Dear Parents and Carers,
The Spring Term is now well underway and you’ll see from Twitter that all the year groups have really made a positive start to their topics. Do keep a close eye on the front page of our website for up to date tweets on both our Twitter accounts. It’s a great way to see what a huge variety of activities the children have been involved in. This week there have been photos taken at the Wild Place, on the sports field, some showing children’s work making up some stunning high quality displays and other photos celebrating individual success. The children have been really focused and making the most of every opportunity.
Thank you so much to everyone who manages to navigate the busy roads to get children into school on time every day. It really does help when they arrive punctually – they are in a good state of mind at the start of the day if they’ve not had a stressful journey or had to rush in quickly when the rest of the class has already begun. Check with your child (especially those in older year groups) to find out how their day begins – do they need to leave home a bit earlier to ensure that they don’t miss a minute of learning time? Five minutes late everyday adds up to an hour every fortnight!
If your child is poorly and needs to take time off school to get well, please email either hts@htpd.surrey.sch.uk for the juniors or info@htpd.surrey.sch.uk for the infants, or ring the office before 8.40am. Copying your child’s class teacher in too will be helpful, but shouldn’t be the only contact you make. Teachers are really busy first thing in the morning and may not check emails – we don’t want to miss important absence information. Thank you for your ongoing support in this; our children’s attendance statistics are great! I’m so glad they are keen to be in school every day that they can be!
I was interested to see that the current BBC2 Icon series is featuring three of our house heroes, Helen Keller, Nelson Mandela and Ernest Shackleton (with only Florence Nightingale missing due to her being born in the nineteenth rather than twentieth century). Do take a look at your particular child’s hero on iPlayer if you’d like to be inspired as families watching together. Each character’s biography is told in a short 15 minute film. Their contribution to today’s world is remarkable – I wonder whether any of them will win the overall award. My favourite moment so far has been hearing Nelson Mandela’s quote, “If I chose not to let go of hatred and bitterness, I would still be in prison”. Magnificent!
With best wishes, Clare
Thought of the week: The Magic of Love – Who keeps loving you no matter what?
INFANT AND JUNIOR
CLOSING DATE FOR PRIMARY APPLICATIONS – 15 January 2019
A final reminder that the deadline for applications to Year R and Year 3 for September 2019 is Tuesday 15 January. Online applications can be made via Surrey County Council’s website: www.surreycc.gov.uk/primaryadmissions.
Parent Workshops
We will be running 4 workshops at Pewley Down Infant School starting on 30th January. All parents/carers/ grandparents from HTPD are welcome. Please see details below:
Wednesday 30 January 9am-10:30am: Helping your child deal with stress
Wednesday 6 February 9am-10:30am: Helping your child improve their self-esteem
Wednesday 27 February 9am-10:30am: Discipline and Rewards
Wednesday 6 March 9am-10:30am: Helping your child name and cope with feelings
Please feel free to pick and choose which workshop(s) you would like to attend. All the workshops are free and refreshments will be provided. If possible could you please register your interest by emailing lucyc@htpd.surrey.sch.uk and say which workshop(s) you would like to attend; just so we have an idea about numbers. However, please feel free to turn up on the day.
Best wishes, Lucy and Bridgit (Home School Link Workers)
INFANT
Active Learning!
Pewley Down has just signed up for Active Surrey’s PALSS scheme (Physically Active Learning in Surrey Schools). The scheme comes into effect on Monday 21 January and, as a school, we have pledged to become more active. There are 7 PALSS segments we’ll be working on: Travel, Assembly, Learning, Brain Bursts, Play/Playgrounds, Homework and of course Staff! We aim to implement much more movement into all areas of the school day – it’s good for our brains! So from Breakfast Club to Pups, you can expect an even more active Pewley. There may be active homework sent home too! Look out for the Twitter and newsletter updates that will record our PALSS progress.
