Harvest Festival 18/10/24
Pastor Dave, our Chair of Governors, will be leading our Harvest Festival this year. We will be collecting items for the River Church Food Bank.
They would appreciate tins, jars and packet food as donations please e.g. rice pudding, tinned fruit, corned beef, tinned curries, hotdogs, teabags, sugar, pasta, pasta sauce, tuna, soups, microwave rice, rice, tinned tomatoes, jams, marmalade, meat balls in gravy, cereal, squash, biscuits, tinned veg, sugar etc.
Individual / Sibling Photographs
The photographer will be visiting on Monday October 7th. The school will be open from 8:30am for photographs that include siblings too young to start school. Please note that pupils from Islwyn High should not attend this session as they are required to be in school. Siblings who are in Pontllanfraith will be photographed together during the school day.
Diary Dates for this term
As well as notifying parents in our school newsletter, dates for parents are shared on the school website's calendar. https://www.pontllanfraithprimary.co.uk/calendar The calendar also shows whether clubs are running each week. Please remember we try to cover clubs rather than cancel them and so cancellation at short notice is very rare. If we do need to cancel we will let you know. Please do not routinely ring the office to check of clubs are running.
Communication between home & school
Please ensure that we have an update to date phone number and email address for you at all times.
Our telephone number is 01495 222128 & our email is PontllanfraithPrimary@sch.caerphilly.gov.uk
Our website is www.pontllanfraithprimary.co.uk and our Twitter feed is @PontPrimary.
Individual teachers' emails and Twitter feeds can be found on the school website. Some teachers are currently having a problem logging into their accounts. Please bear with us - we will get this fixed or set up new accounts as soon as possible.
A guide to how we communicate and use Twitter, Google Classroom and See Saw can be found on our school website here. Please note that we do not use any of these apps for messaging. All communication from school comes via text or email to make it easier for parents to search for previous messages.
Attendance
Evidence shows that children whose attendance is above 95% are most likely to do well in school. To achieve 95% over the course of the year children need to miss no more than 2 weeks of school. This is extremely difficult if they take term time holidays. Please think carefully for booking. If you do, please also think about the timing of that holiday and what they may be missing. We cannot authorise more than 10 school days in any academic year and holidays are only authorised if your child's 12 month rolling attendance is above 95%. This is calculated just before the holiday to ensure accuracy therefore if you put the holiday request form in in advance we will not respond at that time and will hold the form on file until you are due to go.
An analysis of our data shows that whilst most children who go on holiday in Pontllanfraith have otherwise good attendance, there are a growing number of families whose attendance is not good, taking their children out of school in term time. These children are less likely to make good progress.
Welsh Government class children with attendance below 80% as persistent absentees. We had a significant number of children with attendance this low last year. Some as low as around 50%. Therefore the Governing Body have decided that we should monitor attendance very closely and consider Fixed Penalty Notices if necessary. A small number of parents have been issued with warning notices.
Parent Forum
Thank you to those who attended our meeting this week.
This week we discussed trips, clubs, our upcoming literacy open days, communication with parents, a potential home school agreement, the format of sports days and the school dinner menu.
At our next meeting we will be looking at the responses to our pupil voice questionnaires & members have been asked to contribute any 'hot topics' to our agenda.
We'd really like some more parents to join us! If you are interested, or have a suggestion for our agenda, please contact Mrs Tucker.
Parent Governor
We had no parents volunteer for our parent governor vacancies. I will advertise again before our next meeting in November. However, if anyone is interested, please get in touch!
Parking
I am very concerned about the dangerous situation some of our parents are putting our children in.
I have observed a parent of a very young child parking on the double yellows opposite the entrance to the lane. The parent got out of the drivers door and then opened the rear door so that the child got out of the car into the road, not the pavement. They then ran across the road with the child rather than walking to Miss Davies, our Lollipop Lady.
Please park considerately, safely & legally: not on double yellows, zig zags or blocking access to the school gates from the lane. Also, please be considerate of our neighbours who access their property via the lane. The garage is private property and should not be used by parents. It is advisable and much appreciated if parents avoid the lane entirely.
Disco
Please note, nursery children should be accompanied by an adult, all children must be collected by someone over the age of 16 and children should not bring phones to the disco. If your child has not been in school on the day because they have been unwell, they should not come to the disco.