Dear Parents and Carers                                                                                                7^th September 2023

Welcome to the Autumn Term and another school year. It was such a joy to welcome the children back yesterday and to hear about some of the things that you have all been up to over the summer break. We have also welcomed a number of teachers this September:

Sally Spires – Nursery (Rainbow Class)

Ben Thomson – Reception (Kingfisher Class)

Jo Walder – Year 1 (Butterfly Class)

Mark Collett – Year 5 (Badger Class)

Ella Bannenberg – Year 6 (Lion Class)

Please don’t expect them to know all of the answers to the questions you might have just yet but do feel free to ask them anyway and they will do their best to find out.

I was very relieved that our school was not one that had been identified as having RAAC. We are however currently having work done to the roof in the year 3 and 4 area to try to stop it from leaking. Lots of work has been going on over the summer including the toilets for years 1, 2, 3 and 4 – we do take note of the surveys that we carry out each year whenever we can!

Meet the Teacher Meetings

As usual, these meetings will take place in one of the classrooms shortly after the children have been dismissed. They are to give you an opportunity to ‘meet the teachers’ who will provide an overview of the year ahead and enable you to ask any general questions.

Dates for each year group are as follows: Years 3 and 6 – Thursday 7th, Year 4 – Friday 8th, Year 1 – Monday 11th, Year 2 – Tuesday 12th, Year 5 – Wednesday 13th September. If you are unable to make the meeting, do speak to the teacher and they will be able to send you a copy of the slides which will provide the key information.

Volunteers

We are so grateful to those of you who volunteer your time and talents to our school – from reading with children to being a librarian. Do speak to your child’s class teacher if you feel you might be able to help in any way or contact Mrs Brown hbrown@htprimary.com if you would like to help out with our library.  All volunteers will have to undertake a DBS (disclosure and barring service) check.

Vacancies

We are currently advertising for an additional Breakfast/After School Club Assistant and a lunchtime supervisor. Do look on the Eteach website or contact the school office for more information.

School Uniform

Smart appearance supports smart learning attitudes. We are so grateful that so many of you have sent your child back to school at the start of this new year in correct uniform. Our uniform is detailed on our website https://holytrinityschool.org.uk/school-uniform/ but I would like to emphasise that this does include black shoes, not trainers, and that skirts should be just above the knee – no shorter. All long hair should be tied back neatly with hair accessories in school colours (no flowers, bridesmaid style headbands or JoJo-bows in bright colours).  Many thanks for supporting us with this.

Communications and Conduct policy

Our aim is for school and parents to be ready at all times to engage in a respectful and responsible way in order to ensure the very best outcomes for the children and I am pleased to say that this is what happens most of the time at Holy Trinity. The Local Authority advises having a Communications and Conduct Policy in place. Our policy is currently being finalised and will be shared once it has been agreed by the governors but linked to the policy is a document outlining Home-School Expectations for school, parents and children. Your child will look at this with their teacher near the start of term and it should then come home for you to see too.

There are two aspects of the new policy that I just wanted to highlight ahead it being finalised:

• Most schools do not provide teacher emails for parents to contact them directly. We feel this can be a valuable communication tool and would like to retain this however we would ask that emails are kept brief and where there are concerns around a child should be used to request a meeting or a phone call to discuss these. Staff will respond to emails when they can, this is often challenging during the day when they are teaching, but are not expected to do so beyond 5.30pm or during the weekend or holidays.
• Class WhatsApp Groups run by Class Reps are a useful and efficient way of communicating with the whole class with messages about school related activities. These groups should not be used as a platform to air views/grievances about staff, children or parents in our community or as a political platform to air personal opinions.

Most things are best resolved face to face – please don’t save your comments for the end of year survey when we can’t directly address the person who has a good idea, concern or grievance.

Values Champions

These will be awarded tomorrow.

Free Saturday coding and digital making sessions at CoderDojo Kingston University

Youngsters aged 7 – 17 at all levels of experience, from beginner to expert, can create video games, web pages, build robots or explore digital electronics at sessions hosted in

Kingston University’s cool STEM Outreach suite. We offer activities using Scratch, Python, Unity and Raspberry Pi computers and microcontrollers.

Sessions are led by technology professionals, KU computer science staff and students. Kids under 13 must be accompanied by a parent or carer. Bring a laptop if you have one, or you can book one of ours.

Sessions are held one Saturday afternoon each month during school term, from 2:00 – 4:30 pm, with booking through Eventbrite. Email us to register and to receive the calendar of sessions: KingstonUniversity.uk@coderdojo.com

For more information visit www.coderdojoku.org

Click here to view the poster: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1b-lly66bs18kLgWjUQLJOoV4mp6H2tKP/view?usp=sharing