Cooking club (Thursdays)
A £5 donation to cover the cost of ingredients for Cooking Club this half term would be much appreciated.
Lost
Jennelle Offei, Willow Class, has lost her named navy jogging bottoms (Primark, 3-4 years).
Menu: week 1 beginning 14 January
FOPS News
Happy New Year and thanks for your continued support!
The money you have helped raise last term has already been put to good use. Apart from the new smart boards, children from reception and Year 1 are enjoying nice and colourful new rugs in their classrooms! There is a lovely thank you photograph on the FOPS notice board near the lower entrance, if you have time please have a look!
FOPS meeting
The first FOPS meeting of 2019 is scheduled for Monday 21st January at 8pm in the staff room. We will be planning for Spring Term and beyond! All are welcome and refreshments are provided. If you would like to have a say and won't be able to come along please email marketachester@gmail.com. It is always lovely to have new people involved so please don't be shy!
Playground sales/cake sales are coming soon, please watch this space.
JUNIOR
Lunch (and Trip monies) owing
Please could I appeal to parents/carers to keep Dinner Accounts up-to-date and preferably in a credit position. We currently find ourselves in a difficult position where almost £8'000 is outstanding for lunches and the school is effectively funding this while we wait for payment. Our financial year end comes up at the end of March and we would appreciate it if all outstanding could be settled by then. Statements were sent out to families owing money at the end of last term - please check your child's bookbag or your ParentPay account to see what your balances are. If necessary, you may request from Flora for a copy of your statement. Many thanks for your support in this regard.
Sporting Fixtures w/c 14 January 2019
Y6 Netball v Tormead & Manor House
Date: Wednesday 16 January
Time: 3.30pm - 5.00pm - Parents to help with lifts
Venue: Tormead, Cranley Rd, Guildford, GU1 2JD
Teacher: JJ & Laura
Y3 & Y4 Sportshall
Date: Thursday 17 January
Time: 9am - 12.00pm
Venue: Spectrum
Teacher: Nick, Toby, Laura & Peio
Y5 & Y6 Girls Football County Finals
Date: Thursday 17 January
Time: 12.15pm - 4.00pm - Parents to help with lifts
Venue: Meadow Bank, Mill Lane, Dorking, RH4 1DX
Teacher: JJ
Laura Sutton
HTPD Sports Co-ordinator
Week 1 – This lunch menu is available on the website under the ‘Weekly News’ tab.
HTSC News
Welcome back - hope you’ve all had a lovely break and the kids are happily back at school.
We have some exciting plans this term - the famous Quiz Night that Geraldine and her husband run is back, probably on 2 March (that doesn’t clash with international rugby we are told!)
There is a raffle to help raise funds for our amazing library.
Cake sales for each year.
We will be focusing on how we can make the school money with very little effort - good news all round!
There is a Sainsburys scheme that is a no brained and the EasyFundraising. We are pulling together final details but hope to be able to run some workshops (that is a very fancy way of saying we will be hanging out at school demonstrating how easy it is to sign up - it will not cost you a thing and earn HT some cash!!)
Did you know that Guildford Borough Council runs a community lottery? You buy tickets each week (by setting up a direct debit - which can be as little as £2 a week) and the school gets a % if that ticket sale and you can win £25,000. So if you were going to donate to school - if you do it this way, you could come out the winner!!
Look out for further details and dates from your reps for coffees and wine/beer.
Want to give the family a healthy start? Let HENRY help ….
The HENRY programme helps parents and carers give their babies, toddlers and pre-school children a healthy start in life. It offers practical tips and positive ways of guiding children’s behaviour, eating habits and activity levels. The sessions are informal, fun and a great confidence booster and there’s no need to worry about the little ones – crèche facilities are provided! Courses last 8 weeks and run at Bellfields Children’s Centre, Guildford: 01483 566589. Simply call the centre to book your place on the next available course. For more information please visit www.surreynurturinglinks.org.uk or call 01483 225596.