September - Newsletter 4 (27th September 2016)

Dear Parents/Carers,

PTA Macmillan Coffee Morning – there is a coffee morning in the community room this Friday from drop off until 10am in aid of Macmillan. All parents/carers are welcome to come along and support – it is a good opportunity for all parents/carers, and particularly new Reception parents/carers, to meet up. If there are any cakes left they will be for sale after school!

PTA – please see the attached PTA newsletter with details of dates and events for the year as well as a letter about the PTA Quiz Night.

Reception Reading Meeting – Mrs Toyne is holding our reading meeting for Reception parents tonight (Tuesday 27^th) from 6pm. This should be very beneficial and we hope to see all Reception parents/carers there.

Harvest – we are collecting for the Wellspring Kitchen. They would gratefully receive: coffee, shampoo, tinned meat, tinned spaghetti, beans, tinned veg, soup, tinned fruit, custard, rice pudding, tea, sugar, long life milk or other long life or tinned products. Please could all gifts be brought in between tomorrow and Thursday before our Harvest Assembly with Reverend Peacock – thank you.  

Cross Country – we have had a fantastic response to our cross country club run by Mrs Li this year with so many children taking part that we have had to split it between Year 3 and 4 on Wednesday and Year 5 and 6 on Friday 3:15-4:15pm. The Year 5 and 6 are taking part in the inter-school competitions between local schools and did well at Hursthead last week – a special mention to Dylan in Year 6 who was second in the boys’ race.

Parents’ Booklet - There is a link to a summary of our School Improvement Plan on our website homepage – please have a look to see our priorities for the year and how we use your feedback to help move the school forward. An example of this is a booklet for parents that we are planning. Although all of the parents who responded to the questionnaire felt that we provide a safe environment for the children in school there were a few parents who commented that they didn’t always know what information was given to the children about their personal safety and health and were interested to find out more.  This year, Mrs Love is going to hold two assemblies each half term on the children’s own safety, behaviour and good health and produce an accompanying booklet for parents. This will cover things such as e-safety, bullying, stranger-danger, healthy eating, exercise etc.

There are a few other new additions to our website homepage, as shown below:

‘Think U Know’ is an excellent website about e-safety which has content for children and advice for parents about staying safe online. I have had a look at this in assembly with the children and have talked them through the key messages including to tell an adult if anything happens that they are worried about or upsets them – just like we ask them to do when they are not online. Please do click on the link on our website and have a look with your child. The NSPCC have also created a very helpful website for parents about e-safety which is full of useful advice and strategies – their key message is ‘Talking to your child – openly, and regularly – is the best way to help keep them safe online’. Please click on the link on our website to find out more.

Espresso Education is available via our VLE and we have now also put a link on our homepage as it is such a useful resource for home to support your child’s learning – there is specific content for Foundation (Reception), KS1 (Years 1 and 2) and KS2 (Years 3, 4, 5 and 6). If you have logged in to the VLE you don’t need a separate username and password to access the content – however, from our website everyone can use the username: student6941 and the password: SK87AL (with capitals as shown). Reception children’s VLE details are just being finalised and will come home very soon. Also look out for details of ‘Seesaw’ a new program which will help link home and school and which we will be using across the school later this year.

Data Collection Sheets – these were sent out in a named envelope on Friday. Thank you for all of the returns so far. It is important we have the most up-to-date information on all of the children. Please could these all be signed and returned by tomorrow – thank you.

A note for new parents and a reminder for existing parents: you will notice that I regularly mention at the end of my newsletter that, ‘We aim to be approachable and work in partnership with parents, so if there is anything you wish to discuss, please do not hesitate to come and talk to us.’ This is because, as I hope everyone knows, we strive for continual improvement at Lane End and are keen to talk to parents about any issues so that we can put things right at school and make sure all of the children can enjoy an excellent education. If you are ever dissatisfied with anything at school or have any concerns about your child please do not hesitate to come and talk to us – it is only when we know what the problem is that we can move forward, help put things right and improve. 

We aim to be approachable and work in partnership with parents, so if there is anything you wish to discuss, please do not hesitate to come and talk to us.

