February 2020

Thank you to all of our parents that are supporting reading at home. We will be holding more workshops for parents of children in Key Stage 2 in the next few weeks and will be having book sales in the hall after school EVERY Thursday. Come along and get a bargain book to read at home.

Mrs Clarke is really looking forward to welcoming you into the library and sharing ideas on choosing books and reading stories aloud to your child/children. Please come along EVERY and EVERY Wednesday morning from 9:00am.

We are holding a photography and art competition as part of AET's Remarkable Lives celebration and are asking all children to enter by painting or sketching a portrait or taking a photograph of a remarkable person that they know. This could be a family member, friend, local community leader or a remarkable person that has had an impact on individuals. The closing date for entries is Monday 24th February 2020.

This Week

It’s been another fun-packed week at Lea Forest. On Monday, our PCAB held a ’chill and chat’ event which was really well attended. It’s always great to hear parents/carers views. Thank you to those of you that attended. If you weren’t able to attend this time, look out for future planned events. There was also a special assembly held for our Year 5 and Year 6 classes which introduced this year’s STEM challenge, run by 7 Billion Ideas. This is a competition entered annually by hundreds of schools. Last year, our STEM team managed to get the number one spot. Fingers crossed for this year’s competition - I’m sure we will have yet another strong entry representing Lea Forest.

On Tuesday, we held a Maths ESOL workshop for children and parents with English as a second language. We were astonished with the amazing turnout of family members for this event. Miss Ward and Miss Jones had a great morning setting a number of maths challenges - lots of learning and fun was had by all.

Our girls’ football team was also in action this week with Miss Lewis at Aston Villa. As always, they did us proud!

On Thursday, we were joined by our school governors who consist of Mr Bassett (Chair), Mrs Hedley, Mrs Smith and Mrs Kee. They spent the morning carrying out lesson visits, book looks, pupil and staff interviews and getting a general feel fore the quality of education here at Lea Forest. I’m delighted to share that they feel that we offer an OUTSTANDING curriculum offer and really enjoyed their time with us. During the afternoon, there was a governors meeting where I reported on our latest successes. Again, I was questioned on our poor attendance figures. Attendance remains our key target area. Parents taking their children out of school for holidays and to leave the country is having such a negative impact on our figures. Leave in term time (LiTT) will NOT be authorised and penalty notices will be issued. We do all we can to support families getting into school and reward children and classes with great attendance. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE help us by ensuring your child/children are in school everyday. Our current attendance figure stands at a miserable 94.79%. We all need to work together to achieve our 96% target.

Friday was Number Day and it was great to see all of our children and staff fully embracing this event. All of the money raised will be sent to the NSPCC who organise this event annually. Thank you to Miss Ward for making sure this was a great success at Lea Forest.

Next Week

It’s our final week of the first half term of spring next week and we will be celebrating Safer Internet Day on Tuesday 11th February. We have workshops planned for all classes throughout Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday which will provide the children with some important information on keeping safe online.

We also have two parents’ evenings planned for next week. You should have received a letter regarding this and teachers will be allocating individual time slots. If you have any questions about this, please speak to class teachers.

On Friday, we will be holding Valentine’s Day Discos for all classes. Children will be able to wear their own clothes for £1. There will also be the opportunities to purchase sweets and goodies. All money raised will add to our fundraising account which our PCAB work very hard to keep topped-up.

Wishing you all a remarkable weekend. Just one more week before we break-up for the half term holiday.

We will endeavour to keep school open, but in the event of a school closure, we will alert you via text, ClassDojo, Twitter, FaceBook and on the school website banner.

Closures will also be announced on Free Radio and BBC Radio WM.