10/03 Newsletter

                                                                                                                                                                                      Monday, 13 March 2023

Dear Parents/Carers,

Extended Leave

I am exceptionally concerned about the number of school days that are being lost due to children being taken on holidays and extended leave. In the first half of the school year, 900 school days have been missed.  This is a lot of learning that has taken place, with children missing. This figure doesn’t include children being absent due to illness.

When we look at the progress that the children are making, it is often the children that have missed a lot of school that make the least amount of progress.

Please remember that by law, your child has to attend school. Holidays or trips abroad during term time will not be authorised and will result in your child missing valuable learning time and the parents receiving a financial penalty.

However, the main reason that they should not be taken out of school during term time, is because every minute of learning will help them to make progress academically and will help with their social and emotional development too.

Attendance

Our overall attendance for last week is 90.30%.

This is still lower than our target of 96%.

Punctuality

We had 6 hours and 3 minutes of lates last week, meaning vital learning is still being missed by some children.

Please ensure that your child is in school before the gates closes at 8.50am each day.

Events this week

• A group of Y5/6 girls attended a football tournament and came 2^nd.
• A group of children from Y4 to Y6 took part in a tournament at the Leisure Box.

Times Tables

The following 12 children have made it through to the final of the Times Table Competition and will compete against other schools on 22^nd March at Burnley Football Club. The competition was incredibly close,

and in Year 5, we had to carry out tie-breaker to decide on the finalists.

• Y3 Dawood Khalid, Rua Iqbal, Eesa Ibrar
• Y4 Zainab Ahmed, Aminah Sajjad Aminah Sajjad, Zayn ul Abideen
• Y5 Halima Ahmed, Qasim Gafoor, Saadiyah Afzal
• Y6 Eesa Ali, Husna Noor, Mohammed Isa Ali

Online Safety

This week I have attached information about ‘group chats’.

• There are some educational apps on iPads that can be fun and educational
• Parental controls are available for iPads. Without the parental controls,

children can access inappropriate content.

• Parents would need to disable ‘siri’, otherwise children can bypass parental controls.

National Teacher Strike

Three classes will be closed on Wednesday 15^th March and Thursday 16^th March due to the National Teacher Strike.

The classes are:

• Y3 Candy Tuft – Mrs Ellis’s class
• Y3 Silver Posies – Mrs Radcliffe’s class
• Y5 Sacred Lotus - Miss Mushtaq’s class

I am aware that this can be very inconvenient for families, so we are offering a childcare facility if parents need their child from any of those classes to come into school for these days.

Snow Day

Well done to the children who completed their home learning on Friday, when school was closed due to the bad weather. Please remember to keep us up to date with any changes in contact details, should we need to contact you again about similar issues.

Message from The School Council

Dear Parents/Carers,

 During our School Council meetings, we all agreed to have a non-uniform day on Friday 17^th March 2023 for Red Nose Day to help raise money for people who are struggling with the cost of living. We ask for a donation of £1 or more and children can come to school dressed in red on Friday. We thought it was very important to help people through the toughest times of their lives and we hope you can help us make a difference.

Thank you

School Council

Thank you for your support,

Mrs Sarah Bell

Headteacher

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