Letter home: Friday, 26th November 2021

November 26 2021

Dear Parents/carers,

COVID:

As you will probably be aware we have a number of pupils who have tested positive for Coronavirus. Please can you make sure that all children who are showing symptoms have a lateral flow test. If this is positive then you must book a PCR test. If the PCR test is also positive you will receive information on how long your child will need to isolate. However if it is negative they can return to school immediately.

The main symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19) are:

a high temperature – this means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back (you do not need to measure your temperature)
a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours (if you usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual)
a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste – this means you’ve noticed you cannot smell or taste anything, or things smell or taste different to normal
If you have any of these symptoms, get a PCR test (test that is sent to a lab) to check if you have coronavirus and stay at home until you get your result, even if the symptoms are mild.

Milk:

The milk order for the Spring Term is now due. The cost is £11.50 and is for children in Early Years through to Y2.

Children in our Nursery receive free milk and children in Reception who are under 5. If your child will still be 4 up to the end of March 2022 this will be free for you too. Children entitled to means tested free school meals will also receive milk free. Please see parent pay for payment. The deadline for this is Tuesday 14th December.

ParentPay:

Please make every effort to clear your ParentPay account before the end of term. If you are having any problems with this please contact school so that we can support you.

Christmas:

SMASH Movie Nights:

The movie nights have now been postponed. This is due to the increasing number of COVID cases in school and the fact that some children will miss out due to being in isolation. We will be in touch in the new year with an alternative date. If you have already booked a place you can this can be held unless you contact school for a refund.

Tea-Time Club:

Wednesday 1st – Friday 17th December

We have a jam-packed Christmas Activity Planner to take us through the last few weeks of term.

Including:

Design and Making Christmas cards, Room and Tree Decorating, Letters to Santa, Festive Wreath Designs, Reindeer food, Snowman Sweet Treats, plenty of seasonal Movies….plus much more!
We’ll be playing (& dancing) to Christmas Music, enjoying this exciting time of year.
You adults may have shopping and wrapping to do (being Santa’s helpers) so we’re here to give you a bit of quiet time to get it done.

To book your child’s place, please call or email the school office.

We’re ready to celebrate… are you?

Mrs Wharton and Miss Hacking

Party Days:

The whole school is having a Christmas party day on Wednesday 15^th December. There will be a carousel of different activities within each key stage including time on a bouncy castle. We are asking for a donation of £3.00 per child towards the costs associated with this day. This will be added to ParentPay. Children can come in non-uniform, maybe with a link to a Christmas party theme. We will also be having a picnic themed lunch. I’m sure everyone will have a great day.

Hamper Raffle:

You will receive a separate letter with details about the Hamper raffle including raffle tickets to buy. We will send you 5 strips of raffle tickets, but please note you do not have to purchase them all.

Silent Auction:

At our last Christmas Fair we had a Silent Auction which was very successful. As you may remember this is when you can place a bid for an item and the highest bidder wins the item with the bid amount going to school funds. We would like to run this again so if you have any items which you would like to donate to the auction we would be very grateful. Please contact the school office or Mrs Priestley if you have any potential items. More details will follow next week.

Competitions:

So that our families can get involved we are having some simple competitions to help raise some money.

There will be a collection bucket on the gate from the 1^st December. If you drop a £1 in you will receive a raffle ticket and then on Monday 13^th December we will draw a ticket and the amount of money in the bucket will be divided between the winner and school.

We will also be running the Lottery Game where you can buy a lottery number. If your chosen number is the bonus ball on Saturday 4^th December you can win half of the money collected. This competition will run before and after school on Friday 3^rd December. Each number will cost £2.00. Good luck!

Polar Express Day

On Thursday 16th December the Early Years Unit are holding a Polar Express Day. They will be having lots of fun, hot chocolate, cookies and a film. Nursery and Reception children will need to come to school in their pyjamas that day.

EYFS/KS1 Nativity/Christingle:

The EYFS/KS1 Nativity/Christingle will take place on Wednesday 8^th December. There will be one performance at 9.45am and another at 1.30pm. Each family will be issued with one ticket per performance. For those family members who are unable to attend this will also be recorded. We are sorry for the limited number of places available, but we have to continue to keep ourselves and our families safe at a time when infection rates are rising. A letter with tickets attached will be sent out early next week.

KS2 Christmas Performance:

Unfortunately, we feel that there will be too many people in the Church for a performance with families and so we have made the decision to video this instead. This is because there are more children in key stage 2 than in the EYFS/KS1. With rising infection rates we do not want to put our staff and families at increased risk. We will let you know when the performance is available to watch and we are sure you will enjoy watching this with your child/children.

Event	Date
Hamper raffle non-uniform day	Friday 3^rd December
Lottery Number Game	Friday 3^rd December before and after school
EYFS/KS1 Nativity/Christingle	Wednesday 8^th December 9.45am / 1.30pm
Christmas Lunch	Wednesday 8^th December
Christmas Jumper Day	Friday 10^th December
Party Day	Wednesday 15^th December
Polar Express Day	Thursday 16^th December