Diary Dates

Term Dates

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome back and a warm welcome to all of our new families! We have reflected on what a wonderful year last academic year was with so much achieved across the school for our children. Last year, our Year 6 outcomes were incredible with 89% of children achieving the expected standard across Reading, Writing and Mathematics, well above the national standard of 63% which will set them up well for the next phase of their educational journey. We are delighted with these results as well as all of the other national assessments including Phonics and the Multiplication and Times Table Check which were also well above the national average. Our plans for this year will ensure our children's continued academic success and I am proud to have such an incredible wealth of experience amongst the Lark Rise team who are passionate about ensuring that all children can reach their full potential.

This week the atmosphere across the school has been extremely calm with all children keen to immerse themselves in the learning opportunities. Children have spent time getting to know one another in their classes and their familiar adults. Our whole school assemblies have focused on expectations, embedding routines and next week we will introduce our value for this half term of Friendship and Love. We want the very best for our children and it is important that they know this; our whole school vision will be shared with them soon as a reminder of what we are striving for. In assembly this week I shared the book, 'The Together Tree' by Aisha Saeed, with the children to identify how we can show kindness to others. The children have been working on adding their contributions to our whole school Kindness Tree, We spoke about the feeling of belonging versus fitting in and how we want all children to feel a sense of belonging at Lark Rise.

This newsletter contains details of our parental involvement and communication dates for the year. We recognise the importance of working with you and sharing your child's academic achievements; this will show you when these opportunities occur throughout the year as well as opportunities for you, our parents and carers, to be involved in specific training so that you can understand how best to support your child at home. Working together really is key to ensure the success and happiness of our children at school.

If you are new to the school and do not already follow us on our social media channels then please look us up. We regularly share photos of whole school news and 'magic moments' where we use trips, visitors and hands-on experiences to enrich the learning and expose our children to the wider world. We have been working alongside the Trust to ensure that all of the children remain safe in the use of images online under a new Trust policy. Therefore, in the future you will not see pictures on any online platform that shows the faces of the children to protect their identify and ensure no images are used in any way which may be deemed inappropriate. This supports changes in how we safeguard the children.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend with your children after their first week, they are ready for a rest already! Enjoy some family time if you are able to and I will see you all next week.

Mrs Hannah Hartley

Head of School

Staff News

We are delighted to welcome Miss Dundon (Cover Supervisor) and Miss Enright (Teaching Assistant) to the Lark Rise team.

Senior Leadership Team

We are delighted to share with you the Senior Leadership Team at Lark Rise for this academic year.

Homework

Homework for all children will start from 14th September - further details will be sent out in due course. In the meantime, we hope the children can rest over the next two weekends while they settle back into school routines. They should of course be reading every day and can log onto Numbots or TTRockstars to practise their times tables if they already have their usernames and passwords.

Google Classroom

We have now moved the children over into their classes for Google Classroom. You will need to log into your child's Google Classroom account to join the new class, please could you do this as soon as possible, if your child has not already done so in school, so your child can access their learning in class next week.

Free School Meals - Pupil Premium

As you will be aware, all children in Reception, Years 1 and 2 receive a free school meal under the Government's "Universal Infant Free School Meals" initiative.

Changes for the 2026 to 2027 academic year

From the start of the 2026 to 2027 academic year, ALL children from households in receipt of Universal Credit attending these schools will be entitled to receive a free meal.

We have made this a legal requirement through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 and intend to lay additional regulations extending this duty to maintained nursery schools.

Going forward, there will be 2 categories of benefits-based free school meals:

Targeted FSM, which continues to be based on the existing threshold, covering pupils in households in receipt of Universal Credit with annual household earnings of £7,400 or less
Expanded FSM, a new category covering pupils who do not qualify for targeted FSM, but who are in households receiving Universal Credit

Ever 6 FSM Cohort

Pupils who are, or have been, eligible for FSM over the last 6 years are part of the ‘Ever 6’ FSM cohort. This is used for disadvantage funding and accountability purposes. Following the expansion of FSM, Ever 6 FSM will be based on targeted FSM.

We can use the extra funding in any way we choose to improve the quality of our children's education. This could include intervention and support for individual and small groups, additional training for staff and financial support for parents for educational visits and after school provision.

If you think you may be eligible, please see HERE. If you apply and find out that you are eligible for the extra funding, please contact the school office when you receive notification that your child qualifies for Free School Meals. Whatever the outcome of your application (whether you qualify or not) it will not affect any other benefits that you may receive.

If your child is new to the school and is eligible for free school meals, you will need to contact Central Beds Council so that your child is linked to Lark Rise.

School Photos

The school photographer was in school yesterday to take individual photos of all children from Year 1 to Year 6. She will return on Tuesday 8th September to take individual photos of children in Reception and also sibling photos across the school and again on Wednesday 9th September for the Nursery children's photos. If your child missed the photos yesterday and/or is a sibling of another child in school, please ensure that your child(ren) is in full school uniform on Tuesday (if your child has PE on Tuesday, they should come into school in their uniform and bring their PE kit to change into once their photograph has been taken).

PE Days

Please see below for a reminder of the PE times for your child for this academic year. You will see that children in Year 1-4 have a PE slot during their Maths lesson each week. The children will find out which Maths group they are in on Monday next week so they will then know which PE session they have.

Swimming for children in LKS2 (Macaws, Peacocks & Red Kites) will start on Tuesday 15th September.

