Happy New Year – Headteacher’s News 12-1-24

A big welcome back to all of our children and their families to the Spring Term of 2023-2024. An important term for the continued progress of the children and of school.

Welcome to…

A big Northstead welcome to Mr Young and Mrs Dawson who join us as support members of staff. Another big welcome to Miss Johnson, who will be working alongside Miss O’Connor in year 4 as part of her final year teaching placement. We welcome all three to the staff team and to our wonderful community.

Attendance Matters! 

As I am sure you have seen in the news, there is a renewed focus from the Department for Education for children’s attendance to improve at school. You will know that I write about this most week’s in my weekly blog. When children are regularly absent from school, they miss out on important learning, the miss out on the learning sequences which have been carefully designed and they miss out on time with their friends.

Our attendance as a school is a key area for improvement and so we ask for all families to ensure their children attend school as regularly as possible. This also means attending school on time, every time.

This also means that I will, in line with school policy, send letters to and speak to families of children whose attendance is below 90%. Having attendance below 90% is classed as persistently absent from school.

Obviously, if children are not well enough to attend school, normal absence procedures are expected to be followed by all parents and carers. E.g. Ringing school before 8:30am on the 1st day and any subsequent days of absence.

Every child in school should be aiming for attendance of above 95%. Every child who attends 95% of the time this Spring Term will be entered into the Spring Term Attendance Prize Draw to win some amazing prizes! But let’s not forget that the best prize of all is an amazing free education at our school.

Attendance this first week back was 93.76%. No classes achieved 100% so the prize tub remains in my possession!

Classes winning a treat from their teacher this week – Classes 2,3,4,5,7,8,12,15,16,17,19 who all achieved over 95% attendance.

Teacher Training Day – Behaviour Pathway

Our staff gathered together on Monday for a day of professional development. Safeguarding, behaviour, teaching and learning and assessment training all took place during the day. Our new behaviour pathway was shared with parents and carers via class dojo on Monday. This will also be available on the school website very soon.

This is available here   Behaviour Pathway

Learning Celebration Events

Many thanks to all our parents and carers who attended the many learning celebration events at the end of the Autumn Term. An amazing 60% of parents/carers attended our showcases / stay and learn sessions. Many thanks for coming into school to celebrate your child(ren)’s learning. More events like this are planned for the rest of the year.

School Fair

Many thanks to our community for attending our Christmas Fair. An amazing £2045 was raised for school funds.

Online safety
As some of our children may have received a new device or their first device for Christmas, I thought it would be a good time to share a useful link for online safety tips and guidance for parents/carers. https://saferinternet.org.uk/guide-and-resource/parents-and-carers
Mrs Valancius

Job Opportunities

General Teaching Assistant (SEN) – Permanent Post / Year 5 Teacher (Maternity)

Please take a look here if interested in either of these vacancies we currently have in school. https://www.northsteadprimary.co.uk/vacancies

Look out for…

Look out for curriculum newsletters coming home via class dojo.

Please, please, please…

Please allow us to save valuable admin time by paying your school dinners, breakfast and after school club and any trip money on time via parentpay.

Please also report absence on the first day by calling 01723 362249 before 8:30am. This also saves our admin time a valuable amount of time.

News from our classrooms….

A great 1st week back at school. A wonderful start to the Spring term for EYFS with a virtual plane journey around the world. Amazing art and writing in KS1 and some stupendous science in year 6.