Hartley Primary Academy Newsletter

March 2023

Principal's Welcome

Dear Parents/Carers,

We have had a wonderful end to the term with an exciting visit from the Easter Bunny! (see below). It's been a busy few weeks and I think the children and staff are all ready for a lovely break, probably with a lot of chocolate involved!

I would just like to give a huge shout-out to all of our staff here at HPA for all the amazing work they do - I think it often gets forgotten how many hours they put in, all the extra things they do to help the children and parents and how dedicated they are to making Hartley an amazing school to be at. Many parents often express their gratitude and tell me how a member of staff has helped with one thing or another and it is always lovely to hear. What is sometimes harder to hear are the requests for staff to do more, eg. run more clubs, longer clubs, more productions, etc. All of our staff work beyond their directed hours already and they have many responsibilities to deal with on either side of the school day. The recent strikes were not just about pay for many of our staff - it was about the pressure put upon them by the education system and the government to do more and more without taking anything else away and not providing schools with the funding to do this effectively. We have had quite a few staff members making the decision to leave education altogether. I know a few parents have been concerned about staff leaving Hartley and believing this to be because of me or something specific to Hartley, but it is simply that jobs in schools are hard, very demanding and hugely stressful (and not always paid that well). In light of this and to protect my staff's workload we cannot always meet the requests of some parents and we hope that you understand our reasons why. There has been a lot on the news recently about the stress put on headteachers regarding Ofsted but I would say that this stress is not just limited to heads or leadership teams, it's all school staff! Thank you to all of our fabulous parents who support us - we really do appreciate your kindness and understanding.

We have lots on next term as you will see from the dates below! I know it is a tempting thought to take children out of school over the summer, to get a cheaper or quieter holiday during term time, but please try to avoid this if you can. The impact on learning is much bigger than you may realise and in light of covid, and all the time the children have had off previously, children really need to be in school. If you are unable to stick to the school holidays you must write or email in to let us know (attendance @hartleyprimary.org.uk). A phone call is not sufficient. Thank you.

Have a wonderful Easter break with your children and we will see you back on Monday 17th April!

Kind regards,

Nicole Galinis

Principal

Easter Bunny Visit!

We were very lucky to have a very special visitor in our Trophy Assembly today! Huge thanks to our PTA who brought the children Easter eggs and brought in the 'bunny' to distribute them around classes - the children were very eggcited!

Dates for the Diary

(please note these are subject to change but we will inform you as soon as possible if this is necessary)

Monday 17th April - Start of Term 5
Wednesday 19th April - 7pm PTA meeting
Thursday 20th April - Class Photos (& contemporary photos for Year 6)
Friday 21st April - PTA Quiz Night
Tuesday 25th April - Reception visit to Godstone Farm
Wednesday 26th April - Year 5 visit to Masjid Abu Bakar Mosque
Monday 1st May - Bank Holiday
Wednesday 3rd May - Years 1, 2, 3 and 4 visits to Ash Church
Friday 5th May to Sunday 7th May - Year 4 PGL residential
Monday 8th May - Bank Holiday
w/b Tuesday 9th May - Year 6 SATs Week
Wednesday 17th May - Year 3 trip to Wingham Wildlife Park
w/b Monday 22nd May - Year 2 Pirate Week & Year 6 residential to the Isle of Wight
Friday 26th May - End of Term 5 (normal finish times)

Staffing update

We are very sorry to tell you that Miss Lawford has decided to leave Hartley at the end of this academic year. We are all going to be very sad to see her go but she has decided to explore other career options after 10 years of teaching. Miss Lawford has been with us from the start of her teaching career and is an outstanding teacher, loved by staff and pupils alike. We wish Miss Lawford well with whatever she decides to do in the future.

Mrs Coe, our Office manager, has decided to take up at post at one of our other Trust schools, Ebbsfleet Academy, which is closer to her home.

Mrs Baxter-Smith is also leaving us on 27th April after deciding to dedicate more time to her family.

We also wish Mrs Coe and Mrs Baxter-Smith well and thank them for their hard work while at Hartley.

We have adverts out to fill these positions if you know anyone who may be interested.

Car parking -

yes, again!!

We have been in touch with Lee Baker, Enforcement Team Manager for Sevenoaks Council, and raised the concerns that many of you have been bringing to our attention. These are his responses:

Driveways being blocked

The resident will need to report the offence directly to the Enforcement Team. However, the officer must be on-site at the time of the offence to enforce any penalties. They are unable to accept photographs or car details as evidence once the person has moved on. Lee said they don't often get requests for this as the resident won't want to be seen reporting the offender.

