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School Calendar

Pulteneytown Academy
Newsletter 17 November 2003

Newsletter – 17.11.03

Open Afternoon P1-7 - Tomorrow, Tuesday 18 November – 1.45 – 3 p.m. For those of you who have not experienced one of our Open Afternoons before, you should know that your child(ren) are your hosts for the afternoon. When you arrive at school please enter by the front door and go along to your child’s class. They will then show you round their classroom, take you to see things in the corridors and bring you along to the hall for a cup of tea and to see the exhibits on display. As there will be many of you around please feel free to park cars in the senior playground, but I would ask that these are moved by 3 p.m. and if you are unable to do this because you want to stay behind to have a word with a teacher, please do not remove your car until after 3.25 p.m. to allow the children to be safely away. Staff will be available for a private word up until 4 p.m. Simply wait outside the classroom door until they are free to see you. Mr Farmer and Mrs Innes, support staff, will be available in Room 6 all afternoon and you can either visit with your children or on your own if you would like a private word. This year, as well as tea and biscuits for yourself, there will be juice available for the children so that they can join you in this social part of the afternoon.

Calendars – We have again produced a School Calendar with all children’s drawings of themselves decorating the appropriate month. These are available, costing £3.50, using the tear-off slip attached or for purchase on the Open Afternoon or direct from the school office.

Children in Need – Footsteps, costing 50p, will begin to be put up round the hall today. If your child would like to contribute towards this worthy cause, money can be brought in any day this week.

The Nold Questionnaire – I have been asked to pass out this questionnaire to all children in the school and would be delighted if you could find the time to fill it in and return it to school by the end of the week if you can spare a moment. Every child will be given one and you can complete it on behalf of your child or with your child – depending on their age.

School Meals – Many children, especially the younger ones, are forgetting to come into the school before 9.10 in the morning to book their lunch. This means they are late getting to class and that Carole is having to spend too long every morning chasing round the school after them. Please remind your child, just before they leave for school, to come and book their school lunch if they need to. The snack bar for P4-7 is changing and only sandwiches and soup will be available over the winter – no other hot food. I know there are changes happening to the hot meal service but I am still awaiting further information on this. Starting today, however, children will be entitled to free milk or fruit juice along with their hot meal as part of the healthy eating initiative. Christmas lunch will be on Wednesday 10 December and the next Newsletter will contain a booking slip for this.

Children Coming to School – I would be obliged if parents could co-operate with the following –
· P4-7 children should be met (if required) outside the school at 3.10 p.m. and I would request that parents do not enter the senior cloakrooms as there is no staff supervision and children should really be able to organise themselves by this age.
· P1-3 children – while a few of these children still find it difficult to organise themselves, there are an increasing number of parents now waiting in the cloakroom area. Unfortunately, this just adds to the congestion and confusion and the cloakroom is often left very untidy at the end of the day adding unnecessarily to the workload of the cleaning staff. I would be obliged if parents could meet their children outside the door and only come back in with them if they have forgotten something. Unless we make the children take this responsibility many of them will simply sit back and not learn to look after themselves.
· In the interest of health and safety children should not be coming to and from school on skateboards and I would obliged if parents could make sure that their children do not bring these to school.
· A number of children are now in the habit of coming late to school each day. While this is only 5 or 10 minutes it is extremely disruptive to all the other children who are ready to start work at the appropriate time. I would be obliged if parents could ensure that children arrive at school before the 9.10 a.m. bell.

I look forward to seeing many of you tomorrow afternoon.

Yours sincerely
LILIAN M WARK
Head Teacher