December Newsletter

December Newsletter 

Well what an amazing half term we have had! It is hard to reflect on just how many wonderful experiences we have had at school.

Christmas dinner was a huge success. We had a great meal finished off by a lovely whole school rendition of The12 Days of Christmas. The Three French Hens were in particularly fine voice!

Singing has been a theme this term with lots of practice for our upcoming Young Voices concert, some beautiful carols performed at our recent Christingle Service and singing at both the village hall and Stubby Lees. 

Behind the scenes we have conducted whole school reviews for Maths, History and Religous Education as well as working on our new Science curriculum and its impact on our children. We are delighted to have recently been awarded a History Mark Gold standard award which came with some glowing feedback for our school. A full report is available here: 

Gold History Mark

 

PTA/Fundraising 

We have had a very succesful Christmas Fair and Electric Avenue this month. We are truly blown away by the generosity of everyone linked to the school and just how much money we have raised. The children really enjoyed the Garrick pantomime this year - thank you to PTA for funding this entire event including coaches. We really are so lucky to have such caring families and a wider community to help us raise these funds. 

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Parent Forum 

Parent Forum this month provided a chance to touch base with the Class representatives. They will feed back to classes individually but key discussions were as follows. 

PE Kit: At present children will continue to wear white t-shirts. The children look extremely smart at the moment and we are pleased with how they are all consistently coming in the correct kit this year.

Plans are under way for energy efficient and cost effective dishwashers for the kitchen. Our catering team are working hard on these plans at present. 

ParentPay: Care club charges have been added on a more regular basis to allow parents to keep on top of payments. 

Reading diaries; These are checked each week and children are rewarded for reading 5 times. Key Stage 2 children change their books when they are finished and signed by a parent. Key Stage 1 and Early years will have books changed on a Monday or Tuesday. We would like children in Class 1 to read their books at least 3 times and for this to be signed off by a parent. Children also have their 50 read books to keep them occupied during the week. Please may parents also sign to say these have been read. 

Communication

We are proud of our communication. Please could we ask that where possible messages are sent via the school office/Mrs Moss rather than directly to staff members. This allows us to keep on top of communications and disseminate accordingly. Staff are very busy during the school day and messages directly to the office are much more efficient and can be passed on accordingly. Class Story will continue to update you on any key messages for your child's class and School story is also an important place to keep an eye on. As a small school sometimes the best route for a query is to pop in and ask Mrs Moss, Miss Jennings or myself for clarification or more information. 

Next term

Spring term will be another exciting one here at The Howard with residentials amongst the exciting things coming up. To keep on top of events for your child please regularly visit the events page of the website which will have all the information you need. We will regularly update this as new events arise and will add any key information you may need. This can be accessed here: The Howard Events Page.

The calendar also has reminders of PE days etc to help you organise your week. School Calendar. Remember this can also be accessed via the Schudio App which is great to have on your phone. Click here for more details. 

Thank you for all of your continued support for our school. I wish you and your family a relaxing Christmas and Happy New Year! I leave you with an email received from Rawlett High school after working with our older children recently. Well done Class 3. 

"I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to your school on Thursday. Your students were an absolute pleasure to work with. They were impeccably behaved and throughout the session it was so lovely to see them start to grow in confidence with their maths problem solving skills. They demonstrated great team working skills and were also really encouraging of each other. A joy to work with!!"