Atwood News for week ending 6th January

Mr Veale’s welcome

We all hope that you had a restful Christmas holiday and that you are gradually getting back to normal as we near the end of the first week of 2023.

This week’s e-newsletter will be shorter than normal, but I have been planning some new content for both parents and children which I will launch next week.  I am very keen for the e-newsletter to be read by both parents and children (especially Key Stage 2 children) and as such, it will be a blend of useful information and news for parents and some light-hearted content for the children (which parents may also find entertaining!)

From  everyone at Atwood- Happy New Year to you all

School Office News- please read the below carefully.

Mrs Dobson, our long-standing member of the Atwood team, is most likely to be leaving us at half term.  Many of you recognise the superb work that Mrs Dobson undertook, not only as a Teaching Assistant but latterly in the school office.  The Trust is in the process of recruiting Mrs Dobson’s replacement.

The information below went out on the last edition in December and therefore, just in case you didn’t manage to read it, here it is.

I need your support in the new year.  All schools MUST ensure that the registers are officially closed by 9.30am.  If the staff have interruptions or have to deal with other things, then this key task is compromised.
Therefore, PLEASE ensure that your child arrives on time each and every day. You will know that the start of the school day is later and therefore there should be no reason for children to be late.  A long queue of late arriving children causes real issues as they all need to be registered and their meal choices need to be taken.  This time is far better used in other ways and it means the children would not miss out on vital learning.
From January, there may be times that we switch our phone system to answer phone, as we are dealing with people face to face.  If this is the case, it is to ensure that we are being efficient.  Please do bear this in mind.

Forgotten items!

Once again, the office is having many more forgotten items: coats, lunch boxes, water-bottles.  These all need to be delivered and as we do not have the full capacity of staff, we simply cannot do this anymore.
Therefore, from January, the office staff will not be able to deliver any forgotten items.

Labelling Clothes

The Atwood staff have noticed that the majority of school clothing is NOT labelled.  This means that valuable time is wasted trying to find the owner and in certain cases, the owner is never found and this expensive clothing goes to landfill.  Please can I ask that you spend time over the Christmas holidays labelling all uniform?  Thanks.

Medications

In the season of cold and ‘flu, lots of parents are asking the office staff if it is ok to administer medication such as antibiotics and Calpol.  The simple answer to this is “NO”, we cannot do this.  Please bear this in mind from January.

Medical and Dental Appointments

Please ensure that all non-urgent medical and dental appointments are made during the school holidays.  We wish to minimise the disruption to learning, and children attending such appointments disrupt their day and cause additional work for the office staff.

Topping up Lunch Payments 

Please can I ask that you top up your School Gateway lunch accounts in readiness for the new term, thus starting off in credit as this will save the office staff a lot of work as they won’t need to chase up families.

News Round-up

Here is just a small flavour of what is happening in the wonderful world of Atwood.

Miss Dunn to step up to be Atwood’s acting Deputy Headteacher

Many of you will be aware that Mrs Standing will soon be going on her maternity leave.  As such, this means that Miss Dunn will be stepping away from her class teaching role and will be Atwood’s acting deputy headteacher.  I know that you will all support Miss Dunn as she takes on this exciting new role.

We are currently looking to recruit an excellent teacher for 5D.

Word of the Week

This week’s word is ZONKED.  Many of us may feel a little zonked after the Christmas break.  Zonked is an informal adjective which means that you are extremely tired.  Perhaps children, you could spice up your writing using the word zonked rather than ‘tired’.

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.  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 first week of the Spring Term

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

Attendance

To note, Atwood, like a lot of other schools, was hit by quite high levels of illness during the last 3 weeks of the Autumn term, hence our attendance figures had dropped.  I’m delighted to see that Atwood has commenced the year by attending brilliantly.

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

Thursday 12th January- Reception Height and Weight Checks
Friday 20th January- PAT poetry competition @ WHJUN
Saturday 21st January- SLH Cross Country Races
Tuesday 24th January- Class Reps Meeting- 2pm at Atwood
Thursday 26th January- Year 2 Post Box Trip
Friday 27th January- LAC or AFC event- 2pm-3pm
Tuesday 7th February- Year 2- Superhero Day
Tuesday 7th February- Safer Internet Day
Friday 10th February- Last day before the half term holiday
Monday 20th February- Pupil and staff return after the half term holiday
Wednesday 22nd February- Year 6 Dental Screening
Week commencing 27th February- Book Week
Monday 27th February- Author Visit- Dan Freedman  author of Unstoppable
Week commencing 6th March- Whitgift Primary Project for Year 5
Saturday 11th March- Farthing Downs Cross Country Race
Week commencing 13th March- Science Week- Our Theme is CONNECTIONS
Saturday 18th March- SLH Cross Country Races
Monday 20th to Wednesday 22nd March- Year 5 Residential to Carroty Wood
Friday 31st March- Last day of the Spring Term- School finishes and 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