Holme Junior & Infant School September 2023 Newsletter

Wow, What a Start!

It has been amazing to see how all of our children have come back to school and how well they've settled in. We thought we'd share some pictures of what we have been up to so far over the last few weeks...

Holme School Parents' Parking Promise

Congestion on the roads around school at drop off and pick up poses a risk to children and their families, as they travel to and from school.

It’s a parent’s responsibility to see their children safely to and from school but, in doing so, they should not create dangers to others. Walking, scooting, or cycling to school has endless benefits for you and you child/ren and is without doubt the best way to travel to and from school.

However, we recognise that there are circumstances when travelling to school via car is the only option. If this is the case, then we would ask you to please park with care and consideration.

We are asking parents and carers to complete and sign the parking promise, agreeing that, as a caring and responsible driver they:

• Will NOT park or stop on the ‘SCHOOL KEEP CLEAR’ markings during the hours stated (Currently awaiting Kirklees to redo them)
• Will NOT park on double yellow lines in and around the school and village with the exception of a displayed valid Blue Badge
• Will NOT park on single yellow lines during the hours stated in and around the school and the village with the exception of a displayed valid Blue Badge
• Will NOT block the school entrances
• Will NOT park on pavements in the village, making it difficult for prams and wheelchairs to get by
• Will NOT park on the school side of the road creating a bottleneck and hazards for children crossing
• Will make sure children get out of the car safely
• Will park some distance away from the school, walking a short journey, even in bad weather conditions. (We have made arrangements with The Fleece to utilise their carpark and walk the short distance to school or advise parking on the cobbles at the bottom of Meal Hill Road.)
• Will turn my engine off while waiting outside school, to avoid unnecessary air pollution

We are overwhelmed by the current support we have received and ask that parents and carers complete the Weduc form before the end of Friday 6th October. I am sure that you can agree that this is in the best interests of our school community, especially the children who are most at risk. We are currently exploring appointing two Junior Road Safety Officers (JRSO's) from either Year 4 and/or Year 5, who will lead on this initiative to ensure that everybody is aware of the dangers and road safe both as a driver and pedestrian.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR VALUED SUPPORT

School Council

You will be aware that we have made a change to our School Council structure this year in order to incorporate pupil voice from across the school rather than just Year 6. It has been great to see the enthusiasm of our children in writing and performing a speech in order to persuade their fellow classmates to vote for them to be this years councillor. We have started to incorporate British Values into the work of the school and this area fulfils an important role of Democracy, learning about this and actioning it in context. It also supports our Shine Bright Value of resilience, ensuring that we can keep calm and carry on even if we don't get selected and reflect for next time. The teachers have informed me that all speeches they heard have been amazing and that we should all be proud of the children who made the decision to put themselves forward.

We are awaiting some final results and will declare our councillors, who will be working closely with Miss Keeling over the year. This year, for any year groups where two or more school councillors have been elected with a tied vote, we will give them the opportunity to be a School Councillor at some point during the year, for example, two councillors will do half a year each, three councillors will do a term each, etc. We have found this is the fairest way of making sure those voted in are given the opportunity rather than selecting one child from a tie situation. From next year, this will change to one elected councillor per year group for the year.

We will let the children know over the coming weeks who has been elected and make our community aware in our next newsletter, so please keep your eyes peeled!

Northorpe Hall Parent Workshop

Dawn Kershaw, our Rural Education Link Worker from Northorpe Hall Child and Family Trust has offered to deliver a workshop for our parents on Thursday 12th October.

The workshop covers:

• Child development
• Emotional regulation
• Resilience
• Boundaries and routine
• Self care
• Digital impact

As we all know Mental Health and Wellbeing issues amongst children/young people are on the rise. This workshop addresses some of the areas where parents can support their child/ren with developing positive well being. The format of the session looks at why each of the above areas are important to how a child/young person develops and how we can support to enable them to become independent, resilient adults.

For the workshop to go ahead, we need to know numbers ASAP.

If you are interested in attending then please can you go onto the Forms section on Weduc and complete it with your time preference.

School Website

As the year progresses, we will be updating our school website. This is the first port of call if you need any information about school. Some parents and carers have asked questions about where they can find information. I thought it would be useful to signpost the most common pages that might be helpful (and to possibly bookmark for the future):

• Calendar - Our calendar has been updated. It can be found here.
• Class Curriculum Information - Teachers update their Class pages at least once a term with important updates as to what children are learning and ways in which parents and carers can support at home. You can access the Class 1 and Class 2 pages.
• Curriculum Information - We are currently in the process of updating our school curriculum. You can find more information here. Please use the links at the side or the 'Curriculum' drop down menu to see specific pages.
• Policies - We are currently in the process of updating our school policies. If you see a little red page with the Adobe symbol in it, this means the policy has recently been updated. You can find our policies page here. These will continue to be updated.
• E-Safety - During our recent Safeguarding parent survey it was brought to our attention that we may not publicise e-safety sufficiently within school. We have created a dedicated page with information for parents and carers. It can be found here. We have also produced a page with questions and answers that parents and carers may find useful. This can be found here.
• Parent Information - Miss Talbot and Miss Devlin are currently updating our parent information pages. Please keep an eye here as updates will be coming over the Summer Term. Please use the links at the side of the 'Parent Information' drop down menu to see specific pages.

Shine Bright Values

Our shine bright values encompass what we believe our children should foster during their time with us to become well-rounded citizens in our community and the wider world. We cultivate our children to be independent, resilient, respectful, creative, adventurous and aspirational for their future. These will be featuring more regularly within school through our positive behaviour policy, being rewarded as part of Class Dojo and having a 'Shine Bright Values' award of the week. This will be one child in the entire school each week who has been recommended by all the staff in school, achieving one of our Shine Bright Values really well. We would like to encourage parents and our local community to support us with these values outside of school to ensure that the children understand the language and are able to show these life skills in order to thrive, not just now, but in the future. Here are our September award winners, who have shown respect, aspiration and creativity. Great work! We can't wait to see more children actively showing our Shine Bright Values.

Celebration Assembly

It's been great to see our children continue to be awarded for Honour of Holme, Shine Bright Value award, Remarkable Writer, Regal Reader and Maths Mogul. We've also added an all new Lunchtime Award and Super Speller! Our lunchtime award winner is chosen weekly by Mrs Crowther. This lucky person will be able to have their trophy and Munch eating with them for the week. She's keeping a close eye for those with good manners, eat their yummy lunch and are respectful at all times during their time in the dining hall. As spelling is a school focus, we have also introduced our Super Speller, where one child throughout school is chosen each week. Here are some of our award winners so far this month.