Dear Parents,

The first few weeks of term have flown by and we find ourselves at half term. I hope that the start of the school year has gone well for you. A big welcome to all our new parents, it has been great to see you all taking to Class Dojo and our other systems so quickly and lovely to see your children settle in to school.

We have been extra busy in school as we managed the change in staffing since our reorganisation plan was put in to effect at the end of the school term. Redundancies are never easy, especially in a small community. Our staff have done very well to pull together make the necessary changes so that the children's education can continue with little impact.

I am very grateful to our staff who now have additional duties and our teaching assistants in particular - they now work across the lunch hour and have been working through new processes to make the lunchtime work for all.

Many thanks to all those parents who wrote to politicians last term to raise the issue of school funding. We have since heard from our current Prime Minister that the message has been received and that more funding is on the way. I will keep you updated with information as soon as we receive confirmed allocations for the new financial year.

Catering

I have been in discussions with our caterer to improve the school lunches in recent weeks, they are generally good but not without issue at times.

There is now a new bains-marie for custards and gravies and portion sizes are now being more carefully controlled. If you have any comments on the catering at school please send them through to office@stcecilias.school. Please put Catering in the subject line, we will collate repsonses for our catering manager when he next visits us after half term.

Many thanks for your support for our initiative to improve the children's use of cutlery - there is still some way to go - please encourage the correct use of a knife and fork at home. We will continue to prompt the children in school - it's a very important life skill!

Staffing changes

We welcome Miss Pearson to Reception Class, she is covering Mrs Dean's maternity cover until the end of the school year.

We also welcome Mrs Mitchell to Y5, she is covering Mrs King's maternity cover for the remainder of the year.

Term dates and school calendar

Please keep an eye on our online school calendar for details of events that are coming up in the school year. Class teachers will keep in touch with you via Class Dojo as events draw closer.

Reading

We are about to invest in new reading scheme books to supplement some of our existing stock, many of our books are also now ready to be replaced. Miss J Moore is leading our work in English, we have recently agreed a new schedule for guided whole class, group and individual reading in class. Please make sure that your child has their reading book in class each day! Children need to read from a wide variety of quality authors, better readers make better writers. Please try to hear your child read aloud now and again and note reading in the reading contact book.

Writing

Writing is a key focus for us, it's the most important aspect of our work at the moment. We are making many changes to our practice to work as effectively as possible with our children. Last year we invested in new learning programmes to support the planning of lessons. We also developed learning checklists in writing so that children have a clear idea of next steps.

Our recent training day was with Alan Peat. He was working with staff on non fiction writing, ensuring that we are working as one as a team, with common principles in teaching and a common understanding of key aspects of our teaching routines and practice.

This year the children will work towards regular significant pieces of writing, we are calling these "stepping stones," we expect to see two or three of these each half term. The children are also practising their handwriting each morning, please make sure of on time attendance - it is often the first activity of the day.

You can help us by enabling your child to have a wide variety of experiences and to talk about those experiences at the time. With our younger pupils, lots of fine motor activities at home can really help with building strength for good handwriting, even doing the washing up!

Assessment week

This is assessment week where the children complete a variety of independent tasks so that the teaching staff can assess their current level of achievement. This judgement is then balanced with current work in books and understanding shown in learning activity to form an assessment result. We will publish the results to you before the Parent Teacher Meetings.

Academic attainment

Our Autumn Term data report will be the second published from Pupil Asset in the new levels of attainment. The report will come home to you before the Parent Teacher Meetings (via email, not the app) so that you can prepare any questions for the class teacher about your child's attainment. Mrs Martin and I are also available on the night to answer any attainment questions. As we involve the children more and more in using checklists to assess their own level of working, we hope that as a community we can make use of greater information to ensure progress for all children.

All children should have an appropriate level of challenge to get them to the next level, for some children they need to make more rapid progress in order to catch up.

Please check in with your child's teacher to discuss if your child is a High, Middle or Low achiever and what that means for their work in the classroom.

SEND

Children on the SEN register working at a level below their year group may receive a report from Pupil Asset which simply shows working below. We are working with teachers to add additional data to the system so that we can measure progress more clearly for you. This may arrive later than other reports.

Attendance

This Friday afternoon we will send home our first half termly attendance report, it will come to your email as a pdf file. The report will show attendance since the start of term and any late minutes accrued. Mrs Martin or I will be in touch with families where we have a concern about attendance.

