Newsletter 18/12/25

Achieve - Believe - Care

www.pontllanfraithprimary.co.uk

Nadolig Llawen! What a fantastic day we’ve had! The children enjoyed a wonderful festive celebration, and we were thrilled to welcome Santa and Mother Claus this morning, who brought a special gift for every child. A huge thank you to our amazing PTFA for the party bags and crackers, and to Mrs Rodway and her team for serving up a delicious Christmas dinner that everyone loved. The children were absolutely brilliant throughout the day—full of excitement yet showing excellent behaviour, as they have done all term, which made the celebrations even more special. It’s been a day full of smiles, laughter, and festive cheer—just the perfect way to end the term!

End of Term We finish at 3:30pm as normal tomorrow. As usual, please check Google Classroom for our Autumn Term Learning Journeys.

Concert Memories Our concerts this term have been a real highlight, and the children should feel so proud of their performances! We know families love to capture these special moments, and while we couldn’t allow filming during the events to keep everyone safe and respect permissions, we hope you enjoyed being part of the live experience. There was never an intention to share full videos, and we understand some parents may have thought edited films would be available. Unfortunately, this wouldn’t have been possible given the number of pupils across the school for whom we do not have consent to share images. Instead, our youngest classes will share a selection of rehearsal photos via SeeSaw tomorrow, so you can enjoy a glimpse behind the scenes. Looking ahead, our current photo consent form is a generic one from the Local Authority, and we know this has caused some confusion. From January, we’ll be launching Class DoJo as a new way to communicate, and alongside this, we’ll introduce a clearer consent form tailored to the specific things we photograph and video here at Pontllanfraith. We hope this will make things simpler and reassure all parents, whatever their views on social media and image sharing. Thank you for your continued support in helping us celebrate achievements while keeping every child safe.

INSET Both the mainstream & satellite classes will be closed for staff training on Monday 6th January. We look forward to welcoming everyone back on Tuesday 6th January.

Clubs

There will be no clubs the first week back. We will review the club lists and announce any changes by the end of the first week back. Once clubs are in place the calendar on our website will be updated so that you can check when clubs are on and off. It is extremely rare for us to cancel a club but we do not hold clubs on weeks when there are additional demands on staff (e.g. meetings with Governors, PTFA events, parents evenings or staff twilight training).

Rock Steady

Last Friday saw our first Rock Steady concert. We have hit a technical difficulty in getting video processed to share with parents and have not been able to do this before the end of term. Hopefully we can resolve this over the break and send it out in January.

Rocksteady lessons focus on electric guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, and vocals, giving pupils a chance to experience band-style music-making in a supportive and confidence-building environment.

The cost for a guaranteed place is £44.68 per month, which offers excellent value for high-quality, private-style tuition during the school day. Parents signing up are able to see which spots are available: lessons are organised into 5 bands according to age (Reception to Year 6), with each having up to 2 places for each instrument (so it's first come, first served according to age and choice of instrument). The 5 bands will perform in a concert at the end of each term!

If you would like to guarantee a place for your child, please visit rocksteadymusicschool.com to sign up.

To ensure this opportunity is accessible to all, the school and Rocksteady are jointly funding a limited number of supported places. These places are only guaranteed for one term as we'd like to offer as many children as possible the opportunity to take part, however, parents are able to request that their child continues if places available.

If you would like your child to be considered for a bursary place for next term, please complete the form linked here by Monday 5th January, 9:30am. If there are more children than the number of places available, those in receipt of the School Essentials Grant (formerly entitled to free school meals before Universal Provision was introduced) will be prioritised.

Priority order for allocating bursary places will be:

• those in receipt of the School Essentials Grant who have not taken part before
• those in receipt of the School Essentials Grant who would like to continue
• those who are not in receipt of the grant who have not taken part before
• those who are not in receipt of the grant who have not taken part before

Snow I really hope we can get through this winter without any disruption. Should snow fall, the procedure is that if a decision is taken to close we publicise this on the Caerphilly website, update our twitter page and send a text to parents. We always do our best to give parents as much notice as possible but sometimes a decision has to be made on the morning. Please assume that if we do not announce a closure, then school will be open. Our ‘Snow Procedures’ are linked from our school website here.

Attendance A huge well done to all children with 95%+ attendance—certificates will go out tomorrow! If your child’s attendance is below 95%, you will receive a Callio letter instead. Callio is a regional initiative designed to support families and improve attendance, and no offence is intended to parents whose children have had genuine medical conditions. We also understand that achieving 100% attendance involves an element of luck, so all rewards are simply tokens (this term, a chocolate bar). In addition, we’re delighted to introduce a new award for our most improved attenders—there have been some fantastic improvements this term! While overall attendance is gradually improving, we still have some way to go to return to pre-pandemic levels. We are particularly concerned about the number of ‘persistent absentees’ (below 80%) and those at risk of falling into this category (below 85%). Currently, nine children have attendance below 80%, and five of these are below 70%, which is a significant concern. We are under increasing pressure to reduce these figures, and we appreciate your support in helping us achieve this. This is the current picture of attendance in Pontllanfraith.

Parents of children whose attendance is of significant concern will be contacted individually. Emails will be sent tomorrow, and some families will be asked to provide medical proof for absences or attend meetings with our Education Welfare Officer (EWO). Please note that we do not accept photographs or videos as medical proof. We only request medical evidence when there is a concern about the number, type, or pattern of absences recorded. Thank you for working with us to ensure every child has the best possible opportunity to learn and thrive. Good attendance not only supports academic progress but also helps children build friendships and feel fully part of school life.

Please read the additional information, linked here, if you have any questions.