September - Newsletter 1 (5th September 2016)

 

 

Welcome

 

A warm welcome back to all our children and parents and a warm welcome too to all of our new children and parents. We hope that you enjoy your time with us. We have a great deal of exciting learning and inspiring events and activities to look forward to; it promises to be an excellent year of learning and development for all.

 

50th Anniversary

 

This academic year marks the 50th Anniversary of the opening of Lane End Primary School. We will be celebrating this special anniversary with the children and school community over the year. I know there are lots of grown-up Lane Enders with fond memories of school that I am sure they would like to share. We are putting together a school timeline which you will all be able to see. Lane End Primary School took its first children on 4th April 1967 and was officially opened on 23rd June 1967. We will let you know more about our celebrations and how you can get involved in due course.  Happy Anniversary Lane End!

 

Curriculum

 

We aim to plan an exciting and stimulating curriculum for your children with a lot of the work linking together in topics or themes. This makes the learning more meaningful for your children as they can make links between subjects. Knowing your child’s theme should help you talk to them about their work. Sometimes there is just one main theme for a term and sometimes two.

The themes this term are:

Class

Theme

Reception

Ourselves

Stories

1

Journeys

2

‘The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch’

The Great Fire of London

3

Light and Shadows

Super Stockport

4

Ancient Egypt

5

Earth and Space

6

Battling Britons!

Magic and Mystery

An overview of the curriculum for the term for parents will come home to you soon with a class newsletter.

 

Please remember that you can use the school website and our Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) to link to fun educational activities for each year group – Espresso and Curriculum Visions have curriculum content for all ages and are well worth looking at with your child. These online learning resources can be accessed through our VLE along with our other online resources. Information for Reception parents about using our VLE will be coming home later this term and all other children can use their existing username and password to log-on to the VLE for their new class. More details about our online learning provision for this year will be sent home soon.

School Uniform and P.E Kit

 

Everyone looked very smart when they came to school today. Please help keep our school looking smart by making sure your children come in the correct school uniform and wear black shoes to school. Please remember that we also have a new P.E kit:  blue Lane End P.E. t-shirt, blue shorts, pumps/trainers and blue sweatshirt/tracksuit top and blue jogging/tracksuit trousers for outdoor P.E. I was very pleased to see nearly everyone’s hand up in assembly when I asked whether they had a new kit – thank you for your help with making sure our P.E. attire matches our sporting prowess! If you haven’t managed to order one yet please could you do this as soon as possible. Zenith Children’s Clothing are a local business who offer an online ordering service for all of our school uniform:  http://www.zenithchildrenswear.co.uk/lane-end.html You can also purchase our school uniform from Monkhouses in Cheadle Hulme and Davensports in Davenport. Tesco online also have some of our uniform available.

 

A reminder that there should be no jewellery or make-up worn in school and only stud earrings are allowed (which must be removed for P.E.). Labelling school uniform and all clothes which come into school with your child’s name is very important – taking a few minutes to do this can save hours of hunting!

 

Arriving at School and School Security

 

Please remember that infant children (Reception, Year 1 and Year 2) can arrive at school between 8:50am and 9am and come straight into their class through the infant entrance. Please help your child to be independent and come in without you. Reception parents will be able to come in to the cloakroom with their children to drop them off (this is supervised by a teaching assistant) but we hope that they will become independent enough to come in on their own quite soon.

 

The playground is supervised for junior children (Years 3-6) from 8:50am and children should not arrive before this time. The whistle goes just before 9am and the children line up in their classes to come in.      

 

All visitors need to sign in to school at the main entrance. For security reasons, it is important that parents do not use the junior entrance (at the back of the school) to come into school but come into school via the main entrance. Thank you for your help.

 

For all parents, if you need to talk to your child’s class teacher, please come to the main reception and sign in. The teacher will either be able to see you or, if they are not available, make an appointment to speak to you at a mutually convenient time. Please understand that when the children are coming in at the beginning of the day, it is a busy period and may be difficult for the teacher to speak to you properly. If you need to communicate something to your child’s class teacher right at the beginning of the day, a note to the teacher or message to Mrs Titterington at the office for her to pass on will often do the job well. Alternatively, if you phone school we can arrange an appointment for you with your child’s class teacher.

