Harvest Festival Thursday 19/10/23
Pastor Dave, our Chair of Governors, will be leading our Harvest Festival this year. We will be collecting items for the HCT Food Bank. Please send in donations Monday - Wednesday (not Thursday) so that we can create the Harvest Table ahead of the assemblies.
Sports Teams
Well done to our girls and boys teams from Years 3&4 and Years 5&6 for taking part in the Caerphilly School Cross Country Championship yesterday morning. Coming up will the first of the Netball tournaments (Tuesday 7/11/23). There are no football tournaments until after Christmas. Please note that we are always limited on the number of children we are able to take to these events - if it were possible to take all who wanted to be part of it, we would. Where there are multiple opportunities with a sport, we do our best to find a balance between taking a competitive team and giving children who are interested a chance to take part in something at some point during their time in Pontllanfraith.
Cluster Events
Over the course of the year, each primary school will be holiday an event and inviting representatives from the cluster schools to attend (we're hosting an outdoor learning event in the summer term). These events will be aimed at different age groups but most will be for only 3 or 4 pupils. Today four of our Year 3 children have attended a digital learning event in Rhiw Syr Dafydd. They did a fantastic job and impressed with their skills in using Minecraft.
Parent Forum
Thank you to those who attended our meeting last week. We'd really like some more parents to join us! If you are interested, please contact Mrs Tucker.
Last week we discussed communication with parents and the results of our recent parent survey that followed the Meet the Teacher event. The discussion then informed further discussions with staff and governors and we have finalised our Communication Policy.
We are trying our very best to improve our communication with parents. Things that have happened so far are: the new newsletter format; the updates to the school website; an increase in surveys consulting with parents; the introduction of See Saw for parents of children in Nursery - year 2 and the creation of the Parent Forum.
The policy aims to clarify what is communicated and how (email, website, text, Google Classroom, See Saw, Twitter etc) and to manage expectations around when staff can be available to respond to parents. It will be simplified into a short guide which will be made available on our website in the coming weeks.
Parent Launch of WRAP Project - 3pm 8/11/23
The Islwyn Cluster of Schools are working with Wales Restorative Approaches Partnership looking at strengthening relationships. We've all had a training day with the partnership and individual staff from all schools are attending 3 day training on a rolling programme. After half term we will have a launch day for children and parents. There will be assemblies for the children and a meeting with School Council. Parents are invited to a special information session which will be held at 3pm in the main hall - please arrive between 2:50 & 3pm. We apologise for the difficulties with access (the hall is upstairs) and are looking into having presentation facilities in the smaller hall in the future.
Diary Dates
All dates that appear in Newsletters are added to the website calendar. This includes information about when clubs are running. Information about which weeks clubs would run was sent out at the beginning of term and then the calendar updated. Please remember to check. Only the Cardiff City club will run next week because staff are hosting Parents' Evenings. We will be able to confirm future dates for the Cardiff City Club next week.
Parents Evenings
If you are bringing your children with you to parents evenings, please supervise them at all times.
New Shelter
We're very pleased with our second shelter that has been build outside Dosbarth Melyn and will give the children more opportunity to enjoy outdoor learning throughout the year. Later in the year we hope to build a third shelter for Dosbarth Oren.
PTFA
Thank you to our PTFA for the prizes donated to the winners of the design a new logo competition - prizes were given out today. Well done to all our winners!
Don't forget to complete the form sent out earlier this week to let us know if your child will be coming to our next disco on the last day of this half term: Thursday 26/10/23.
School is closed for INSET Friday 27/10/23 and then half term.
Parking
Please park considerately: 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.