Newsletter: Issue 147

Welcome to issue 147 of our school newsletter. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram for regular updates on achievements, class news and school updates.

Coming up in this issue:

Welcome back message
School Values
Learning updates
Attendance
Absences
This Week's Instagram Posts
Upcoming events
Diary Dates and term dates 2026-2027
Uniform
Home learning and home reading
Phonics and reading meeting
Out of school achievements
Gift of a book
Communication
Notices
Topic overviews
Little Leaders
Arbor Parent App
School site safety
Safeguarding
Online safety newsletter
Achievement awards
WOW Walk to School Challenge
Reading for pleasure

Welcome back message...

A very warm welcome back to everyone as we begin another exciting school year. It has been wonderful to see our school community back where we all belong, reconnecting with friends and familiar faces, and settling into our new classroom teams.

We are especially delighted to welcome our new EYFS children, who are beginning their school journey with us. Across the school, the children have returned with smiles, enthusiasm and confidence, and there has been a real sense of excitement as everyone has settled into their new classes and routines.

The start of a new school year is always a special time, bringing fresh opportunities to learn, grow and create lasting memories together. We are looking forward to working in partnership with you to ensure every child feels happy, supported and inspired to achieve their very best throughout the year.

As always, please remember that our doors are always open. We are here to support you and your family every step of the way, so please do not hesitate to get in touch if you need anything.

Mrs Duggin
Headteacher

Values

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 in and out of the classroom. 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

Learning updates

Foundation Stage The children in Foundation Stage have settled in well to school. They have enjoyed exploring their new environment and learning all the routines of school. Well done Chicks and Robins.

Key Stage One This week, KS1 have settled in beautifully! We have loved getting to know each other and our new classes. We've had some Red Riding Hood excitement... and enjoyed learning new football and dodgeball skills. We've already learned so many new things and all the teachers are so impressed! What a wonderful first week back to school.

Lower Key Stage Two We have been very busy settling into our new classes and getting to know our new class teams. Everyone has shown fantastic enthusiasm and has done a brilliant job of modelling our core values.

We have enjoyed reading the story One Word for Kids and have been thinking carefully about a special word that we can each aspire to throughout the year. It has been wonderful to hear the thoughtful and inspiring words that the children have chosen.

We have also been developing our teamwork skills through a range of fun and exciting challenges. We have worked together to build objects from Play-Doh, constructed the tallest STEM tower we could, and even tackled the challenge of building a cup pyramid using just one finger each to move and lift the cups!

It has been a brilliant start, and we are so proud of the enthusiasm, teamwork and positive attitudes everyone has shown. We are looking forward to all the exciting learning and adventures still to come!

Upper Key Stage Two UKS2 have made a fantastic start back to school! It has been lovely to see everyone settling in so well, ready to learn and showing such a positive attitude.

We’ve already been busy! In Science, we’ve been learning about light and how it travels; in History, we’ve travelled back in time to explore crime and punishment; and in English, we’ve been exploring The Shadow Girl as part of our poetry unit.

We’ve also got our maths brains back into action, exploring place value and some very BIG numbers!

What a brilliant start to the new school year - well done, UKS2!

attendance

Last years whole school attendance figure was 96.3%

Our aim for the academic year is 97% or above

Current whole school attendance is 98.7%

Our class attendance for this week is:

Wow, all classes have achieved 97%+ attendance in the first 7 days of school. What a wonderful start!

Absences

If your child is ill or unable to come to school, please remember to contact school each morning they are absent. You can:

speak to the school office
email enquiries@metheringham.lincs.sch.uk
leave a message on the school answerphone.

Please leave the name of your child, their class and the reason for absence. We have a legal responsibility to know where our pupils are and to accurately record absences.

Please report any absences on each day of the absence.

If we have not seen a child for 3 or more days, we may carry out a safe and well-check for safeguarding reasons.

This Week's Instagram Posts

upcoming events

15th September- Phonics and reading meeting, 4:30, EYFS and Year 1 parents

Advanced Notice

1st October- LKS2 trip to Creswell Crags

Diary of events and term dates 2026-2027

Diary dates for 2026-2027 are available to view on our

school website. Click Here

You can also view term dates here: Click Here

UNiform

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.

