www.pontllanfraithprimary.co.uk
Comic Relief
Tomorrow is Red nose Day & we will be collecting donations for Comic Relief. Children may come to school in non uniform and we have a few bits of nonsense planned so that we can 'Do something funny for money!' We'll also be having a visit from our Mayor (& Vice Chair of Governors), Cllr Mike Adams who will be joining us for assembly.
Parents Evenings
A reminder to book your appointment: the online booking system will close at 12pm tomorrow. A quarter of parents still haven't done so!
If any parent hasn't received a link to book, please contact the office to arrange.
During parents' evening, Miss Rooke will be available in the Junior Hall to talk to parents about anything digital: internet safety, the apps we use or even how to log in to Hwb / Google Classroom. Caerphilly Catering will also be here and you will be able to sample some of the current menu.
Teachers will send out a form on Friday asking if there is anything you would specifically like to discuss in your meeting. As each parent only has 10 minutes it helps them to know in advance. A reminder that if there is anything you would like to raise with regard to class organisation for next year, parents evening is a good time to do this. If you require more than 10 minutes, a separate appointment at a mutually convenient time, should be made.
Clubs
There will be no clubs next week (and that includes Cardiff City) as Parents Evenings will be taking place.
Please remember to check the website calendar to see which weeks there will be no clubs. This is currently up to date for clubs until May Half Term. It is extremely rare for us to cancel a club - please check the calendar before ringing the office.
Cardiff City do not run sessions in the Summer Term.
Staff will evaluate club attendance and if there are any changes for the summer term you will be notified towards the end of the first week back.
There will be no clubs for the first two weeks of the summer term as staff training is booked.
Summer Term Dates
We are aiming to complete setting dates for the summer term by the end of next week & the website calendar will be updated. Staff have met and discussed Sports Day. We will be bringing forward this year to a date in May. This will mean that there is more opportunity to rearrange if we're not lucky with the weather.
Thank you to our PTFA!
A huge thank you to our PTFA who have stepped in to ensure that every child will have an Easter egg this year. This is something that we have used school fund to support in recent years but unfortunately our reserves are currently too low to do this. We are very grateful to them for offering to do this.
A plea to infant parents: fruit costs £1.50 a week. Sending it in will help us keep our school fund looking healthy.
School Trips / Workshops
Thank you to all who who completed the recent parent survey and to the Parent Forum for meeting with me to discuss the responses. We are currently preparing a short presentation for parents to share with you what we are planning to do next. Hopefully this will go out before the end of term.
Maths Open Day Feedback
Thank you to all who attended and filled out our feedback questionnaire that was extremely positive. The event was discussed with Parent Forum and we have decided to hold another event next term based around reading. Somebody asked what TAPAS stands for: we can't remember! We know the acronym was chosen (by the maths advisors - not us) because it's about regularly practising mental maths skills to keep everything on the boil. So a little bit of lots of things (skills), a bit like eating tapas!
Gateway Rugby Festival
Well done to our Year 6 pupils who went to Rodney Parade to take part in a tournament with other schools who subscribe to the Gateway Rugby scheme run by the Dragons. They were a real credit to the school and were just one point away from being selected to play a game at a Dragons match. They played superbly and were a real credit to the school. There's a featured article about the tournament on the Dragons website linked here.
Attendance - more information linked here
Our next round of Callio letters will go out at the end of term. Please remember that no offence is intended, this is something that is done by nearly all schools across the South East Wales region.
In Pontllanfraith we still have a significant number of 'persistent absentees' (attendance below 80%). Before the pandemic, this was extremely rare. However, at February half term, when we sent out the last round of letters, we had 16 pupils. We are now, reluctantly, considering issuing Fixed Penalty Notices to some families.
Attendance above 95% (the desired amount) is also falling. At February half term only 46% of our pupils had attendance above 95%.
Uniform - more information linked here
A plea from the staff: we ask that children do not wear lace up shoes to school until they are able to tie their own laces. Children should also wear black shoes and we encourage these to be trainers, or at least shoes that are suitable for running around in.
A reminder that we do not have a separate PE uniform and ask that children wear shorts, trouser, leggings or joggers so that we can be flexible with PE times. This is especially important in the summer term when we practice for Sports Day as classes will take advantage of good weather when they can. We understand that sometimes children like to wear summer dresses - this is not a problem for PE lessons if they wear shorts as well.
St David's Day Videos
Videos of the children singing in our Eisteddfod are now available in each Google Classroom - please log in to take a look!
INSET Days
Finally, we break up Friday 22nd March and return to school on Monday 8th April.
We have three INSET days left: Friday May 24th, Monday June 3rd and Friday July 19th (our last day will be Thursday July 18th).