We’re looking forward to seeing you next week at parent-teacher meetings. To help the sessions go smoothly, please stick to the timings as much as you can – you can always arrange for a longer meeting if you think it’s needed.

There’s also Safer Internet Day next week – make sure you keep talking with your child about the precautions we all need to take when online.

Consent

Our Living and Learning theme this week has been I know the importance of consent. Help at home so your child knows the importance of consent or permission. As well as exploring consent generally, consider permission-seeking and permission-giving when online eg getting permission before taking and sharing images of others. As a parent / carer, you might want to start seeking permission before uploading images of your child online (‘Shall I share this pic, or would you prefer me not to?’ is one way to ask, for example.)

Policies

Governors have asked us to remind you that our key policies are available on our website – check out the Policies and Other Points page for most of these. Please ask us if you can’t see a particular policy or if you need a paper copy of one.

Class trips

Did you know we’ve a schedule of class trips? The plan is subject to change – there might be another event or trip opportunity which comes up, and the trips can only go ahead if we get enough voluntary contributions – but we try to stick to the schedule so children have a broad and balanced range of enrichment opportunities. You can check the schedule out on page 4 of our Topic Curriculum Guide.

Next, here’s another description of the learning that your child misses if they have a week away from school for a term-time holiday. This week, it’s the turn of Science.

If your child was absent for five days in a row…

Science lessons build learning in small steps across a number of weeks. If your child misses five days of school, they’ll miss one or two of these important steps. For example, in a Key Stage 2 unit of learning about the circulatory system, your child might miss a lesson which teaches them about the different blood vessels in the body. This will mean that they may not have the relevant prior knowledge when later learning about how blood is transported around the body.

Your child would also miss out on an opportunity to work scientifically. This may be planning or carrying out an investigation; taking measurements; recording and presenting results; or making conclusions and evaluations.

Finally, your child would miss out on an opportunity to ‘recap’ previously taught science learning from previous years.

Sticking with attendance, a reminder to check the NHS Is my child too ill for school? if in doubt.

Have a good weekend.