Home learning and Home reading

Homework and home reading books have been sent home today. Please check your emails for expectations with regards to homework and reading at home.

phonics and reading meeting

The parents of Reception and Year 1 pupils are invited to a Phonics and Reading meeting on Tuesday 15th September at 4:30. Little ones are welcome to attend too.

Out of school achiEvements

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

the gift of a book...

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 or class libaries.

Click Here for our Amazon Wishlist

communication

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.

Notices

FOMS

Friends of Metheringham School (FOMS)

Hello and welcome to all old and new 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!

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 💚

Topic overviews for parents

This terms curriculum overviews are available to view on the school website: Click Here

Little Leaders

Our Year 6 house captains and vice captains have been selected. They will be representing the Spitfires, Hurricanes and Lancasters as they work together each week to earn the most house points. House points are earned through poitive behaviour, peg ups in KS1, in class rewards in KS2, completion of homework and through reading at home.

Watch this space for the announcements of our new mini leaders in other roles across the school.

arbor app

This year, we have introduced a parent app to help us streamline all communication in one place. Over the next academic year, we will be transitioning, and eventually Parent Pay will also move to our new app so everything is in one place.

Our Arbor app will allow you to:

View and update any information we hold for you and your child
View attendance
Receive and send messages
Book appointments

Later in the year, you will be able to:

Book Clubs
Make payments for trips

Please ensure you are signed up and all details are correct.

Parents evening will be bookable on the Arbor parent app this term. It's essential that everyone has accesss to the app before this goes live. Please come and see us if you need any help.

School site safety

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
Bikes and scooters must not be used inside the school gates
Parents and carers using onsite wraparound care are not permitted to use the school carpark at drop off or pick up

safeguarding

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:

We will share a monthly safeguarding newsletter with you each month. September's issue is available now: Click Here

ONline safety newsletter

Our latest online safety newsletter is available now. These are excellent topics to discuss with your child. Click Here

acheivement awards

Teachers award two achievement certificates a week in our achievement assembly. If your child gets more than one certificate in an academic year, they will receive a badge. Please keep your certificates safe and bring them back to school to receive your badge:

2 awards= KS1 - bronze owl/ KS2 - merit badge

3 awards= KS1 - silver owl/ KS2 - commendation badge

5 awards= KS1 - gold owl/ KS2 - excellence badge

wow walk to school challenge

At Metheringham Primary School, we want to help keep ourselves active and support our neighbours by keeping our school gates free from vehicles. The WOW Walk to school challenge helps us to do just that!

The WOW Walk to School Challenge encourages children to walk, wheel, park and stride, scoot or cycle to school as often as possible. Pupils collect a monthly badge by making at least two active journeys every week in the month. The challenge helps children stay active, builds independence, reduces traffic and pollution around the school, and supports healthier, happier lifestyles. We encourage all families to take part whenever they can!

Our pupils have already started tracking their journeys on their class travel trackrs and are working towards their September badge.

In order to record park and stride, you must park at least 5 minutes away from the school and walk the rest of the way. Parking at the playpark or Hall Yard would not count towards active travel to school.

Please see our bubble map for suggested places you could park and then stride.

reading for pleasure

📚 Making Time for Stories at Home

This month, the National Year of Reading is celebrating Early Years reading and the wonderful joy that comes from sharing stories with young children.

Reading together doesn’t have to mean sitting down with a book every night. Everyday moments count – cuddling up for a bedtime story, singing a favourite song, chatting about what you see on a walk, or talking about a character in a book. You can start from birth!

A few simple tips to make reading enjoyable at home:

❤️ Keep it fun and relaxed – there’s no pressure to finish a story. Follow your child’s lead and try again another time if they lose interest.
🔎 Follow their interests – dinosaurs, animals, vehicles or nature? Find stories linked to what they love.
⏰ Build reading into everyday routines – even a few minutes of sharing a story, talking or singing can make a difference.
🗣️ Talk, sing and tell stories too – reading is about building language, imagination and connection, not just reading the words on a page.

The National Year of Reading has also launched new resources for families, including storytelling guides, picture books, animations and songs, making it easy to bring more stories into everyday family life. Click here for more information.

Remember: there’s no “perfect” way to read together. What matters most is sharing the moment. 💛

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