Newsletter 21 - 28th February 2025

Learning This Week

EYFS

This week in Early Years, the children have been researching sea creatures. They have been to the library to find information books, created fact files about them and have also decided to make these creatures in the Creative Area!

Year 1

Year 1 have settled well back into school this week and have enjoyed starting their new music topic about Football. The children have been discovering about syllables in words and names where they played a game called 'Tap a Name'. They learnt a football chant and performed it using actions and claps. The children were also lucky enough to take part in All Stars Cricket on Monday by trained coaches to give them an insight into the sport.

Year 2

This week, Year 2 dove into an exciting journey in Writing and Music! In Writing, they described amazing ship pictures with their newly uplevelled vocabulary. In music, they listened closely to Orawa, a beautiful piece by Polish composer Wojciech Kilar, and copied vocal chants. They imagined the journey of a river through Europe and began inventing their own drawings and chants. Well done Year 2!

Dogs on Site

Could we please kindly remind you that no dogs should be being brought on to the school grounds.

Parents First Aid Course

Last year we hosted a parent first aid course in school run by Global Medical. This was really well received and something we would like to run again. The cost of the session would be approx. £22 and runs for around 3 hours. Content would include CPR, choking, head bumps, allergies etc. It is a fun interactive session and run by paramedics who can talk about their real-life experiences.

We are trying to work out which day would be well received - please could we ask you to complete the following google form if you would be interested in attending indicating which day of the week you would prefer. https://forms.gle/zUC3TDdMiKB8HTv98

World Book Day - Thursday 6th March

World Book Day is Thursday 6th March.

There will be a theme menu on this day, alongside Jacket Potato & pasta options as usual.

If your child has a special diet menu due to allergies or intolerances, they will chose from their normal options, or a dietary-safe version of the theme menu.

World Book Day - FGI.pdf

Sustainability and Packed Lunches

As part of our ongoing commitment to sustainability and environmental responsibility, we are continually looking for ways to reduce waste and minimise our environmental footprint.

Currently the amount of waste we dispose of is weighed, and we incur costs based on the weight of our waste. With this in mind, we have noticed that a significant amount of waste is coming from the packed lunches brought in to school. In an effort to reduce our overall waste production and keep our sustainability efforts on track, all children who bring a packed lunch to school will be asked to bring any rubbish home with them.

Not only will this change reduce the amount of waste generated on school grounds it will help us to embed more sustainable and eco-friendly practices into our daily routines and allow parents to monitor more closely what food their children are eating.

We thank you for your cooperation and for being a part of our efforts to create a more sustainable future.

A reminder that parents of those children who have a packed lunch on most days / every day, have been sent a survey to complete regarding this. If you haven't done so already, we would very much appreciate you completing the form by Monday 3rd March.

Plants

If anyone has any artificial plants they are looking to rehome, we would be very appreciative of them. Thank you 🪴

FISHES News

Sponsored Park Run

Thank you to everyone that has returned sponsorship money for the Park Run event already, we are looking forward to seeing you at Dowds Farm on Sunday 23rd March.

It has been noted that there was a return date for the sponsorship money and form of the 28th February - this should have read 28th March!

Easter Fayre

Volunteers - Thank you to everyone that has signed up to help at the Easter Fayre. There are still some slots available mainly on the BBQ and refreshments. If you are able to spare any time at all please do complete the following form: https://volunteersignup.org/7DPMM
Donations - If you have any donations of cuddly toys please bring these to the school office.
Prizes - We will be running a golden ticket game, if you own a business or work somewhere that may be able to donate a prize for this game, please could you either contact or bring this to the school office.
Allergies - If you are going to be attending and doing the Easter trail and your child has an allergy/intolerance to dairy please let us know so that we can get an alternative egg for them. We will only purchase the number of dairy free eggs that we are told about so please let the school office know by Friday 14th March.
Krispy Kreme - We are excited to have a Krispy Kreme stall at the Easter Fayre. There will be limited availability on the day. If you wish to make a pre-order then please do so via the following link. They will be ready for collection during the Easter Fayre. https://buytickets.at/fishes/1608528

Parent Questionnaire Feedback

Following on from the Parent Survey that was sent out last half term, we will post the results of each question and one response to feedback each week. Thank you again to those who took the time to leave their feedback.

You said

Would prefer an infant school wrap around care option not hosted at the juniors - especially being YR R, my child can find it a bit overwhelming being in that environment.

We did

Thank you for your feedback regarding the request to consider a wrap-around care option for infant school children, especially those in Year R.

We understand that the transition into a school environment can be overwhelming for young children, and providing additional support through a wrap-around care program could significantly benefit their emotional and social well-being. Your suggestion to implement such an option is greatly valued, and we appreciate your concern for creating a nurturing and stable environment for our youngest students. However, at this present time it is not possible for us to operate a separate wrap around care option at the Infants as the facility available at Freegrounds Junior School demonstrates that it has the capacity to meet the need for demand. This being the case the local authority would only support new applications if demand would warrant it.

Nut Free School

We would like to remind parents that we are a nut free school. We have members of both the staff and student community who are anaphylactic to nuts of all varieties. This includes obvious things like hazelnut spread in sandwiches, but also many types of cereal bars and biscuits also contain nuts. Please check the ingredients list of all food items that you send into school.

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