Woodland Grange Primary

NEWSLETTER 27th January 2012

Tel: 0116 272 0401 email: office@woodlandgrange.leics.sch.uk www.woodlandwideweb.org.uk

An Important Message
Last week when I stood at the gate in the morning welcoming parents and monitoring parking and safety I was shocked and if I am honest, appalled. On that one morning I counted 35 children who were late for school and this did not include the many children who also arrived late for school coming in through the Foundation Stage gate. Across a year I would anticipate that the average child would have no more than one or two lates (many have none) as I fully appreciate that we all get held up from time to time. Any child walking through the gate AT 8.50 or any time thereafter is not going to be sat ready for the register/ learning at the school start time of 8.50. A child not in his/her classroom at 8.50, is late. Many classes have morning challenges and routines that mean children are at work immediately. There were still children coming through the gate at 9.00am! It is highly disruptive for teachers to have to re-open registers and re-mark them or for those who are even later, to have to re-explain tasks set. I regard this to be highly unsupportive of the school. What message are we giving to the children? That school is not that important? That repeatedly being late is acceptable? Are we to expect children to think it is therefore acceptable to arrive at work late as they move into the workplace later in life? At random I will be shutting the school gates and locking external doors from the outside so that children will have to come into school with their parents via the main foyer, where I will be waiting to record their lateness. I will be writing to all parents where lateness is an issue. The law states that the school must count lateness beyond the close of registers as an UNAUTHORISED absence, unless the late was justified. This means that the childs school record will show a half-day absence for every late beyond close of the register. This year, I will not authorise ANY holiday for any child where he/she is persistently late or has unauthorised absence. I regard parents of primary aged children to be TOTALLY responsible for ensuring their children are on time for school. How can we expect the children as they become of secondary age, to get themselves to school on time if bad habits begin now? SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR WOODLAND GRANGE AND YOUR OWN CHILDS EDUCATION BY GETTING YOUR CHILD TO SCHOOL ON TIME!
Thank you to all the supportive parents who day-in and day-out DO manage to get their children to school on-time.

News re SCHOOL DINNERS - See over

Birthday Treats
We of course like to celebrate birthdays in school but to do so every time with sweets & cakes is not able to be supported in school. With a class of children we would end up giving out sweets most weeks and sometimes more than once a week. As a healthy school we wish to promote healthier choices and support parents by allowing them to make the decision as to when their children consume sweets. There is no need to send in a class treat for your childs birthday but if you do wish to do so, why not consider a piece of fruit, some small boxes of raisins, a pencil or better still why not a book for the class? From this point forwards we will return home any celebratory sweets sent into school.

SCHOOL MEALS - NEW ARRANGMENTS

As requested by a number of parents and fed back to us via one of our Parent Governors, we will soon be offering greater flexibility around school dinners. At the moment, a child is registered as either packed lunches OR school dinners. From after half term (week commencing Monday 20th February) children who normally have packed lunches may have a Friday hot dinner instead. All we ask is that you sign-up for at least half a term at a time and pay in advance (if your child is ill the money will be credited to you). For next halfterm the cost will be: 6 weeks x 1.95 = 11.70. For the subsequent half term it will be also be 11.70 and for the last half-term 9.75. It may be that further flexibility could be offered, with additional days added, later in the year.

School Food tasting session. Thank you to Paul our School Cook for putting on an afterschool tasting session. I have worked in several schools but have never seen so many parents turn up to try school food. I have a school dinner just about every day with the pupils and can state confidently that the food at Woodland Grange has never been so good!

Important Dates
Wednesday 22nd Feb Monday 27th Feb Saturday 25th Feb Friday 2nd March Friday 30th March Friday 30th March Monday 16th April Monday 23rd-25th April Thursday 31st May Monday 18th June Monday 25th June Wednesday 27th June Monday 2nd July Wednesday 4th July Thursday 5th July Wednesday 11th July Parents Evening 5-8pm Parents Evening 4-6pm FoWG Family Bingo night 6-9pm School Council Bring & Buy Sale School Council Non-Uniform Pyjama Day! FoWG - Easter Magic Shows & Discos Year 5 Redridge Residential all week Year 3 Beaumanor Residential Whole School Queens Jubilee Party Book fair all week FS Sports day 9.30am Sports day KS 1 9.30am, KS 2 2.00pm School Reports home this week Yr 5 Leavers performance 7pm Yr 5 Leavers performance 2pm Yr 5 Leavers Disco

Your Input Sought

We are beginning to think about how a Woodland Grange Parents Forum or Parents Council could give you even more of a voice in school. We will soon be asking parents to attend a short meeting, hosted by one of our Parent Governors, so that we can explore how to progress this. We will tell you more soon.

2011/12 Academic Year

Spring Term Mid-Term Break Mon 13th to Fri 17th Feb 12 School Closes Fri eve 30th Mar 12 Summer Term Begins Mon 16th April 12 May Day Holiday 7th May Extra day holiday for Queens Diamond Jubilee 1st June Mid-Term Break Mon 4th June to 8th June 12 School Closes Fri eve 13th July 12

Many thanks to the Rana family for large quantity of high quality paper and card recently donated. Children across the school will make very good use of it.

HELP! - If anyone works for a company who could

donate paper, card, pens, pencils, sticky notes or glue sticks to the school it would be HUGELY appreciated.