Friday 31st… church at 2.45 for the Easter service, or at 3.15 for pick up.

Class Stars 🙂 Well done to…

Our Early Years… Rosamund Tonge

Class 2… Reuben Brooks

Class 3…  Violet Rampe

Class 4… Louis Burrows

This ½ term’s school value is…

We are a Community.

We encourage a sense of belonging and responsibility towards each other, our environment and the world we live in.

‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ (Matthew 22 v39)

Attendance so far…

School average for this week
Class 1: 87.5% Class 2: 96% Class 3: 93.1% Class 4: 95.0%
Lots of illness in Class 3 is completely understandable, but it does go to show how numbers decrease quickly.  Holidays, on top of this, impact our attendance data and the children’s learning, lots.

School average…  for the year so far is 95.2% with Class 2 and Class 4 being above average and helping to get our overall average up.   

Illnesses and holidays impact our attendance data and the children’s learning opportunities.
It can also be a trigger for Ofsted, as they expect attendance to be in the high 90’s.

(Please have a look at our Attendance page on our website for more information.)

We had several activities taking place recently with a big focus on science.  Jen Smith worked with Plastic Free North Devon and we used their VR headsets to observe the precious life under the water just off our very own coast.  The children wrote letters and poems that are now on their way to Selaine Saxby and Thérèse Coffey saying that the beaches around here are our playgrounds – would they really want sewage being pumped onto the children’s playgrounds in London?

Our Early Years children have also been learning about space this term.  How brilliant is it that Mrs Baxter, who works with our preschoolers, managed to get a request through to Tim Peake who then recorded a message back to our children?!

Thanks in advance to our team of FROGS for organising a cake sale at the church.  The funds really do help our school when everything is becoming so difficult for school’s finances – it helps to reduce the costs in the curriculum and for trips and visits, and we’re also having to start replacing Chromebooks too as our old stock starts to break down.

Don’t forget, they have a disco coming up too!  Look on the FROGS’ Facebook page for details through the holidays.

We hope you have a lovely Easter.  Be safe, eat a bit of chocolate, and see you in a fornight!
Mr Thomas

Friday 21st is also our 3rd Iswilencozi non-uniform Day.     Our “Izwilenkozi Day” is an easy and fun way of gaining some financial support for a charity in Africa called Challenge Ministries Swaziland (CMS).  After hearing about CMS several years ago, we decided to sponsor a young boy called Iswilencozi. A donation (even just £1) to have a non-uniform day a couple of times through the year really supports them.  You can read more about the charity and their work here – http://challengeministriesswaziland.org/Sponsor-a-Child

 

Get your party clothes ready – FROGS is organising a disco!

SAVE THE DATE!…
WHEN: Friday 21st April
WHERE: Georgeham Village Hall
Further details to follow soon…

MUSIC…

Sarah Cox, our Guitar teacher has some potential spaces available for children to learn guitar. Lessons are run either individually or in pairs at some point through the school week using our School House.  If you are interested, please do get in touch: sarahcoxtutoring@gmail.com 
(Sarah has also asked us to advertise two Baking Clubs that she’ll be running (younger and older children – KS1 and KS2) from her home in Georgeham, with a potential Saturday morning group for siblings.  At the moment she is just gauging interest in this, so please contact her on the above email address if you’re interested. )

‘Rocksteady‘  … We’re looking at interest in this – the potential for travelling music teachers to join our school with the ability to start up a school rock band!  Have a click through on the link and let us know if you’d be interested in us exploring this.

‘Rocksteady‘ are well trained music teachers who will teach your children how to play a range of instruments – including live performances for grown ups too!  Currently, we’re looking for how much interest there would be.  Please follow the link to see what they’re about and let Mrs Parker know if you’re interested!

Please login to your SCOPAY account to ensure dinners are paid up please, as we’re at the end of the financial year now, and it makes Lottie’s tasks much easier.  Thank you!

We’ve just a couple of families left to sign the Google Form to show you and your child agrees with the Acceptable Use Agreement for the use f IT and technology at school.

We’ve emailed directly, so please have a look in your spam folder if you know you’ve not signed and Please click through to this

If you’ve not done so already, please complete this Google Form to show that you agree with our Acceptable Use Agreements for the use of IT and technology.

We’re a Nut free school, so that means that most kinds of tree nuts (such as almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, pine nuts) and also peanuts shouldn’t be brought in to school. Sadly, this also means that pesto sauce shouldn’t be brought into school as it contains pine nuts. Sorry if this causes any inconvenience, but I hope you can help us as best as you can to keep our children safe.

Clubs Webpage for more info…

Wrap Around Provision & After School Clubs

Attendance… We frequently report the attendance of individual year groups as it’s a really good way to see if school attendance is at a good percentage… with it as high as possible of course! The DfE have a target of 96.5% but sadly, we finished the year, last July, being slightly below this.
Attending school regularly is vital to help children achieve and to give them the best possible start in life. It’s also a legal requirement of parents once children are of school age and enrolled in mainstream education. Ofsted has a strong view about attendance of course and, therefore, too many absences can lead into difficult discussions about how we can support children to achieve and do well – we could even be downgraded for our current Good status as a result.
Absences will only be authorised if they meet exceptional circumstances. With only 190 statutory school days in the year, there are 175 days (weekends and school holidays) left to plan for family visits, non-urgent medical/dental appointments, holidays etc. School holidays are published well in advance and parents are expected to plan and take family holidays at this time so as not to disrupt their child’s education. We also try to arrange our Inset (training) days to provide time for travel… such as this term’s October 21st.
Holidays… are almost always not recognised as meeting ‘exceptional circumstances’ and therefore an absence would be unauthorised. This could result in a penalty notice being issued by DCC.
Punctuality is important too, and the earlier we get our children into the right habits, the better. You may not realise that being just 5 minutes late every day equals 3 days of school lost a year. Please bring your child for 8.45am when they door is open and the classroom has a learning activity ready for them.

Dates in the diary… (bottom of the front page)

Click here to get to the front page

Dinner Menu…

Click here to access everything about school lunches

The school’s Designated Safeguarding Lead is Julian Thomas
Our Deputy Safeguarding Leads are Emma Hill and, our interim SENDCo, Laura Hapgood
You can contact us on dsl@georgeham-primary.devon.sch.uk

If you have any concerns that you’d like to discuss, please call through to Lottie and ask for an appointment. You may also find some useful or helpful information on our Safeguarding webpage… https://georgehamceps.wpengine.com/staying-safe/