If you are interested in becoming a Reading Buddy or Library volunteer in school please get in touch with Mrs Martin through the school office. It's lovely for the children to have someone to read to, especially those children who need to accelerate their learning to catch up with the national expectation. A regular time each week really helps us to plan for success.

If you are able to support with book lending in the library and have a love for the Dewey system we would be glad for some help in the afternoons - please get in touch!

All Reading Buddy and library volunteers require a DBS check, the school arranges and pays for the check. Volunteers undertake some simple safeguarding training as part of the volunteering process.

They have had a wonderful few days at Marchant's Hill, even the rain didn't dampen their spirits! It's been lovely to hear the tales of their adventures, I hope that they were suitably exhausted on Friday night. Many thanks to the staff team who went along with the children and gave up their own time to support the residential visit, it is very much appreciated.

Mrs Foxen is our new pastoral care assistant. She works with children during the afternoons, supporting children on pupil premium, supporting others with physcial, emotional or social needs. Whilst we work with families, Mrs Foxen's focus will always be on the child, but she can help signpost parents to adult services which may be able to offer further support.

Children are allocated to Mrs Foxen's workload through the Senior Leadership Team / SENDCo. If however you feel that your child would benefit from someone other than their class teacher to talk to please get in touch with Mrs Foxen via the school office. Whilst Mrs Foxen may have simple conversations in the classroom or playground if we need to help solve a pastoral issue, she will always contact a parent before commencing a longer support strategy with their child.

Mrs Foxen is also our link person for our children living with autism and she links with Mrs Gallant as SENDCo, the local authority and specialists in this field on a regular basis. Parents of children with autism may therefore hear from Mrs Foxen as part of her new role.

All parents are invited along to the AGM of the PTA.

It will take place at 7pm. on Tuesday 29th October, we will have refreshments available. We will also be starting to make plans for our Christmas Fair which is taking place on a Friday evening this year - Friday 29th November.

Please enter via the car park gates on Clarkes Avenue and come along to the school library.

It is that time of year when we have lots of guided tours of the school for admission to Nursery and Reception in 2020. If you have a child for admission in 2020 and would like a tour please use our online booking system to reserve a space. For more details please see the admissions and tours section of our website.

We will send you an online invitation for these meetings, which take place at the end of the school day, through the online booking system.

When logging in, please make sure to use the name and email address registered with the school, the name has to exactly as entered on our database.

Parent Teacher Meetings take place on:

Monday 4th November (Mrs Gallant is available in the SEN Department on this night)

and Thursday 7th November.

We have some workshops coming up for Year 1 parents on our Phonics Programme and the Year 1 Phonics Check.

Wednesday 13 November at 9am

Tuesday 19 November at 6pm.

Please look out for the invitations from the booking system to reserve your place. We have also updated our webpage on phonics, see the link below.

Schools across Sutton are working together with Healthwatch Sutton to survey children in Years 5 and 6 about how they feel about their own wellbeing. Healthwatch is a local charity set up to listen to people's views about health and social care. They will use the answers that we give in the survey to produce a report and this report will be used to improve services for local people. There is a local Healthwatch organisation for every local authority area in England. You can find out more about them at www.healthwatchsutton.org.uk.

Parents of children in Years 5 and 6 should look out for an information letter and permission slip, please return this to us as soon as possible.

School Nursing are pleased to announce that the Sutton School Nurse Team will be running an open day at Tweeddale Childens Centre on 13th November 2019- 2pm-4.30pm. Open day is for parents, carers,children and young people and is to promote what support the service can offer. More details in the poster attached below as a pdf.

Thanks to Fire Officers Mills and Egan, two of our very own parents, from London Fire Brigade who came along to school today and provided the children with some highly informative assemblies on fire safety. Everyone loves a fire engine and it was great that so many children got time with the fire crew today, to hear more about their work and to learn about fire safety.

Please have a chat with your child about what they learnt in the assembly (Years 3-6.)

It's half term next week, it seems to have arrived all too quickly.

I have been absent for the last two weeks after a fall at school, I have injured my ribs. I will be back after half term, apologies if you have been looking for me. It couldn't have come at a worse time, school is very busy, many thanks to all the team back at the ranch for covering for me.

With best wishes for some happy family times over the half term break,

Vince Burke

Head Teacher

London Road, Sutton, Surrey, SM3 9DL

Email: office@stcecilias.school
Website: www.stcecilias.school
Phone: 020 8337 4566