Welcome to West Meadows Weekly!
I want to start this week by thanking all of the wonderful staff, children and parents at West Meadows for your kind words as I shared the news that this year will be my last at West Meadows. As you may have seen, an advert for a new headteacher has already gone out and I know that HCAT will ensure a smooth transition in the summer term. In the meantime, I am very much looking forward to the next 5 months with the school and children! This week has been a very busy one in school with a Year 5 art workshop, Wellbeing Ambassador training, internet safety day, Valentine crafts, pizza making in Year 4 and much more!
A reminder that Monday 24th February is an inset day for staff training. Our Early Years staff will all be updating their Paediatric First Aid training while our other teachers will be working on Assessment for learning for the day. We look forward to welcoming children back into school on Tuesday 25th February. Please see the diary dates below as we have lots of events in the first couple of weeks back.
We are excited that moving forwards with HCAT, we will be introducing new dinner menus in the near future. Following on from feedback you provided through our parent questionnaire, we will be moving to a 4 Weekly menu rather than a 2 Weekly menu which will mean that children have more choice and variety moving forwards. We will be introducing lots of new dishes on the menu as well as keeping some of the children’s current favourites. We are also hoping to do some sample / taster dishes at our upcoming Parents’ Evening for parents / carers to try.
As part of our work on keeping children safe, we have two exciting workshops on Road Safety on the first week back after the holiday for children in Reception / F2 and for our Year 1 children.
We are hosting a Compass Be Mental Health workshop for parents/carers on Tuesday 22nd April at 1pm. Thank you to all of those parents who have already said they would like to come. If you would like to attend or would like more information, please see Mrs Maree.
As a school we are going to be making a move next term to all payments going through the Arbor app instead of ParentPay. The only items we are currently using ParentPay for are Breakfast club and School Meal payments and therefore to make it easier for parents, these will move over to Arbor. The first of these to move over will be bookings and payment for Breakfast Club from Tuesday 25th February. Bookings must be made on Arbor for Breakfast club in advance and the price will remain the same. School Meals will move over later in the term and more information will be sent out on this after the half term holidays. Can we ask that all debts on ParentPay are cleared as soon as possible ready for the move. Many thanks.
We have our next Parents Evening on Wednesday 19th March. Parents will be able to book timeslots on Arbor as normal from Monday 3rd March. We look forward to seeing you there.
Every Friday we will celebrate our children’s achievements, both in school and at home, including their attendance in school. Good attendance is vital for your child’s education and means they can make the most of all aspects of school life. We really need your support this year to raise our attendance. If you need any help or support please come and see Mrs Maree. You can see your own child’s attendance for the year and the last 4 weeks on the Arbor App. An attendance of 97% or above is considered to e good attendance.
Last Week's Attendance:
F1 AM (including 30 hrs) 88.8%
F2: 93.6%
Year 1: 93.5%
Year 2: 94.4%
Year 3: 93.8%
Year 4: 95.5%
Year 5: 92.5%
Year 6: 86.2%
Congratulations to this week's winners,
Year 4!
Fri 14th Feb - Break up for February Half Term
Mon 24th Feb- INSET DAY
Tue 25th Feb - Return to school following half term
Tue 25th Feb - F2 and Year 1 Road Safety workshops in school
Thur 27th Feb - Swimming lessons start for Year 5 pupils (information to follow)
Wed 5th March - F2 visit to the Community Shop, Hoyland (Pizza making)
Thur 6th March - SEN Coffee Morning (2pm)
Thur 6th March - World Book Day (Dress as Your Favourite Character / Parent Reading Session at 2:30pm.
Thur 6th March - (Afternoon tuck shop for children)
Fri 7th March - Let Girls’ Play Football Theme Day
Wed 12th March - Science Workshops with parents for British Science Week
Wed 19th March - Parents’ Evening
Wed 2nd April - Easter Craft Session for children and parents in Year 3 (2pm)
Thur 3rd April - Easter bonnet and egg competition
Fri 4th April - Easter disco
Fri 4th April - Break up for Easter holidays
Tue 22nd April - Compass Be Parent Workshop (1pm)
Credits:
Created with images by Drobot Dean - "Businessman making presentation using flipchart in office" • Prostock-studio - "Lunch boxes filled with healthy food on black board" • vegefox.com - "sign road" • vegefox.com - "Webinar workshop concept word with cubes." • lordn - "Preschool teacher with children playing with colorful wooden didactic toys at kindergarten" • Pixel-Shot - "Social worker meeting with couple for signing adoption documents" • tatomm - "close up of clock and calendar on the purple table background, planning for business meeting or travel planning concept"