Newsletter 21 14/02/25

We have reached half term and the half way point in the year! Time to rest and reset - if you get the chance, of course! That's probably much easier for me now that my children are grown up but hopefully you can benefit from creating some lovely memories together.

As we continue the year of Jubilee as 'Pilgrims of Hope', the children have received a prayer of hope today, encouraged to take action for a fairer world. 

Moving into the next term, some words for the prayer should continue to guide us:

• work together to replant, repair and renew;

• love our neighbours and set those free who suffer;

• treat everyone with dignity; be fair loving and kind.

On this special day of love, the words of the prayer and our school values seem never to have been more important: Love God, Love One Another, Love Our World, Love Learning.

As we return to our learning next half term, you will be aware that our consultation meetings with you have been put back a few weeks. Thank you for your understanding with that and also if you have been affected by changes to staffing during this half term. Hopefully, we can enjoy a warmer, healthier and happy second half of the school year.

Enjoy your half term - and stay safe. God Bless 

Mr Beazeley

Please follow the link to the Ten Ten collective Worship Newsletter this month www.tentenresources.co.uk/prayers-for-home/parent-newsletter/  

• 17/02/25 to 22/02/25 – HALF TERM HOLIDAYS

• 24/02/25 – INSET Day – No Pupils in school

• 25/02/25 - CHILDREN RETURN TO SCHOOL

• 27/02/25 – Netball B

• 28/02/25 – Football Girls

• 04/03/25 – Shrove Tuesday – Pancakes for dessert

• 05/03/25 – Ash Wednesday – no meat on the menu

• 05/03/25 – Ash Wednesday Mass in church for years 4-6 at 9.30am

• 05/03/25 – Ash Wednesday service in church for rest of school at 10.45am

• 06/03/25 – World Book Day – Special menu (see below)

• 07/03/25 – Southend Makes Music at The Palace Theatre

Here is our new dinner menu.  Please note that the meat we serve is not Halal.

Upcoming Special Menus:

We will once again be celebrating World Book Day on Thursday 6th March. 

Please come to school dressed as a book character or in your ‘bedtime stories’ pyjamas. 

We would like to celebrate World Book Day by creating a ‘Book in a Jar’.  The children can start this over half term if they would like. 

Children are invited to think about how a favourite book, could be represented in a simple jar. 

There are some examples below for you to have a look at. Any clear jar can be used, a coffee jar, jam jar or other. You can put carefully chosen items to represent your book into your jar, selected quotes from your book, perhaps even clues about its characters or setting, or even decorate the outside of the jar to tell a main event from the story. 

Please make sure that any ‘Book in a jar’ are clearly labelled with the book that is being represented, your child’s full name and year group and class. Please bring them in on World Book Day. 

We would love to display the jars in school in the atrium on the day and they will be available for viewing by the whole school as part of our World Book Day celebrations! 

Prizes for the most imaginative….. 

We will also be having a very special themed lunch that day – The Wizard of Oz – please see above the exciting menu that our kitchen will be preparing on the day.

Your child will also be coming home with a World Book Day voucher which can be used to purchase a free book or redeemed towards another book.  Please check the World Book Day website for full details.

Dear Parents

Unfortunately, due to staff absence, we are looking to change the dates of our parent consultation meetings next half term. Instead of the first week back (and the original dates of February 25th and 27th), we are moving the consultations to Week 4. The dates for these will now be the 18th and 20th March.

We are looking to try a different approach to these meetings for our Year 5 cohort each year and these parents will receive a separate notice about this arrangement soon.

Best wishes

Mr Beazeley

Our Amazon Wishlist is live!! The idea is that friends and family of the school can donate directly to the school library. We’ll still accept preloved copies from home that you may also wish to donate. The selection of books are chosen by the staff as texts that may benefit the pupil's reading comprehension, engagement with the curriculum and foster an interest in reading. The current list is reflective of this and will update as and when donations come through.  The link to our Wishlist is here.

A big thank you to those that have bought books for the school, we truly appreciate it.

Here are our stars of the week who have represented our core values well through their actions of responsibility, achievement, compassion, equality, faith and respect 

St Felicity Class shared their class assembly about how Jesus gathered Peter and others to follow him in the bible story about them fishing on Lake Galilee. They reminded us how to show we are followers of Christ in our daily lives by being good citizens.

Our Lady of Lourdes and St Bernadette's classes have started their art lessons; colour mixing and sketching flora and fauna. They have been looking at action and being verbs, such as running, digging and ate. In PE, the classes enjoyed the choreography of a pirate dance. We have a very exciting number day on Friday, including a number bonds game with buses around a town.

NSPCC Number Day was held in school last Friday, and all the pupils enjoyed completing number activities and wearing numbers. Along with a number assembly at the end of the day

PUPIL ABSENCE

When a child is off sick, a phone call must be made daily to record their absence.  For sickness and diarrhea, the school has a 48 hours policy from the last episode before a child can return to school.

Any medical appointments need proof of the appointment for our records.

For any other absences a leave of absence form must be completed which can be obtained from the office.

LOST PROPERTY

Please can all parents check their child’s clothes -  All items should be clearly labelled and your child needs to ensure they can identify their own property.  Staff are wasting too much time searching for children’s clothing and dealing with frustrated parents.

Thank you for your co-operation.

We would like to remind all our families using breakfast club of the importance of booking in advance.  We have noticed an increase of children not booking in advance and this effects our staffing ratio.

Breakfast club (£3 per session) runs from 7:30 until the start of school and includes a light breakfast and childcare.  

We also run a tea club (£6 per session) from 3:15-5:30pm which includes a light tea and childcare - again all bookings must be booked and paid for in advance.  Failure to pay will result in the child not being able to attend future sessions.

All bookings must be made at the beginning of each week so we can ensure we have enough staff available.  Priority will be given to children who have booked in advance and those who have not booked may not be able to stay.

If you need assistance making a booking please email annemariedriscoll@sacredheart.southend.sch.uk

We would like to remind all our families that we are a nut free school to protect some of our pupils/staff and therefore request that no items of food containing nuts are brought in.  We have noticed an increasing number of children bringing in snacks and spreads containing nuts ie cereal bars, chocolate spread etc.  We hope you all understand the importance that some of our community have epi pens for their allergies and we need to ensure their safety at all times.  Thank you for your co-operation.

SEND Spring Term Update  

 In the next coming weeks, the teachers will be sharing  the spring Individual Support Plans (ISP) with all the families, who have children with special educational needs. I hope the plans devised will show the successes and the children have been part of setting the targets. Your input is greatly appreciated as we know that children with additional needs need a high level of support at home too. Your class teacher will be in contact with you for a meeting  and provide you with a new password. The ISPs will be online, please log onto https://edukeyapp.com/parent/login to communicate and share your views. Please speak to your class teacher if you need further support with this process. 

To find out further how we support children with special educational needs, at Sacred Heart Catholic school please click on this link.