Welcome back to another school year! I have been enormously impressed by how smart the children have looked during the first week, and hope this continues for the rest of the year. I have also been delighted to hear about the wonderful summers they have enjoyed, and the exciting things they have done.
Children have now had almost a full week of their timetable and are getting used to new days for PE, art and such. Could you please make sure you know what days your children do PE, as they will need kit – shorts and t-shirt, and trainers for outdoors, and it does need to be a different t-shirt to their school top (no football shirts please). Years 3 and 5 will go swimming later in the year.
Can I also just let you know that all the suggestions you made about changing our curriculum last year through the questionnaires have been written into the new year curriculum planning – please come and see me if you would like further details.
Attendance
We will continue our massive push on attendance, as it is my intention that, this year, our overall attendance will at least be in line with the national average of 94%. (Last year, it was 89%). To this end, all our children who received gold, silver or bronze awards will receive their rewards next week – a separate letter is going out to those families.
Already, however, I have had to record some absence as unauthorised: I cannot allow children to miss schooling to attend sporting events, nor can I grant more days holiday than I am allowed to. Miss Lee will send your attendance slips back out to you once I have seen them. Please see me if there are any questions.
Electronic letters
Many of you, quite rightly, suggested we should seek to save paper by not sending out so many letters. If you would prefer to receive your news letters electronically, please let the office have your email address. Equally, if ever you miss one, they are stored on our website.
If you have any questions or queries about your child’s new class, or about the organisation of the school this year, please don’t hesitate to ask.
I hope that you, like me, are looking forward to year of even greater progress for Badock’s Wood Primary School.
Zak Willis