Successful children, achieving high standards
Newslette
Newsletter
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Friday 4th September 2015
Dear mums, dads and carers,
Welcome back to you all
A warm welcome to a new school year to all children and families. It was lovely to see the children in school and ready to
face another year of engaging and challenging learning. I hope you all had the chance to spend some time with your
families over the summer break and managed to find time to relax and enjoy some sunshine.
A big thank you for all the gifts and cards and expressions of gratitude offered at the end of the summer term. These are
always valued highly by all staff.
New classroom
We are really pleased that the new classroom is now ready. It has been a difficult summer break with so much time spent
harrying and hassling the builders to ensure all works were completed in time for the new term. Everything has been
finished unfortunately there are many aspects that are not finished to the standard we expect. We will, of course,
continue working with the LA and contractors until such time as we have all elements at the right level of quality for the
children.
Our INSET Days for staff on Tuesday and Wednesday were used to ensure the school was ready for the new term and for
all staff to be reminded of the passion, commitment, professionalism and pursuit of Quality First Teaching we expect at
Kender.
In additional all staff received a Health and Safety briefing from Clare Firmin, our H&S advisor and an update on
Strategies for Securing Outstanding behavior. This year we have three mantras for developing excellent learning
behaviour:
At Kender we let our good manners shine for all to see
At Kender we help each other to learn
At Kender we are resilient learners
Playpod and playground
You will see our new Playpod from next Thursday. The children will talk to you about how this will be used in our
playground. Keep looking out for new additions to the playground. Teaching Assistants started their programme of
training this afternoon.
Meet and greet your childs new teacher
Next week you all have the opportunity to meet your childs class teacher. These meetings take place at the end of the
school day. For children in years one and two your meetings are on Tuesday 8 th September. Years three and four on
Wednesday 9th and for five and six they take place on Thursday. Please try to attend these meetings as they a good
opportunity to learn about the term and year ahead.
Life without levels
This school year is going to be very different because there is a new system of assessment being introduced nationwide,
which does not involve the use of nationally agreed levels of attainment. To help explain how this will work we have
planned an evening meeting, which we hope you will all be able to attend. The meeting is on Wednesday 23rd
September at 6.30. A crche will be available too. Please put this date in your diary.
Attendance & punctuality
School gates open at 8.45 and all children must be in school by 8.50am. A child is registered in the classroom at 9am; if
they arrive after 9am they are late, and will need to go to the school office. We monitor absence and lateness very
closely and will write to you if we are concerned about your childs attendance or [Link] final overall attendance
figure for last year was 95.2% - we almost achieved our target of 96.0%. This year Governors will agree a further target
for attendance. Please help us to achieve this target. We will continue to take a strong line on absence requests this year.
Any extended holidays will not be authorised.
If there is anything else you need to know, please do come and ask. I look forward to another productive and successful
year.
Best wishes,
Keith Barr
(Headteacher)
Successful children, achieving high standards
From the office
Support with ICT at Kender
Mums and dads if you are interested in improving your ICT
skills we need to know. Working with New Cross Gate Trust
we would like to run an evening ICT class for parents. We
can only do this if there is sufficient interest, so please let
us know if you might like some ICT training.
If there is sufficient interest it might be possible to run an
evening ICT class for parents.
Uniform
All children are expected to be in full school uniform.
Please refer to the school website for details and be aware
that the uniform is for plain black shoes. Please dont
forget to put labels or write your childs name in their
uniforms.
PE kits
All children are expected to have a PE kit to take part in
the national curriculum for PE. We advise that parents
bring PE kits in on Monday and collect it for washing each
Friday. The PE kit is not optional.
Contact details
If any parents have changed address or phone numbers
during the holidays, please dont forget to let us know. It
really is essential that we can contact you in emergencies.
After school clubs
We will be writing with a list of available after school clubs
for parents to sign up for next week. Clubs will begin w/c
14 September 2015.
Dinner money
Dinner money is 9.50 per week and must be paid in
advance.
Dates
Next week:
Tuesday 8th September 3.45pm:
meet and greet for years 1 & 2
Wednesday 9th September 3.45pm:
meet and greet for years 3 & 4
Thursday 10th September 3.45pm:
meet and greet for years 5 & 6
Thursday 10th September: Play Pod is delivered
Friday 11th September: Play Pod Training for TAs
Thursday 15th September 5.00pm:
Secondary Transfer meeting Year Six
Wednesday 16th September 6.30pm:
Governors Annual School Review
Monday 26th October to Friday 30th October: Half term
Monday 2nd November: School re-opens
Monday 23rd November: parents meetings
Monday 1st December to Friday 11th December: Wow Learning
Events for all classes
Friday 11th December: Winter Fair
Monday 14th December to Friday 18th December: Winter/Christmas
Celebrations
Breakfast and Extended hours
Breakfast and extended hours start on Monday. Again,
these must be booked in the office and paid for in
advance. The cost is 5 per day for breakfast club and
10 per day for extended hours.
Spring Term
Late collection
School finishes at 3.30 and we expect every child to be
collected by no later than 3.45pm.
Monday 15 February to Friday 19 February: Half term
Twitter accounts
We are expecting that all the new school twitter accounts
will be set up by the end of next week and will have the
full details in next weeks newsletter.
Alice Luxmoore
School Business Manager
Monday 4th January 2016: INSET Day
Tuesday 5th January 2016: School opens
Monday 22nd February: school re-opens
Summer term
Monday 11th April: INSET Day
Tuesday 12th April: School opens
Monday 30 May to Friday 3 June: Half term
Friday 8th July: INSET day
Last day of term: Wednesday 20th July
First week of school for academic year 2016/17
Monday 5 September 2016