Walk to School Week 21-25 May 2018
Next week, 21 – 25 May, is Walk to School Week. Today, each child was given a leaflet and raffle tickets. For each day that your child walks to school, they’ll be able to put a raffle ticket into the box in the school office. Tickets will be drawn and prizes will be won! For those that live too far away to walk the full distance, The Buffers have agreed to let parents/carers park in their car park, so children still have the chance to enter the prize draw (scooting or riding a bike also counts). There are spare leaflets in the school office.
Nursery places available for September 2018
We currently have spaces available in nursery for September 2018. If you are looking for a nursery place for your child, or know of anyone who is, please get in touch.
15 hour and 30 hour places are available and we offer a variety of session times including morning sessions and full days. We begin each day at 8.30am and wrap around care is available.
Please don’t hesitate to contact us for more information.
Contact Mrs Beesley or Mrs Long:
- e-mail: scholesf1@spherefederation.org
- call the school office: 0113 2649149
We look forward to hearing from you soon.
Your views matter!
At Scholes (Elmet) Primary, we’re always keen to hear your views. Most parents and carers are happy to let us know at any point if something’s gone wrong – and even sometimes when things have gone well! However, it’s always useful to collect your views on some standard questions – the same questions that Ofsted use during inspections.
We ask that you visit the survey site and respond to a series of statements – either agree / agree strongly or disagree / disagree strongly (or say that you don’t know). The statements include:
- My child is happy at school.
- My child feels safe at this school.
- My child makes good progress at this school.
- My child is well looked after.
- My child is taught well.
There’s also the opportunity to add any comments you may have. The survey should take you about five minutes – maybe a bit longer if you add lots of comments. The survey is open until 11 June.
The results of the survey are used by school leaders, including the governing body, to shape what we do in the future – your views do matter.
As always, if you’ve any questions, comments of concerns, do let us know.
Tour de Yorkshire in Scholes
We enjoyed the excitement of the Tour de Yorkshire coming through Scholes on Friday. Each class decorated a bike to display and the whole school went outside to watch the women’s race speed past. We did some WuSu (Wake up, Shake up) dances while we were waiting and the Year 4 skipping team showed us their skipping dance from the skipping competition, too. It was a day to remember for sure!
Skipping Festival
A massive well done to the year 4s who took part in the skipping festival on Wednesday! Not only did they perform amazingly, they represented our school with pride; showing resilience and great teamwork.
Netball victory!
Our netball team had their first competitive match today and were convincingly victorious! The beat Deighton Gates 8-2. Well done.
Community links – Elmete Elderberries
We visited the community group for older people, the Elmete Elderberries, at St Phillip’s Church for the second time today. The sit-down aerobics was a great work out, followed by some refreshments of course! We also enjoyed doing wordsearches, colouring and a live performance by the brass band. Our children behaved impeccably and were a credit to our community and the school. Thank you for having us, Elmete Elderberries.
NSPCC Online Safety
Thanks to those parents who attended our online safety evening run by the NSPCC.
Some feedback from parents included:
- “Really informative – will have an impact on our household.”
- “Gave structure to tackling online issues at home.”
- “Really enjoyed hearing about the resources that are there to help and advise.”
- “Great overview of risks and resources which are available to help.”
- “It felt good to hear that it was ok for my child to use technology but that open conversations and some basic rules were crucial steps towards keeping my child safe.”
You might find Net Aware a useful website if you want more information about some of the apps your child could be using.
Term-time absences
In the summer term, the number of parents / carers requesting term-time absence increases a little. We do not authorise term-time absence for holidays or other reasons that are avoidable. This follows our Attendance Policy which the Governing Body agree, and follows the recommendations from the Department for Education.
If a child has unauthorised absences, there is the likelihood that parents will be issued with a penalty notice from Leeds City Council.
The National Association of Headteachers has produced some guidance recently, extracts of which are shown here:
The Education (pupil registration) (England) (amendment) Regulations 2013, which came into force on 1 September 2013, made it clear that head teachers may not grant any leave of absence during term time unless ‘exceptional circumstances’ prevail.
The fundamental principles for defining ‘exceptional circumstances’ are that they are ‘rare, significant, unavoidable and short’.
Term times are for education. This is the priority. Children and families have 175 days off school to spend time together, including weekends and school holidays. Head teachers will rightly prioritise attendance. The default school policy should be that absences will not be granted during term time and will only be authorised in exceptional circumstances.
If an event can be reasonably scheduled outside of term time then it would not be normal to authorise absence for such an event – holidays are therefore not considered ‘exceptional circumstances’.
Basketball
The recent basketball coach and club was a success. Why not give a half term club a try?
