us targets for attendance, which mean that we need to reduce our absence rate. This would be achieved if the number of term time holiday absences were reduced. Governors have recently rewritten our Absence Policy in line with government and LEA guidelines. A copy of this policy is enclosed with the newsletter. You will see that holiday absences now need to be applied for in advance and they may not be authorized. A form is attached for making such an application and additional forms are available in the entrance foyer racks.

Educational Visits

I hope that you have been able to return the slip to the class teacher about visits out of school in the local area. It is important that we have these to allow your child to take part in any activity that supports class work but takes the class off the school site.

This is the half term when many classes have a full day visit involving the use of transport. If your child's class is involved in this, you will receive a letter from the class teacher. Please note that we must have your written permission for your child to take part in a visit involving additional transport. If that written permission is not in school on the day of the visit, we will not be able to let your child take part. These new regulations come from the local authority as a result of recent legal hearings.

School Meals

Once again the price of a school meal will go up by 5p a day from September. This still represents excellent value and the children have a good choice for both main course and sweet. We recommend that as many children as possible take advantage of these excellent meals. Prices from September will be:

Reception to year 4 - £1.40 per day £7.00 per week Years 5 and 6 - £1.45 per day £7.25 per week

Dinner money is due in each Monday morning when Mrs Crooke is here to process all payments. Please remember to put your child's name on the envelope.

Milk money for Reception and years 1 and 2 will remain at £9 per year.

Extra-Curricular Activities

We have been able to increase the range of activities available for children this year, many of them taking place at lunchtime. Whilst the majority of the clubs are for key stage 2 children, we have started to offer activities for year 1 children. Please ask your children to tell you about the activities that they are involved in.

We are grateful for the skills and time offered by parents in this area and would welcome further offers of support from parents to run clubs either at lunch time or after school. Please let Mrs Davies or Mrs Custance know if you have the time and talent to support us with this.

Soccer is going from strength to strength with lots of great results and our under 8's squad winning a trophy at a recent tournament supported by many parents.

The sewing club have recently turned their talents to making banners for worship. They have made 2 so far to hang on the stand that we use for our cross. They look really great and we look forward to the range available expanding

ICT Development

Once again we have put in a lot of money and effort to maintain progress in developing ICT across school. No doubt your children will have told you about the work that they have been doing in class. We continue to increase the number of PCs available for children and are grateful to the PTA who "top-up" the grants that we receive for this purpose. Staff have benefited from more training and we are grateful for our links with Roundhay School who offer us technical support to maintain our systems as well as general support for Miss Moxon our subject leader. As a result of all of this, we are seeing the standards of achievement of the children steadily rise.

Our detailed ICT development plan has recently been updated and will support us with developments over the next school year.

Prayer Group

Prayer group meetings this term are:- Wednesday, 11 June and 9 July all at 1.45-2.45 p.m. Please contact David or Julia Thompson (2402036) for venue and details - All Welcome.