 

Extra-curricular Activities

 

A separate letter will be sent to you soon outlining arrangements for this term’s extra-curricular activity programme.  When this does come home, please assume your child has a place in the clubs you have applied for unless we let you know otherwise. The only clubs on this week are Junior Sports Stars Multisports (Tuesday) and Football (Thursday).

 

Woodwind and Guitar Lessons -  All the children who have requested guitar or woodwind lessons are now able to start their lessons. Guitar is on Tuesday and woodwind (saxophone, flute and clarinet) on Thursday.  The first instrument lessons are next week (Tues 13th and Thurs 15th Sept).  If you child has an instrument they can bring it with them but it is fine for new starters who have not yet arranged an instrument to come without one. We will be sending invoices for payments via ParentPay home soon.

 

Walk on Wednesday

 

Walk on Wednesday was very well supported last year and we are starting again this year. For those parents who are new to the school, ‘Walk on Wednesday’ is aimed at encouraging healthier and more environmentally friendly travel methods to school. Each Wednesday we encourage children (and parents) to walk to school. For those of you who live too far away you can use ‘Park and Stride’ from the Methodist Church - a permit is attached to the newsletter which you need to display in your windscreen (only valid on Wednesdays!). We had a great take up again last year and many parents and children continue walking throughout the week. Children who have walked can write their name on a slip to put in a hat for a weekly prize draw.

 

School Dinners

 

All children in the infants (Reception, Year 1 and Year 2) are entitled to a free school meal - school dinners offer a healthy and balanced meal each day and I am pleased to see a high take up. Any infant children not taking up this offer should bring in a healthy packed lunch.

 

For junior children school dinners cost £2.30 per day (£11.50 per week). Payment is now via ParentPay and this is available for you to pay on the system.  A letter went home at the end of the last academic year to our current Year 3 parents asking whether your child would be having a school dinner from September (as this is the first year you have had to pay for it). If you indicated that your child wanted a school dinner then this should now be payable on ParentPay – if you wanted your child to have a school dinner but didn’t return your slip indicating this then please let us know as soon as possible. If there are children who were previously having a packed lunch but have started on school dinners this week then the ParentPay payment will be available by the end of the week. We hope the new ParentPay system works well for everybody – please let us know if you have any particular difficulties with it or want to give any feedback as we are learning how to get the best out of it. We ask for three days’ notice of any changes to meal arrangements so that the kitchen can make the relevant stock adjustments – thank you.

 

Healthy Snacks

 

A reminder that fruit is provided for Reception and Key Stage 1 children each day.  Please can we ask for your help to ensure that Key Stage 2 children (Year 3, 4, 5 and 6) only bring healthy snacks to school (preferably fruit or dried fruit – no chocolate, crisps, biscuits etc.). The children have generally been very good at this and it is important that the ‘being healthy’ message is reinforced throughout school. Thank-you.

 

Contact Details – If any of your contact details have changed, including your mobile phone number, then please write us a note to let us have the new information for our records – thank you.

 

Medical Information – Please also let us know of any change to your child’s health information. If your child uses an inhaler please bring an inhaler for them to keep in school and fill in the relevant form at the office. Please also check the use-by date and replace it in good time.

 

Important Dates -  A list of important dates for the year will come home next week - they will also always be available on the school website:  www.laneend.stockport.sch.uk (click on the ‘Parents’ section). The holiday dates are already shown in this section of the website.

 

At Lane End we are committed to working with parents and carers to get the best for your children.  It is an important partnership and I want you to feel happy to talk to us about any worries you may have or to get an update on progress. Rest assured, we will also contact you if we feel there is anything important you should know.

 

We look forward to a fun and rewarding year.

 

Yours sincerely,   James Twigg

 

Ramillies Avenue, Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, SK8 7AL

0161 485 8071

admin@laneend.stockport.sch.uk