Parking on Double Yellows or Zigzag markings

Again the same as the above, the officer will only be able to enforce if they witness the person parking on the lines, and will ask the person to move on before attempting to issue a penalty. If the person is not available or refuses to move on, the officer will be able to issue a penalty notice. However, this is only valid if the person hasn't moved by the time the ticket is printed. If the person drives away whilst the officer is entering the data into the machine, the penalty will not stand.

Timings of Patrol

Enforcement officers are on shift from 8am - 8pm. We have asked them to attend between 8am and 9am to make best use of the time. Lee feels this is not always effective because if parents see the officer they will not park where they shouldn't and feels if there is no obvious offence, then it would be more conducive for the officer to move on to continue to monitor the wider area.

PCSO Support

Lee is currently liaising with the PCSO team, to ask if they can attend in support of the Enforcement Team but he is waiting for confirmation of this.

Reporting Tools

Sevenoaks District Council website will soon have an online form for members of the public to report parking concerns directly. Lee anticipates this will be live by the Easter holidays. In the meantime, we should continue to report via Jackie West who will escalate as required.

As you can see, our hands are tied and we are reliant on all parents being good, kind citizens who are considerate of others and not just being lazy and parking as close to the school as possible at the detriment of others! We can but live in hope!

UPDATE!!

As many of you will have seen, we actually had the police and enforcement team here on Thursday 30th March. They 'moved on' at least 15 people who were attempting to park where they shouldn't and informed us that the biggest issue is the number of people parking at the end of Oast Way, on the corners, blocking the view for pedestrians, people stopping to et children out without actually pulling over properly and parking, and people parking on pavements without leaving room for pushchairs to get through. They left us with this extract from the highway code to remind you all about the law regarding parking.

Medications

We seem to have an ever-increasing number of parents requesting that we give medications to their children, stating that they have no one else who can come to administer it. Unfortunately, this is having a hugely negative impact on the office staff who are struggling to get through the rest of their daily responsibilities in order to keep the school running safely and efficiently. I would ask that you only ask for us to administer medications when absolutely necessary and these should be medications that have been prescribed, not over-the-counter medications such as Calpol. If your child had a long-term medical condition, such as asthma, diabetes, etc or severe allergies then we do of course support by making sure medications are given when needed. Likewise, if your child is prescribed antibiotics and needs to have a dose four times a day we are happy to help with a lunchtime dose (three doses a day do not require a dose at lunchtime because you can do before and after school and at bedtime). However, all of the adhoc requests we are getting are making it very difficult for us to manage. We don't want children to be kept off of school unnecessarily but if they are given a dose of medication, eg. Calpol, before school then generally they are ok until the end of the day. If they need a second dose at lunchtime we ask that you come to the school to give this to them. We keep a small amount of Calpol in the office for emergencies and cannot store bottles of Calpol (or any other similar medication) for individual children unless they have a long-term medical condition and need to be given this regularly. This would then need to be provided by parents and not administered from our emergency stock.

Book Fair, Book Week & Vocabulary Parade

We all had lots of fun during Book Week this term! The Vocabulary Parade and Potato Character Competition were both huge successes! Congratulations to all of our winners and thank you parents for supporting your children with their creative outfits! Our book fair was also a great success and your purchases earned us a whopping £636.37 for us to spend on books!

School dinners

Following the parent meeting with Olive Dining we have received this feedback from Caroline Whyman, the Director of Operations for Olive:

Student Feedback:

The children have been completing a lunchtime feedback form for us, overall, the feedback has been positive.

We received over 200 surveys.

The item the children would most like to see on the menu was hot dogs, so these have been added to the post-Easter menu for the children.

The pizzas were the most popular menu item with fish and chips a close second.

Parent feedback:

Based on the feedback both face-to-face and on the google forms, the service has improved, and children are coming home more satisfied.

75% of parents requested pre-order be reinstated so this will happen, once menus have been agreed and the pre order set up on the school comms.

Portion Size:

We will be changing the way the seconds option works. Parents felt that not all students had an equal opportunity to return for seconds and this impacted on play time for the children, so each child will be offered a bigger portion at the counter initially and asked if they would like more with unlimited salad as an option as well. If they are then still hungry they can come back for seconds.

Menus:

Menus are being agreed now for after the Easter break, they will remain as a 3-week cycle with the addition of a pasta dish daily as well as a main course, vegetarian main course and jacket potato. In the summer months will be adding a deli bar – giving the children a sandwich, baguette or wrap option with a salad and dessert of the day.

From the start of Term 5 onwards, you will need to pre-select the meals you would like the children to have, via ParentPay, as was the previous arrangement. Children having pasta, jacket potato, deli option or those with specific allergies or dietary requirements will be given a lanyard to wear to identify their choice.

