The Richmond Primary Academy Septemeber 2024 newsletter

Principal Update

Message from Vicky Ross, Principal

Parents, Friends and Carers

In nearly 25 years in education, I honestly cannot remember a more positive start to a year. The feel around the academy has been calm, purposeful, yet at the same time exciting and happy. The children have come back – looking amazing in the new uniform and ready to learn. It is very clear that they want to excel - the atmosphere in school is outstanding!

In the first two weeks back, we have had a number of trust leaders, educational consultants and visitors to the school - all who have commented on the positive behaviour seen throughout the classes.

From our youngest, newest children in Reception (who have settled in magnificently) through to our Year 6 role models – the politeness, enthusiasm and excellent learning behaviours are evident and impressive.

This year, now we have completed the process of joining the David Ross family, our complete focus is on accelerating our school development.

With that in mind, I present our 'Improvement Priorities' for this year.

We will:

1. Embed Trust Practices

We are continuing to embed the trust curriculum, systems and policies, and working with trust leaders to drive further improvement to the school.

2. Improve Student Outcomes

Our school outcomes have not always been positive when compared with national figures. This needs to, and has started to, change! Lots of work has been put in already in the long-term ambition to improve the children’s outcomes -this is a relentless drive for the academy and will continue to be.

3. Reduce Persistent Absence and Lateness

The new Government strategy for high attendance dictates increases in fines for unauthorised and persistent absence and/or lateness. Term time holidays will always be unauthorised. Remember... attendance of 80% may look alright on paper, but this is the equivalent of 1 day missed in every 5 days –and if persistent over the years- the equivalent of missing a year and a half of schooling over a child’s time at primary school!

4. Work in Partnership with Parents

We aim to include your voice, our parents and carers, more and more in the future of the school. We have already sent out our first parent survey and strongly, strongly encourage you to share your views when these surveys arrive in your in-box. Below, we have included our initial parents’ comments and how we are or plan to action improvement in relation to them. Nobody gets it right all the time and we want you to tell us if you think we could do something better or differently. In the last 2 years, the percentage of parents who would recommend the school has increased by 40% to nearly 90%...we will not rest until it reaches 100%

I’m incredibly excited for the massive leaps we will be making this year, and look forward to our most successful year of learning ever.

Mrs Ross

Communications

A reminder that we are communicating via:

X (Twitter)

Website

Email - enquiries@richmondprimary.co.uk

Staff Spotlight

A huge welcome.....

We are delighted to have some new additions to our team. Mr Sellers (Y3) and Mr Hunter-Clarke (Y4) have joined the team permanently. and Miss Broughton (Y1) and Miss Cumberworth (EYFS) are brand new additions to the academy.

This week find out a little bit more about.....

Miss Broughton says....

.....It is a pleasure to be back teaching at The Richmond Primary Academy where I began my teaching career in 2018. I have taught within the David Ross Education Trust for 5 years, and specialise in early reading and phonics. I have been lucky enough to teach across all year groups and I thoroughly enjoy teaching in KS1. I am excited to be part of the RPA family and I look forward to seeing where this journey will take the school and its community.

...and from Miss Cumberworth...

My name is Miss Cumberworth, and I am the new EYFS teacher at Richmond primary academy. I have been teaching since 2022 and have a passion for education and ensuring all children succeed, feel confident, and enjoy coming to school. In my spare time I enjoy spending time with family, photography and going to national trust sites.

Join our PTA

We owe a huge thank you to our Parents and Friends Association for the mammoth task of sorting and boxing up the old uniform. The massive pile took up a corner of the hall! It has now been boxed and sent to Africa – we are hoping that we can get a photo of it being put to good use to share with you.

Roald Dahl week was another successful fund-raiser for the PFA. Golden tickets galore! A big thanks to our PFA for this too - and the parents for giving in to the pleas for chocolate.

The PFA team are always on the lookout for new members. The first meeting of this year is on 1st October, in the evening. If you would like to find out more about joining the PFA, please send an email to enquiries@richmondprimary.co.uk or pop into the office and leave your name.

Parent Governor

We will be asking for applications for a parent governor in the upcoming weeks. If this is something you would like to find out more about, information can be obtained by clicking on https://www.dret.co.uk/Careers/Become-a-Governor/

Worried or need help.....

