Welcome back

Happy New Year!

It has been lovely to welcome you back to Reydon Primary this week and to see the children enjoying seeing one another and engaging with their learning. Children have come to find me to celebrate their learning this week and to share the pride that they feel.  

Year 4 have ‘taken the plunge’ and despite some initial nerves, have all managed to take part in their first swimming lesson of the year.  

New staff

We welcome both Mrs Seers as our new Reception Class Teacher, and Miss Durkin, our Reception Class Teaching Assistant to our school community. Having both met the class before half term, they are looking forward to working with your children for the rest of this year. Mrs Quinn is getting the Nursery ready to welcome our new pupils over the next couple of weeks. It is looking brilliant! There has been a lot of work put in to making it a safe, engaging learning environment... pictures to follow! She will be joined by both Mrs Saunders each day and Mrs Perry on a Wednesday and Friday morning. They look forward to welcoming and getting to know our new pupils.

Attendance

Last term our overall attendance as a school was 94.3%. Each week, the class with the highest attendance wins their biscuits and squash! Attendance is key to educational success.  In the government document, ‘Working Together to Improve School Attendance’, it points out that ‘pupils with the highest attainment at the end of key stage 2 and key stage 4 have higher rates of attendance over the key stage compared to those with the lowest attainment. At KS2, pupils not meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and maths had an overall absence rate of 4.7%, compared to 3.5% among those meeting the expected standard.’

At primary school, the building blocks to learning are built week on week, year on year. There is no learning opportunity worth missing. This is why we take attendance seriously and follow up if there are persistent absences, including punctuality. We understand that there are occasions when children are too poorly to attend school. These reasons are given on this poster - Shoud I keep my child off school checklist poster.

As a school, we will always send children home if they have a high temperature.  If your child has a medical appointment, evidence is needed for us to authorise their absence. Reasons will always need to be provided for a child's absence from school.

Leave of absence request forms are available once a meeting has taken place with Mrs Hurren or myself, to discuss the reason for absence. Please do not book holidays in term time, even if a day attached to a school holiday. The government have a process around fining that as a school we must follow.

Parent Share events

Please see the school calendar for individual class days this term.  Please go round to the school office where you will be welcomed and taken to your child’s class. We look forward to welcoming you to these.

Parents’ evening

Parents’ evenings will be taking place in the first week of next half term. We will let you know the days and times available to meet your child’s class teacher or teachers. This is a great opportunity to look through your child’s learning, find out how you can support your child further at home and work together to ensure your child meets their learning goals.

Labelling uniform

We are finding that we are gathering a lot of lost property that does not have children’s names in; these include school jumpers with logos, coats and other items. Please write your child’s name in all items of clothing that they bring in. We can then return these to you if they get lost. The lost property items will be available to collect from the school office entrance area until next Friday. After this, they will be put into our pre-loved school uniform boxes.  

I hope you have a lovely weekend and I look forward to welcoming you back on Monday!