Before and after school supervision

There are a few areas around the school that are out of bounds before and after school. This is because our resources are not looked after properly when children are left unsupervised and we have found things have been damaged or broken. Please keep your children with you before and after school. They should not be playing on the trim trails, in the woods and definitely not in our garden areas. The Year 1 garden area in particular is regularly being left in a mess, with broken items and churned-up mud where children are being allowed to play unsupervised.

Term Dates -

change for Term 6 2023

There has been a slight change to our term dates for this academic year. We were due to have a staff development day on Monday 3rd July and our final day of Term 6 was going to be Friday 21st July. This has now changed - we will no longer be closed to pupils on Monday 3rd July - this will be a normal school day. Instead, we will be having our staff development day on Friday 21st July and Thursday 20th July will be the last day of term, finishing at 1.30pm. Sorry for any inconvenience caused.

Clubs and Competitions

Sportshall Athletics Competition

On Friday 24th February, 41 children from KS2 represented Hartley Primary Academy at a sportshall athletics competition. All children competed in a mixture of track and field events. The field events included: javelin, speed bounce, standing long jump, triple jump, chest push and vertical jump. The track events were a mixture of obstacle relays and running relays, over a variety of lengths.

The Year 3/4 competition took place during the morning and the Year 5/6 competition took place in the afternoon. The children were very excited to be taking part and they all tried their very best in every event. They demonstrated fantastic teamwork and were full of praise and encouragement for each other. There was a great deal to celebrate throughout the day as the Year 3/4 team won their competition and the Year 5/6 team came in 3rd place. There were also individual awards presented for the children who scored the best score of the day in each of the field events. We had 8 individual winners throughout the day which is an amazing achievement.

Year 3/4: Year 5/6:

Boys javelin - Freddie P Boys speed bounce - Harry W

Girls javelin - Meadow Girls vertical jump - Annabelle

Boys speed bounce - Max

Girls speed bounce - Chloe

Boys standing long jump - Casey

Girls standing long jump - Ellie

It was a wonderful day - we are extremely proud of you all.

Tag Rugby Festival

During term 4 pupils from year 5 and 6 visited Gravesend Grammar School for Tag Rugby training sessions in preparation for the Tag Rugby Festival on Wednesday 29th March. This was a great opportunity for the children to develop their teamwork and communication skills by working with children from other schools.

The children performed incredibly well at the Festival and should be very proud of themselves. They demonstrated the TREDS (Teamwork, Respect, Enjoyment, Discipline and Sportsmanship) values and even received an award for displaying exceptional Sportsmanship! Well done!

Careers Talks

A huge thank you to the volunteers who have given their time to come and speak to the children about careers, the world of work and education. The children have really enjoyed all the sessions so far, which have so far included a psychologist and an anaesthetist (thank you to Mr and Mrs Floyd), a journalist (thank you to Mrs Hollis), a veterinary nurse (thank you to Mrs Sammons) and police officers (thank you to Mrs Todd and the other officers and police dogs!).

We have more visits in the coming weeks including a sports commentator, a footballer and the Head of the King's Award Office! If you are interested in sharing any stories about your careers/jobs/journey through work with the children, please get in touch with the school office.

Curriculum information

Feedback from the parent survey inicidated that more of you would like to know about our curriculum and the PYP framework through which we deliver it. Mrs Smith subsequently held a curriculum information evening - thank you to her and the parents that came along. The slides from this information evening are available on the curriculum section of our website, here.

There is also a lot more information about the subjects we teach on the curriculum area of the website, including a 'road map' of each subject and each key stage; these are really useful to be able to glance at and find out quickly what your child will be learning about in each subject in each term. They are available on the 'subject pages' section of the wesbite, here (click on the buttons for each subject and scroll down until you find the road maps). There are road maps for every foundation subject but not for reading, writing and maths (yet!). Some examples are included below.

Curriculum road map - music - March 2023.pdf

Music Key Stage 2 Road Map

Curriculum road map - art ks1 - March 2023.pdf

Art Key Stage 1 Road Map

Curriculum road map - science - March 2023.pdf

Science Key Stage 2 Road Map

Free School Meals

If your child is under 19 and in full-time education, you may be able to get free school meals for them if you receive certain benefits. The quickest and easiest way to check whether your child is eligible for free school meals and to apply is via the KCC website:

https://www.kent.gov.uk/education-and-children/schools/free-school-meals

If your child is already registered for free school meals, you do not need to reapply. If you’re not sure whether your child is already registered, please call the school and we can check our records, or you can contact KCC on 03000 416464.

Check out our Facebook Page!

If you haven't already, please like and follow our Facebook page Hartley Primary Academy for updates and information about our school.

Look out for school information and updates, as well as recruitment opportunities! Please encourage friends and family to follow us too!

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