Welcome to issue 116 of our whole school newsletter. Don't forget to follow us on X for regular updates on achievements, class news and whole school updates. Follow us @metheringhamp
Coming up in this issue:
Welcome back
Values
Learning updates
Attendance
This Week's X Posts
Term Dates
Diary Dates
Upcoming events
Uniform
Home learning and reading
Curriculum overviews
Out of school achievements
Seesaw
Communication
The gift of a book
Notices
School Site Safety
Safeguarding
FOMS
A very warm welcome back to everyone as we begin a brand-new school year. We are especially delighted to welcome our 40 new EYFS pupils who are starting their school journey with us, along with 45 new families who have joined our school community. Children across the school have been happy, confident and excited to get started. There has been a real buzz of excitement around school.
It’s always such a wonderful time of year—full of new opportunities, friendships, and learning. We are looking forward to working together to make this year a happy, successful, and memorable one for every child.
Please remember our doors are always open and we are here along the way if you need anything.
Mrs Duggin
Headteacher
You may have noticed that we have started the year by talking about our school values. We have five school values at Metheringham that we do our best to demonstrate. We believe these values will help us to be successful, happy and proud learners. They will also help us to live by our school motto, 'Inspire, Believe, Achieve'.
Our values are:
Honesty
Courage
Curiosity
Kindness
Pride
Foundation Stage Reception children have settled into school life and we are very proud of each and every one of them. They have started to build new friends, explore the environment and have shown lots of kindess and happiness along the way.
Key Stage One KS1 have had a fabulous first full week! We have enjoyed beginning our new English topics, learning The Magic Porridge Pot and Mr Wiggle and Mr Waggle. We've started learning about the Great Fire of London, Materials in science and our families in PSHE. The children have settled into their new classes beautifully and already have shown us so many of our school values. Well done Key Stage One!
Lower Key Stage Two We have had a wonderful start to the term in lower Key Stage 2. We are very proud of the Year 3 children and how well they have settled into their new area of the school and the Year 4 children have shown super kindness and friendship. The children have enjoyed a creative start with their Drumba lessons and exploring Viking art patterns and drawings. A highlight has been our maths lessons and the use of maths equipment to build, explore and compare numbers. Well done to everyone for such a super start to the year.
Upper Key Stage Two It has been wonderful to welcome the children back for their first full week in of the new school year in UKS2. In maths, pupils have hit the ground running by exploring place value through charts, partitioning, and number lines. Our English lessons have focused on developing description, with some classes even writing their own short stories. History has taken us on an exciting adventure to Ancient Greece, where we began by learning who the Ancient Greeks were. Overall, it has been a fantastic start to Term One, with every child trying their best.
230 pupils have maintained 100% attendance so far this academic year.
Last years whole school attendance figure was 96.4%
Current whole school attendance is 98%
Our attendance figures for this week are as follows:
It's been a great start for attendance. All families have received a letter containing information about attendance.
Our term dates for 2025-2026 are available on the school website.
We are pleased to share our diary dates for the academic year 2025-2026.
On our website you will find dates for the diary for the whole of the academic year. These may be subject to change. Further dates will be added when they become available.
Tuesday 16th September- Phonics and Reading Meeting (Reception and Year One Parents)
Advanced Notice
Monday 22nd September- Bikeability (Year 5)
Friday 26th September - Maths for Macmillan/coffee morning (all parents welcome from 9:30)
Thank you to all pupils who have returned to school wearing their school uniform with pride. We were very proud to see a sea of green this week and to see everyone representing their wonderful school in unison.
Please find a reminder about school uniform:
• Children are expected to wear school uniform Monday to Friday.
• Class teachers will provide parents with PE days for each term, and it is expected that PE kit is worn on those days of the week.
• If your child has a sporting after school club and it is not their PE day, this should be brought in a bag for them to change into.
Homework and home reading books will be sent home for the first time on Friday 12th September.
The parents of Reception and Year 1 pupils are invited to a Phonics and Reading meeting on Tuesday 16th September at 4:30 in the school hall. Little ones are welcome to attend too.
We celebrate out of school achievements each week in a special assembly. Please encourage your child to bring in any achievements they have been awarded out of school. This could be a swimming certificate, medals, trophies, player of the week, a photo of an out of school achievement, fundraising efforts etc. We look forward to celebrating their successes in our weekly assembly.
KS2- Tuesday
KS1/EYFS- Thursday
You should now have access to Seesaw for your child's class. Please login to find out about PE days and updates on the first few days at school.
If you would like to pass a message on to your child's class teacher, you can do this in the following ways:
Face to face at morning drop off or evening pick up
Call into the school office to leave a message
Send an email to the school office marked FAO:Teacher's Name
If you would like to contact our Special Educational Needs Coordinator, Mrs Thackray, you can do so by:
Calling the school office and leaving a message
Sending an email to the school office marked FAO: Mrs Thackray
Please be aware that Mrs Thackray works Tuesday and Wednesday as SENDCO and will therefore respond on these days.
If you would like to gift a book to school for a special occasion or 'just because', please see our Amazon Wishlist for some ideas. All books donated are marked with a special 'gifted by...' message and added to our library.
Our school site is a safe space for families and pupils. Please be reminded of the following expectations when on school property:
Smoking and vaping are not permitted on site
Dogs are not permitted on site
Taking photographs or videos on the school site is not permitted for safeguarding reasons
Please use the pedestrian walkway and follow the one way system to exit the site
Do not cut across the car park via the vehicle in or out gates
Encourage pupils to check for moving vehicles when using the zebra crossing in the school car park
Parents and visitors are only permitted to enter school via the school office
The safety and wellbeing of our pupils is our highest priority. If you ever have any concerns about a child’s safety or wellbeing, please speak directly to one of our team.
Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility—if something doesn’t feel right, please let us know. Together, we can make sure every child in our school is safe, supported, and happy.
Please find the names of our designated safeguarding leads:
Friends of Metheringham School (FOMS)
Hello and welcome to all new and old parents. Here at FOMS we try to run as many activities and events as we can to raise money for the school, which all goes directly back to your children. All the FOMS helpers give up their time to help run these events. The more helpers we have, the better the events are and hopefully the more money we raise!
The events left for 2025 -
- Last day of term pop up treat stall
- Disco
- Christmas Fayre
If you can spare a few hours to help us, then please click on the link below and join the What’s App FOMS helpers group.
https://chat.whatsapp.com/ByZwUY7hrRj4TvIuFJzNUA
Thank you 💚
