We need 20 children from Year 3, 4 and 5 who have some dance ability, good co-ordination and enjoy performing in front of a 20,000 strong crowd!  A choreographer will spend 2 full days in school teaching them the dance and then they will rehearse with children from the other schools on the day.

Many children have expressed an interest in taking part but we do need your permission.  The cost is £4 per child towards the coach journey to the stadium.  If your child is already in the singing group, they can still take part in the dance section.

Please let Mrs Earnshaw in the office know if your child is interested in taking part.

On the 8th February, the whole school joined together with other schools across the country to try and break the world record set last year when 94,489 people performed sign language to a song simultaneously at different venues.

Here are our photos from the event.

Update: The Sign2Sing website states: “sign2sing 2012 was a huge success, well done to all of you! We are confident we have broken the record with approx. 130,000 participants!!!” When the official number is revealed, we will share it with you.

The Governors have decided that the school name will be ‘Gomersal St. Mary’s CE (A) Primary School’ from September 2012.

We are now consulting parents on uniform, at the moment pupil consultations are in favour of changing the uniform and now we wish to seek parent’s views once again.

Your views are important to us – the last consultation was very close with 19 views to keep the uniform the same and 18 against – so every vote counts. You can make your voice heard using the form below.

EDIT: Voting ended at 4pm on Friday, 3rd February – the form has been removed and is no longer accepting submissions. We will share the results with you soon.

The attendance figures are set out below for the Autumn Term 2011. As you can see, we have 37 children who achieved 100% attendance for the term. Well done!

Also, well done to the children in Class 2 for achieving the highest average attendance. A figure of 95% is the National Average for attendance, so we need to ensure we are at least in line with this figure. Class 2 achieved 96.90%

Time really does fly by and looking in the diary there are only 15 weeks of school time before children take their SATs tests! The Year 2 SATs and Optional SATs for Year 3, 4 and 5 will take place from Monday 21st May until 31st May 2012. No holidays will be authorised during this period. I cannot stress enough the importance of your child coming to school every day. The children will work very hard over the next few months and I want them all to achieve to the best of their ability, as I am sure do you. Please help your child by bringing them to school every day and on time.

Best wishes for 2012,

Mrs S. Scott.

Average Attendances:

1. Class 2, 96.90%
2. Class 4, 96.69%
3. Reception, 96.55%
4. Class 3, 94.84%
5. Class 1, 94.11%
6. Class 5, 93.98%

Well done Class 2

You can help your child and their class to reach 100% by making sure they attend regularly and are punctual every day, this of course has an impact on their learning.

Congratulations to these children. What a fantastic achievement to be in school every day for 1 term!

Reception

• Eva Bliss Fisher
• Nathaniel Brooks
• Renton Fewster
• Isabelle Hall
• Emily Hardy
• Madison Swinden
• Daniel Walker
• Rebecca Wilde
• Caitlin Wood

Class 1

• Oliver Hainsworth
• Coby Lockwood
• Jordan Page Walton
• Eve Szwarc
• Ruby Taylor

Class 2

• Jamie Dyson
• Texas Firth Lockwood
• Luke Hanson
• Edith Hodgson
• Caitlin Holroyd
• Alex Hughes
• Ella Loveday
• Freya Thornton
• Emma Tierney
• Katie Wilde

Class 3

• Loren Asquith Watson
• Cole Gosling
• Morgan Hudson
• Jessica Wilson
• Emma Wright

Class 4

• Jack Bownes
• Alfie Brown
• Caitlin Eager
• Codey Hudson
• Teigan Spencer

Class 5

• Sarah Firth
• Lewis Heap
• Kelly Marshall

Getting to school on time

Being in school every day is extremely important, as is being punctual and being in class by 8:45am. A child who is punctual starting from Nursery and throughout school develop into young adults who are able to organise their day to be independent and eventually show prospective employers that they are a reliable member of the workforce. Good habits need to start early and children need to be aware that lateness is not acceptable. This is our morning routine so you can see how important it is to be at school on time.

8:45-9:00am: Registration. Guided Reading with adults. Learning basic skills (reading, writing and spelling) for success in all areas of the curriculum i.e. science, history, geography etc.

9:00-9:20am: Phonics/Vocabulary work

9:20am: Literacy

As you can see, the work your child will engage in during the time after registration, will set the work for the day. If your child misses 5 of 10 minutes, one or two days a week (or more) you can see the impact this will have on your child’s learning.

Also, a child arriving in class after a lesson has started disrupts other children already working, interrupts the teacher and the flow of the lesson. As well as this, some children become nervous and upset and don’t like being late.

Please ensure your child is at school on time and are collected promptly at 3pm, again this can be upsetting for a child who is left after their friends have gone home.