Contact Information

Please ensure you check your contact details via MCAS - this is the information we have about your child on our school information management system. Should there be any changes to these details over the course of the year, please update accordingly as it is imperative we have up to date contact details in the event of an emergency. A reminder that we need at least 3 emergency contacts for your child(ren).

Notifying Absence

Please ensure that you notify the school (via the absence line on the school phone rather than by email) if your child is absent from school for any reason. Please do NOT use StudyBugs to notify absences as this is not a portal we subscribe to and the absence notification may be missed. If we are not notified of the reason for a child's absence, the absence will be recorded as unauthorised and will count against overall school absences for the year, culminating in a fine if a child misses 10 or more sessions (5 days) of unauthorised absence.

Parental Contributions

We will once again be requesting (via MCAS) the annual parental contribution of £10 per child. This contribution covers annual insurance, science, art & design technology costs. Thank you in advance for your prompt payment.

School Meals

A reminder that all school meals need to be ordered in advance via MCAS. The cost of school meals is now £2.66 per meal with effect from 3rd September.

Class Assemblies

The class assemblies to which parents/carers are invited have been added to the school calendar which can be accessed via the Diary Dates tab at the top of the newsletter.

The assemblies planned for the Autumn term are:

Eagles : Friday 2nd October

Hawks : Friday 9th October

Falcons : Friday 13th November

No Nuts

We would like to remind you that we are a nut aware school which means that due to children in school with nut allergies, we request that NO foods containing nuts are brought into school (including in lunchboxes). Thank you in advance for your support with this to ensure that all children are kept safe.

Governance

We have a vacancy for a parent governor on the Lark Rise/Ardley Hill joint governing body. If this is something you may be interested in and/or would like further information about the role, please contact Mrs Gransby (Clerk to Governing Body) via the school office.

Holidays in Term Time

As you are aware we are unable to authorise holidays during term time unless there are exceptional circumstances; this is in line with the Department for Education (DfE) guidance which we must follow. It is particularly important that children are NOT taken out of school during the months of May and June when national testing is undertaken.

The Department for Education (DfE) made a number of changes to legislation and guidance related to school attendance that came into force on 19th August 2024.

Under the new national framework, all schools will be required to consider a fine when a child has missed 10 or more sessions (5 days) for unauthorised reasons.

From August 2024, the fine for school absences across the country is £80 if paid within 21 days, or £160 if paid within 28 days.

This rate is in line with inflation and is the first increase since 2012.

In the case of repeated fines, if a parent receives a second fine for the same child within any three-year period, this will be charged at the higher rate of £160.

Fines per parent will be capped to two fines within any three-year period. Once this limit has been reached, other action like a parenting order or prosecution will be considered.

Further information can be found in the DFE Parent Hub at the following weblink.

Fines for parents for taking children out of school: What you need to know – The Education Hub (blog.gov.uk)

Sports Competitions

We are really excited to be taking part in this year's inter-school sports competitions. There will be a number of events throughout the year and different children will be chosen over the course of the year to take part in events as appropriate.

Term Dates 2026/2027

Autumn Term

Thursday 3rd September to Friday 18th December 2026

Half Term: week commencing 23rd October

Training Day : Monday 2nd November 2026

Spring Term

Tuesday 5th January to Thursday 25th March 2027

Training Day: Monday 4th January 2027

Half Term: week commencing 15th February

Summer Term

Tuesday 13th April to Wednesday 21st July 2027

Training Day : Monday 12th April 2027

Half Term: week commencing 31st May

School Uniform

May we remind you that children should be wearing the correct school uniform (including plain grey, black or white socks). We have seen a variety of brightly coloured and branded sports socks appearing on both PE and non-PE days which are not part of our uniform. PE t-shirts should also be plain (dark blue or white) and tracksuits should be plain navy or black (not any other colours eg grey).

Please ensure that girls' skirts are of an appropriate length to allow full decent coverage when sitting/bending down.

Any hair accessories should be small (no large bows) and any earrings should be small studs, no hoops, which need to be removed or taped by yourselves at home if your child cannot do so themselves for PE days.

Thank you in advance for your continued support.

School Street

A reminder that the School Street closure is in place from 8.15 - 9.00am and 3.00 - 3.40pm). No vehicles will be allowed access unless they have been issued with a permit from school (blue badge holders).

We are delighted with the success of the School Street scheme since its implementation and it has made a huge difference to the traffic situation in the vicinity of the school entrance making the walk to school a much more pleasant and safer experience. The ETRO (Experimental Traffic Regulation Order) expires in October and we now need to make the decision as to whether we make the scheme permanent or revert to normal free for all parking.

Whilst we feel the scheme is hugely beneficial, we are sure you can appreciate it does demand a large amount of school staff's time to man the barrier, taking them away from their regular duties. To this end we are looking to our wider school community for any volunteers who would be willing to participate in a rota system for manning the barrier (a 45 minute slot in the morning or a 40 minute slot in the afternoon once or twice a week). If anyone feels they could commit to this - perhaps a grandparent or other extended family member? - please contact the school office by email (office@larkrise.com) and we will be in contact with you after the summer holiday.

We would dearly like to make the scheme permanent and continue to provide a safer environment for the children's journey to school.

Children's Centre Activities

We have added details of activities being organised by the Dunstable and Houghton Regis Children's Centres to the website HERE as the documents are too large for the school newsletter.