December2021

With only one week of the school year left, we top of the Birmingham tables! Keep up the great work Team Lea Forest - we are incredibly proud of everyone that is making the effort to travel to school sustainably! We can't wait to break a few more records in 2022!

Parents of children due to start Reception in September 2022 (Born between 01-09-2017 and 31-08-2018) can now apply for a Reception Place via their council portal.

Birmingham Residents must apply via https://eadmissions.birmingham.gov.uk/prefs.php

Solihull Residents must apply via

https://eservices.solihull.gov.uk/Synergy/Live/SynergyWeb/Parents/default.aspx

Mr Croxon will be running parent drop in sessions from 9:00-9:30 (Mon - Thurs) to support parents with completing their applications. If you would like to arrange a tour or visit to see our wonderful Early Years provision, please contact the school office.

The deadline for all Reception applications is:

December 31st 2021

On 10 December 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. This important moment in human history is now remembered on that date every year and is known as Human Rights Day.

Children’s rights are human rights so we can celebrate them alongside the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 4 states that Governments must do all that they can to make sure every child can enjoy their rights.

We’ve ended this week by celebrating ‘Christmas Jumper Day’. It’s such a magical time of year in school with everyone’s spirits high as there’s just one week left before we break-up for Christmas! All of our children have been busy rehearsing for our Christmas productions which are taking place next week. If you are planning on coming along to watch, you are in for a real treat.

Christmas Fair

Our Christmas Fair will be held on today (Friday 10 December) from 3:30-5:30pm. This will be an opportunity for everyone to come along and spend money on each of our stalls and help raise funds for school. Please ensure that you stay safe and socially distance where possible.

Christmas Shows

We are pleased to be opening our hall doors again this year and look forward to welcoming families into watch our shows. However, there will be a few things in place to ensure everyone’s safety:

- Adults and parent visitors MUST wear a face mask

- Wash hands and sanitize before entering school

- There’s a restriction to 2 tickets of entry per pupil

For those of you that can’t make it in person, we will be filming all of our productions and will be adding these to our Youtube channel LeaForest:TV.

Remember to bring along some money as there will be a raffle each day led by our PCAB.

Attendance Meetings

This week Mr Taylor, Miss Wale and Mr Wills have held attendance meetings with parents where attendance has been highlighted as a concern. These meetings have been very effective and have been a chance for parents to understand where attendance is low and close to being classed as persistent absence. We have also been able to offer support through a variety of school actions. If you are unsure of your child’s attendance percentage and what this means in terms of our school target, please contact Miss Wale or Mr Wills via Class Dojo. This week we have been so impressed with the children’s fantastic attendance. Attendance for Years 1 to 6 has been 97.5% this week, with 4 classes achieving 100%. Please keep this up for the last week of term. Our end of term activities are all part of our carefully planned curriculum and we do not want anyone to miss out. Next half term we will continue our drive to improve attendance and punctuality. We will in particular be focussing on the attendance of our Reception pupils with the aim to promote good attendance habits early on that can then be sustained throughout children’s Lea Forest journey.

I hope that you all have a great weekend - Enjoy and take care!

Mr Clarke-Castello

Next week, we will be rewarding children who have had excellent attendance this term with Circus Skills workshops. The workshops will take place on Monday 6 December and all children from Years 1-6 with 100% attendance or attendance very close to this will be taking part. Congratulations to these children for their fantastic attendance so far this year. Keep it up and there will be more fantastic attendance rewards throughout the rest of the year! After Christmas we will be focusing on the attendance of our Reception children and we will let you know about rewards for these pupils after the holidays.

Parents of children due to start Reception in September 2022 (Born between 01-09-2017 and 31-08-2018) can now apply for a Reception Place via their council portal.

Birmingham Residents must apply via https://eadmissions.birmingham.gov.uk/prefs.php

Solihull Residents must apply via

https://eservices.solihull.gov.uk/Synergy/Live/SynergyWeb/Parents/default.aspx

Mr Croxon will be running parent drop in sessions from 9:00-9:30 (Mon - Thurs) to support parents with completing their applications.

If you would like to arrange a tour or visit to see our wonderful Early Years provision, please contact the school office and we can arrange a conversation or tour with Mrs Gonzales.

The deadline for all

Reception applications is:

December 31st 2021

The DLP Team (based at Sladefield Infant School, Ward End) are running a Speech and Language project until Summer 2023, working with all schools from the Eastwards Consortium and Birmingham City Council.

Lea Forest is part of the Eastwards Consortium and is taking part in the project. We would like as many parents and carers as possible to get involved to support their children's speech and language development. Please visit the website: www.ecdlp.co.uk for more information and select the menu 'Our Big Ideas' for different activities you can use with your child.

Please also follow @DlpProject on Twitter for daily activities and games that you can do with your child.

In the blink of an eye, another week has come to an end and what a great end to the week it has been with the publication of our fantastic Ofsted report. I have included the full report within this newsletter, but you can also download it and read it here.

Christmas Fair

Our Christmas Fair will be held on Friday 10 December from 3:30 - 5:30pm. This will be an opportunity for everyone to come along and spend money on each of our stalls and help raise funds for school.

Christmas Shows

We are pleased to be opening our hall doors again this year and look forward to welcoming families into watch our shows. Our children in Early Years and KS1 have been rehearing - learning their words and songs. You are in for a real treat from what I’ve heard so far. Children in KS2 will be singing popular Christmas songs in their shows. Remember to bring along some money as there will be a raffle each day led by our PCAB.

Attendance

After a dreadful start to the week, with many children staying at home due to the cold weather, attendance has improved steadily again. Our attendance target is 96.5% and we would like to see all classes achieving this in the last two weeks before the end of term. Letters have been sent out to parents requesting meetings to discuss attendance where this is a concern. These will be taking place with the attendance officer and members of the senior leadership team. Please ensure your child comes to school every day. There are many fantastic activities taking place during the next two weeks which they will not want to miss out on!

Punctuality Spot Checks

This week we have been monitoring punctuality to ensure that all children are arriving on time at the start of the school day. Members of the senior leadership team have handed out punctuality concern letters to several parents already this week and will continue todo so for the remainder of the term.

The school gates open at 8:45am and children are expected to be in school ready to learn by 9:00am.If your child arrives after this time the following effects

can occur: Your child may feel embarrassed coming in late in front of their friends, miss vital learning at the beginning of lessons, miss important instructions for the rest of the school day, learn bad habits which could affect their employability in the future.

Mr Clarke-Castello