Newsletters

Newsletter 13th September 2024

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GALLEY HILL NEWSLETTER

FRIDAY 13TH SEPTEMBER 2024

 

Clubs Start This Week
All Day
16
September
School Fun Day
3:30pm – 5:00pm
20
September
Y5/6 Planetarium Dome
8:00am – 11:00am
23
September
Y6 Health Check
9:00am – 12:30pm
24
September
Parent Online Safety Workshop
9:00am – 10:00am
30
September
Open Classrooms
3:15pm – 3:45pm
03
October

Message from Mrs Birch

Mrs Birch
Mrs Birch - Headteacher

This year, one of our school priorities is about vocabulary development. There are many studies that link strong vocabulary and improved educational outcomes. We really want to encourage our children to become curious about words and your support with this will be fantastic. Each class will have a word of the week that the children will be trying to use when speaking and in their writing. Please ask your child each week what their word is. Additionally, all children (from Year 1) will have a word collector bookmark with their reading records. When you come across an interesting word when reading together, or in everyday life, please record it on your child’s bookmark. We are sure they will enjoy sharing it with the rest of their class and it may become a future word of the week!

Online Safety

This week, all of the children from Year 1 to Year 6, participated in Online Safety workshops. We hope the children all enjoyed the sessions and spoke to you about what they had learnt when they returned home. Keeping our children safe online is a joint effort between home and school and we appreciate that all parents carefully monitor their children’s use of the internet.

Unauthorised Absence

It has been well publicised nationally that there is now statutory guidance around school attendance and all parents received a letter from Hertfordshire County Council regarding this in the summer term. At Galley Hill, we have been working through this guidance and devising our policy to ensure that we are fully compliant with the national guidelines. Our full policy will be circulated to all parents, once it has been ratified by governors, in early October. You will no doubt be aware that very little discretion has been left with the schools and we have no choice but to record the very vast majority of absences (unless they are genuinely due to a child being too unwell to attend school) as unauthorised. Please be mindful that fixed penalty fines will now be issued once a child has unauthorised absences for 10 sessions (five school days) in a period of 10 school weeks. Please be aware that a mark of ‘U’ (when a child has arrived late after the register has closed) also now counts as an unauthorised absence.

In the coming weeks, we will continue to communicate the key points with you all to support you in fully understanding the implications of these new rules. If you have any specific questions, please speak to the school office or a member of the school’s senior leadership team. Mrs Reynolds is our senior leader in charge of attendance.

PE Kits

Thank you to all parents (Years 1 to 6) who are now sending their children to school, in their correct PE kit on their child’s PE days. We have already seen how this really maximises learning time for this important subject.

I would like to remind all parents that if the children are wearing a tracksuit or jogging bottoms, these should be plain black or navy only. Many thanks.

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News

School Games Silver Mark Award

We are delighted to announce that we have achieved the School Games Silver Mark Award for the 2023/24 academic year. The School Games Mark is a Government-led award scheme launched in 2012, facilitated by the Youth Sport Trust to reward schools for their commitment to the development of competition across their school and into the community, and we are delighted to have been recognised for our success. This year we have many sporting achievements including having two football teams entering the league as well as entering the netball league. Every year group from Reception to Year 6 all took part in external sports festivals ranging from ‘Glow Dance’ to Rugby. Girls in Year 5/6 also took part in the Girls Biggest Football day where over 600 girls took part.

All children competed in local inter-school competitions this year, we are extremely proud of our pupils for their dedication to all aspects of school sport, including those young volunteers, leaders and officials who made our competitions possible. As part of our application, we were asked to fulfil criteria in the areas of participation, competition, workforce and clubs, and we are pleased that the hard work of everyone at our school has been rewarded this year. A special thanks to: Miss Penning for her enthusiastic leadership of PE  at Galley Hill and for organising so many events for us all to participate in and Miss Barnes for all the voluntary time she gave in the summer term to make tournaments and Sports Day a success. 

We look forward to applying once again in 2025!

Partnership for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools Programme

We are pleased to let you know that Galley Hill Primary School is participating in the Partnership for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools (PINS) programme, which aims to improve support for children with additional needs. The programme is funded by NHS England, in partnership with the Department of Education, Department for Health and Social Care and the National Network of Parent Carer Forums (NNPCF).

The Parent Carer Forum for Hertfordshire, HPCI has been asked to work with families at the school to help deliver a key part of the project - understanding how families and the school can work together to improve support for children.

The Parent Carer Forum for Hertfordshire will be running parent carer coffee mornings over the next two terms.

We will let you know the dates of these coffee mornings once they have been confirmed.

To find out more about HPCI, please visit their website (https://hertsparentcarers.org.uk)

ASDA Cashpot for Schools 

Parentkind – the charity that supports school PTAs - have teamed up with Asda, who is making millions of pounds available to donate to primary schools across the UK through their ‘Cashpot for Schools’ initiative –  all you have to do is, opt in through the Asda Rewards app, choose our primary school and shop and scan in store or shop online at Asda.com, between 2nd September and 30th November 2024

Asda will donate 0.5% of the value of your shop to our Primary school. Also, every time somebody opts in, Asda will give an additional £1 to the school Cashpot. Plus, it doesn’t stop there – Asda are also giving £50 to every school to get them started.

Parentkind – the charity that supports school PTAs - have teamed up with Asda, who is making millions of pounds available to donate to primary schools across the UK through their ‘Cashpot for Schools’ initiative –  all you have to do is, opt in through the Asda Rewards app, choose our primary school and shop and scan in store or shop online at Asda.com, between 2nd September and 30th November 2024

Asda will donate 0.5% of the value of your shop to our Primary school. Also, every time somebody opts in, Asda will give an additional £1 to the school Cashpot. Plus, it doesn’t stop there – Asda are also giving £50 to every school to get them started.

 

 

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We are still looking for helpers on the day to assist with setting up and running stalls. If you are able to help then please pop to the office and put your name on the sign up sheet! Without volunteers then events like this won't be able to happen.

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