Yours sincerely,  

James Twigg

September 2016

PTA Newsletter

Dear Parents & Carers,

Thanks to everyone that came to our first PTA meeting, we’ve got a mix of our usual and new events planned for this year. As you may know funding for school is reduced and so this year we are raising money to purchase new books for the library, reading schemes and guided reading sessions.

Charity Status

We have been discussing making the PTA a charity for a while and we would like this to happen this year. This will involve us making changes to our constitution, roles within the PTA, how we recruit new members and the financial side of the PTA. These will all be need to voted in at our AGM, plus voting of the posts of Chair, Secretary, Treasurer and deputies for these roles too – if you would like to be involved, or help with planning for the Christmas Fair, please come along on Tuesday 11^th October 7:30pm in the staffroom.

PTA Quiz Night – Please find attached a letter about our PTA Quiz Night – this is a great opportunity to socialise with other parents/friends of the school and is always a fun evening. Friday 14^th October from 7:30pm. £2.50 a ticket.

Class Assemblies & Coffee Mornings

We will continue the coffee mornings before every class assembly in the community room, everyone is welcome not just those waiting for the assembly. The dates so far are:-

Thursday 3^rd November – Class 5

Thursday 10^th November – Class 4

Any donations or cakes and biscuit are always welcome.

PTA Facebook Page

If you’re on Facebook have you linked into our Facebook page? LANE END PRIMARY SCHOOL PTA It’s a great reminder for upcoming events and a handy site if a shoe has gone missing after a sports club! We do have a set of guidelines over posting messages, please have a quick read before you post any messages. Thankyou.

Charity Support

As a school we are always very generous when it comes to supporting charity events. We will be having a Macmillan Coffee morning on Friday 30^th September, we would especially like to invite new reception parents so they can come and meet other parents and see what the PTA do. Any donations of cake & biscuits would be gratefully received.

Later in the year we will be supporting Save the Children with their Christmas Jumper Day. Details to come home nearer the time.

Christmas Cards

The order form will be coming home before the October half term for anyone wanting their child to design a personalised Christmas card.

Christmas Fair – Saturday 26^th November 12-3pm

As this is our big fundraiser of the winter it does take a huge amount of organising. CAN YOU HELP?

We need shoppers, wrappers, help with collecting raffle prizes, putting up posters, setting up on the Friday before, setting up on the Saturday morning and of course manning the stalls on the day. The rota will be in the reception from the 2^nd week in November and during parents evening, if you can spare ½ hour (or more) on either the Friday or Saturday. THANKYOU!

Thinking of getting involved?

We are extremely lucky to have such amazing parents, carers, school staff, friends and family who are currently involved in the PTA.  But can you help?? If you work for a large company, many of these will offer a fund matching scheme for events we run. Can you do a bit of shopping? Collect raffle prizes, put up posters or even just share an event on facebook. Everything helps, please let us know.

MRS SANGSTER vs MR TWIGG

If re-elected in October, this will be my last year as Chair, as I would like a year to do a full handover for whoever is elected.

So I have challenged Mr Twigg to an “Ant vs Dec” style of challenges throughout the year, with the loser completing a forfeit at the picnic at the end of year. The first challenge will be at Quiz Night on Friday 14^th October.

WHO’S GOING TO WIN??

Dates for your diary

DON’T FORGET ALL DETAILS OF EVENTS ARE ON THE PTA NOTICEBOARD ON THE COMMUNITY ROOM WINDOW

Details of all events will be sent home nearer the time, but if you’ve got any questions beforehand please email, text or catch me in the playground on a Wednesday and Thursday.

Yours sincerely

Bev Sangster

Do you shop online?

We have joined www.easyfundraising.org.uk to raise funds for the school. It’s a really simple way to raise money every time you shop online – no catch, no cost.

There are nearly 3,000 retailers that donate when you make a purchase including Amazon, Ebay, John Lewis, M&S, Asda and many tour operators, so if your thinking of booking your holiday online why not do via easyfundraising? Everything’s the same, including the price.

There’s even a handy app if you shop on your mobile.

If you’ve not registered log onto www.easyfundraising.org.uk and link to Lane End Primary School – Cheadle.