Miss Curtis

I am delighted to share with you the happy news that Miss Curtis, our Year 1 teacher, is pregnant and expecting a baby next year. I am sure you will join with me in sending congratulations to Miss Curtis and her partner.

The plan is for Miss Curtis to be with us until January, when we’ll have a new teacher ready to take over in Year 1.

Harvest Festivals

As the first time in a school year that parents are able to see their children perform as part of a school group, our Harvest Festivals are always great fun. After a three-year layoff, we’re glad to have them back in the calendar.

We plan to organise two celebrations – the younger children will stay at school and perform to parents in the hall. The church has kindly offered to host the older children. Provisional dates are as follows, with more details to come:

Years 3 – 6: Thursday 13th October at 2pm in Emmanuel Church

Reception, Year 1 and Year 2: Wednesday 19th October at 2pm in the school hall

Parents’ Evenings

The dates for the Autumn term parents’ evenings are as follows:

• Tuesday 18th October             3.30-5.30pm
• Wednesday 19th October       3.30-5.30pm
• Thursday 20th October          3.30-5.30pm

Appointments will be made through School Ping, via a message that will be sent to you all shortly.

Dorset Coding Day

As part of National Coding Week, Dorset ran a special programming lesson for pupils across the county. Our Year 5 and 6 children took part in this online lesson to learn the basics of programming using HTML (the language used to make websites) using Edublocks, a free website that ‘helps anyone learn how to code with text-based languages.’ Our pupils really enjoyed their lesson, and of course these are important skills for anyone to be learning, so I wanted to share the Edublocks website with you (www.edublocks.org) and to also mention the free Scratch website (www.scratch.mit.edu) that we use in school. Children can easily access both these sites from home.

Complaint from local resident

I have received a complaint from a resident who lives close to the school. Recently, he noticed that a plant in his front garden had been damaged. Although there is no certainty as to who did this, I promised him I would appeal to you all to please be careful around gardens when walking to and from school, and to make sure children keep off. Thank you for your help with this.

Vacancies

We find ourselves in the unusual position of having a number of vacancies open at the moment – all to do with lunchtime staff. You may be interested in the posts we have available:

Kitchen Assistant Dorset Council website

Lunchtime Supervisor Dorset Council website

Casual Lunchtime Supervisor   Please speak to Mrs Howe in the school office

Important dates

Other messages for parents and carers

My name is Emma and I work for a charity called step by step. We help and support young people aged 16-21 who are vulnerable and are at risk of homelessness. As a charity, what we do is recruit hosts who have a spare room which they would rent out to a young person and help provide support with daily living skills to help them progress to independent living. The host would be allocated a support worker who would work alongside them. The host would also get a weekly support fee from us as well as rent from the young person.

If you are interested please see their website: https://www.stepbystep.org.uk/

or email Emma directly: Emma.Powell@stepbystep.org.uk