Atwood news for week ending 24th February

Mr Veale’s welcome

We all hope that you had a good half term.  It feels as if we have cracked winter as we enter its third and final month.  There is so much to look forward to at Atwood from Book Week to the Year 5 residential to Carroty Wood.  We also have Science Week and various trips for classes.  Not only this but we clocks springing forward and those lovely, longer and warmer days ahead of us.

Strike Action

Please note that the next planned strike day is on Thursday 2nd March.  After that, it will be both Wednesday and Thursday 15th and 16th March.  You will have received a letter from me about the arrangements for Thursday.
Here are the confirmed classes that will be closed to pupils:
Red, Yellow, Violet, Blue, 3S, 4T, 4MT, 5G, 5D and 6S.
Here are the classes that are open (which is always subject to last minute changes):
Nursery, Orange, Green, 3M and 6SB

New Phone System for Atwood

During half term we installed a new telephone system which has many advantages for Atwood, not least of which is that it will be saving us money on our ongoing line costs as we switch to SIP telephony from ISDN – which is being discontinued by Openreach in 2025.  We can also be in contact with other staff in the Trust much more easily.  I informed you on the 10th February that we  appointed Mrs Vamadevan to the role of office administrator; Mrs Vamadevan is now undergoing training in all the school systems and she joins Mrs Middlemiss in our busy school office.

In addition to this we have a safeguarding duty to record all attendance at Atwood by no later than 9.30am and this is an absolute priority.  Therefore, from Monday 27th February, we will not be able to take phone calls between 8.45am and 9.15am and the phone system will be configured so that no calls will be put through during this time.  We will remain open to parents at the front desk as usual but the competing priorities at this time in the morning mean that we need to continue to schedule office duties carefully.  At 9.15am each day the phone lines will be open to callers again.  I hope that you will understand that this is necessary at this time and that you will support the office staff in managing workload by calling slightly later if you need to speak to the office.

As a polite reminder, you can support Mrs Middlemiss and Mrs Vamadevan at this very busy time of the school day by continuing to:

a) ensure that your child arrives on time each and every day.  Children (and families) that have to come to the school office to register after 8.45am is time consuming and detrimental to children’s learning;
b) ensure that your child comes to school with all of the relevant equipment, from water bottles to book bags.  You will remember that we no longer are able to take items to classes;
c) use the postbox and email systems rather than making telephone calls.

Word of the Week:  Asteroid

The small, rocky bodies that orbit the Sun take their name from a Greek word, asteroeides, which means ‘star-like’.  Aster, or star, is found in several other English words, including astronaut, which means ‘star sailor’, and ‘asterisk’, which means a punctuation mark that looks like a star.

Team Points (Pupil Reward Points)

Remember that everyone at Atwood believe in the Terrific Trio- Kind Words, Kind Thoughts, Kind Actions and for that, the children are rewarded.  The first key milestone for a pupil is to reach 50 Pupil Reward Points because they will be awarded a £5 Book Token in Celebration Assembly, as we also wish to promote the love of reading at Atwood.  I will be taking a look at the leaderboard after half term.

Each pupil has been assigned to a Team or House.  These are Air, Earth, Fire and Water.  All Pupil Reward Points also contribute to the Team Points each week.

Here are the all important totals for the term so far:

Congratulations to AIR who have won the Team Points Competition for the final week of this half of Spring Term- can they be stopped?  Indeed, the competition is hotting up as the gap is not that great anymore:  who will prevail at the end of the Spring Term on Friday 31st March?

Why not head over to the Pupil Reward Points website?  https://www.pupilrewardpoints.co.uk

Attendance

With those holiday adverts all over the TV at the moment, just a polite notice to families- we do not authorise holidays in term time.  Children are expected to attend school for 190 days per year leaving plenty of holiday time for those summer vacays!

Attendance is important.  After all, children only have one opportunity to go to school, don’t they?  As a rule of thumb, we expect children to attend school at least 95% of the time.  Here are the Attendance figures for this week:

Forthcoming dates with newly added items in BOLD

Week commencing 27th February- Book Week
Monday 27th February- Author Visit- Dan Freedman  author of Unstoppable
Tuesday 28th February- Year 5 Carroty Wood Information Evening commencing at 6pm
Week commencing 6th March- Whitgift Primary Project for Year 5
Thursday 2nd March- Planned industrial action- London Area
Friday 3rd March- FOAP Pre-loved Book Sale- before and after school in the Purple Room (off the junior playground)
Saturday 11th March- Farthing Downs Cross Country Race
Week commencing 13th March- Science Week- Our Theme is CONNECTIONS
Tuesday 14th March- KS1 Science Wizards Workshop
Tuesday 14th March- The Missing Body workshop at All Saints Church (KS2- details to follow)
Wednesday 15th March- Planned industrial action
Thursday 16th March- Planned industrial action 
Friday 17th March – KS2 Science Wizards Workshop
Saturday 18th March – SLH Cross Country Races
Monday 20th to Wednesday 22nd March – Year 5 Residential to Carroty Wood
Thursday 23rd March- 10am start for Year 5 Carroty Wood adventurers!
Monday 27th March – Year 6 to visit Wimbledon Temple
Tuesday 28th March – Red Class to visit Sanderstead Methodist Church- 12.30-1.15pm
Thursday 30th March – Yellow Class to visit Sanderstead Methodist Church- 12.30-1.15pm
Thursday 30th March- Disco
Friday 31st March – Last day of the Spring Term- School finishes and 1.30pm
Monday 17th April – Children return from the Easter holidays
Saturday 22nd April – Happy’s Circus- Gates open at 12 noon.  FOAP Event- Please do support this Atwood community event
Wednesday 21st June- New to Nursery and Reception Parents’ Evening- 6.00pm
Thursday 13th July – Museum Day for Year 2 and 3.  Details to be confirmed
Thursday 20th July – 6.00pm to 8.30pm- Year 6 Leavers’ Party
Friday 21st July – 9.30am- Year 6 Leavers’ Service
Friday 21st July – Last day of Summer Term closing at 1.30pm

To note, all of the ATW dates are on the calendar and so please click on this link to find them: https://www.pegasusacademytrust.org/events-calendar?school=ATW