If you need support, or are worried about a child, please ask for the following staff members

Vicky Ross – Principal and Designated Safeguarding Lead

Sam McMillan – Parents Support Advisor and Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead

Louise Newson – SENDCo

or read our Safeguarding Contextual Appendix on our website for further ways to find help.

You Said, We Did

Parent Survey

Thank you for all the parents who completed our most recent September survey; your responses are essential in our drive to improve..

You said….'To help progression for both my children, I do believe that homework should be small and effective – reading books need to be sent home regularly.' and 'No homework is every given to children.'

We have introduced written homework to children in KS2 (and some Year 2 children) and will be more closely monitoring reading across the school.

You said...'In my child’s reading record there are no comments from teachers'

Teachers are asked to check, sign and acknowledge reading weekly – they won’t always have time to write a comment for every child every week but please ask the questions, and they should reply.

You said....'In regard to parent meetings, one of my children has SEN and an individual education plan. 5 minutes during parents meetings is not enough time to discuss this.'

Moving forward - All children on the SEN register will be receiving a TSP (termly support plan) in the next 2-3 weeks. The teachers will invite you in to read through, discuss and add your comments to this plan. Mrs Newson, our SENDCO, has already started ringing the parents of children on our SEN register for updates– this will continue over the next few weeks and will repeat termly. If you feel a longer meeting is still needed, please send teachers a dojo and they will make time for a separate meeting.

You said....'Term dates do not align with local schools.'

We have always tried to base our dates on local schools, and will continue to look at local schools’ dates in the future. We appreciate that not all Skegness schools have the same dates. Our 2025-2026 dates are in line with Skegness Grammar school as closely as could be managed.

You said....'It would be nice to hear more about positives, and if children get sanctions, what they are for. Not all children who deserved them received reward leaves.'

Our positive rewards have changed this year - leaves are no more and we are introducing positive rewards for maths, reading and general outstanding behaviours. More about that will be shared soon as the school councillors are in discussions with their classes. It is likely that positives will be certificates awarded in assembly. Our aim is in January, we will be moving communications from Dojo to our new management system – Bromcom. This system will register positives and negatives - and house points will also be introduced as the year progresses. In regard to communications, our reviewed Behaviour Policy states that if a child receives a stage 3 sanction or above, then parents will be contacted by either the class teacher or, at stage 4, a member of the senior leadership team. Let us know if this hasn’t happened.

You said....'The school lay-by needs closing! Parents are using the entrance of the lay-by as an exit, and not paying attention to other road users. It is also causing tail backs. Children are running across the road.'

We agree completely that, sadly, some parents are not making good choices in where to park when dropping off and picking up their children. If this continues, we will be forced to make the decision to close the layby. We have kept this layby open out of consideration for neighbours and to help improve the safety of children so that they are not having to cross Richmond Drive – We strongly encourage parents to use it responsibly.

You said....'I don’t like the children wearing PE kits on PE days'

This is a new initiative that we are trialling – the decision was made to support the younger children in being active. The time taken for them to change impacts heavily on the amount of time that they can spend doing PE. We will add a question on this decision on our next survey, to get the views of all our parents before deciding if this will be a permanent decision.

You said....'Clubs like football would be amazing for younger children.'

We have tried to add more clubs for younger childen into our club offer this term. We will continue to work on this. We are also setting up an Enrichment Team who will look at devising a more even offer of clubs, competitions and visits for all children over the year. Our vision is, once this is up and running, a parent representative or two could join the team to provide a valuable parental voice.

You said....'Preparation for the 11+ exam would be appreciated – even if it was as an after-school club'

We deliver familiarisation tests in Year 5 but are limited by the amount of time that we can provide due to curriculum coverage expected by regulators. We will see if we can provide a club for the current Year 5 later in the academic year – if we can find somebody clever enough to run it😉 !!

You said....'I don’t know what my child is learning.'

We will look at sending out our curriculum newsletters earlier in the term - and, of course, making sure that they are on the website. Our new website will be developed over the year to be an even better source of curriculum information - homework should help too. We are also adding curriculum subjects to our new parent drop-in timetable, to support parents in helping with English, reading and maths initially. Our new GAP learning program (described above) will also be shared with you, to help you look at areas that we will be focusing on.