Saxton Newsletter 15.11.24

Keep myself and others safe!

Our school attendance in the week before half term was 98.0%. Thank you for making sure that children arrive at school on time each day, because we are above our target for the year of 97%.

Our collective worship value next week is acceptance. We will remind children about STOP (bullying is Several Times On Purpose, so Start Telling Other People). Please take time to talk to your child about this

It is very important that children read regularly at home. Sometimes, parents tell us that they don’t know what they should be doing when their child is reading. You can see tips and advice on our website: https://saxton.n-yorks.sch.uk/our-curriculum-and-how-we-work/phonics-and-spelling/

FOSS are having a non-uniform day next Wednesday (20th) in return for donations towards the Christmas Fair. Please see poster for more information

If you have sold any raffle tickets please bring the stubs and money in to the school office

Hello everyone!

This term seems to be racing by, and Christmas is almost upon us!

I last wrote out to you all at the start of the term to welcome all the new families who have joined our lovely community school and to introduce myself and the FOSS team. I mentioned that there were likely to be some changes in administration following the FOSS AGM that we held in September, as we had a couple of parent volunteers, who held key roles on FOSS, whose children have moved onto secondary school:

- The role of FOSS Chair will now be undertaken jointly by both myself (mum to Phoebe) and Danielle Drake (Mum to Darcey).

- The role of FOSS Treasurer will now be undertaken by Laura Worsnop (Mum to Jacob).

- The role of FOSS Secretariat will now be undertaken by Christine Bird (Mum to Maisie).

Now that we have new people in posts, we can start to look at fundraising events and activities for the rest of the academic year.

We are always looking for volunteers though, so if you’re interested in getting involved, in whatever capacity you can, then please do get in touch – we’d love to hear from you!

The Halloween fancy dress and Witches Brew Lucky Dip that we held after school in October, seemed to go down well with the children! Thank you to everyone for taking part and a special thanks to those parent volunteers that helped make it happen! We managed to raise £72 - the proceeds of which all go back to school.

The next fundraising event will be the Christmas Fayre which this year is taking place on Friday 29th November, after school, in the church.

The Christmas Fayre is a really lovely event - as well as a very popular raffle, there will also be a bottle tombola (at the request of parents!), a sweetie/chocolate tombola (at the request of the children!), a ‘Guess the name of the Christmas teddy’ stall, a ‘Guess how many sweeties are in the jar’ stall, a glitter tattoos stall, a ‘Spin the Wheel’ stall, a ‘Santa Chimney’ stall, a Christmas themed ‘Lucky Squares’ stall, along with the ever popular Refreshments Table which will be selling cakes and hot/cold drinks. It’s a cash only event though so please do remember to come with some spondoolies!

This is a huge undertaking each year and we are incredibly grateful to those that are able to help support this event to make it the success that it’s been over the years.

We can’t do this without your support though!

To make the Christmas Fayre the best it can be, we need as many donations as we can. The types of things that are generally well received are things like:

-Bottle donations - especially as we are running a bottle tombola this year!

-Chocolate donations – this can include boxes of chocolates

-Sweetie donations

-Biscuit tin gifts – or any tin gift to be honest

-Toiletry Gift sets

-Vouchers – do you perhaps know someone with their own business that might be willing to donate a voucher, or might your workplace be able to donate a business related voucher?

To make things a bit simpler this year, we have organised with school to have a non uniform day on the 20th November, in exchange for donations to the Christmas Fayre, so please start having a think about this in advance of the 20th November and maybe add a couple of things into your weekly food shop this weekend that you could bring in with your child on the 20th November, and then FOSS will collect these donations from school and get them all ready for the various stalls at the Christmas Fayre.

We are also looking for some cake donations for the refreshments stall, so if you think you might be able to help with that, then please do let us know! Thanks for taking the time to read this! Speak soon Lucy Verlander FOSS Co-Chair

Thank you for all the donations so far! If you would like to donate please bring to the school office!

NOVEMBER

20th Nov Non Uniform for Chocolate donation

22nd Nov Kurling and fencing Day - Whole School

26th Nov Cinema Trip for Sycamore

29th Nov FOSS Christmas Fayre

DECEMBER

2nd Dec Tag Rugby

12th Dec St Gemmas Reindeer Run

13th Dec Rocksteady Concert in Village Hall

16th Dec Pantomime - Jack and the Beanstalk

18th Dec Christmas Service

19th Dec Christmas Dinner Day

23rd Dec School Closed

JANUARY

6th Jan Training Day

7th Jan School Re-opens

All the menus are available on meal selector via ParentPay

Children can decide daily whether they are having a school dinner or packed lunch.

Please ensure you use our new meal selector to order lunches for your child for up to 3 weeks in advance, see the link below.

Each day there are 4 choices, either the hot dinner, hot vegetarian option, jacket potato with a choice of toppings or a sandwich. The sandwich and jacket potato always come with a selection of vegetables/salad on the side and have the full pudding choice for that day.

Packed Lunches - if you are sending grapes in your child's packed lunch, can you please ensure that these are cut in half.

If you are in receipt of certain benefits, your child could also qualify for free school meals during all school years. To qualify you must be receiving:

• Universal Credit, provided you have an annual net earned income of no more than £7,400, as assessed by earnings from up to three of your most recent assessment periods (£616.67 per month)

• Income Support

• Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance

• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance

• Support under part six of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999

• The guarantee element of Pension Credit

• Child Tax Credit, provided you are also not entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual household gross income that does not exceed £16,190 (as assessed by HMRC)

• Working Tax Credit run-on, paid for four weeks after you stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit

Please note that contributions-based benefits, including contribution-related Jobseekers' Allowance do not entitle you to claim free school meals.

Apply for free school meals

You will receive an instant decision on whether your application is successful. If it is, we will fully process the application in 5 working days and notify the school. Once the school has received this your child can begin enjoying free school meals. You should continue to pay until confirmation comes through. Schools may be able to arrange reimbursement of payment made while your entitlement is being confirmed.

Free school meals claims cannot be backdated. They are awarded from the date we receive the application, once eligibility is confirmed. This is because there is a legal requirement for a request to be made, before a free school meal can be provided. If you are not entitled to free school meals, you will be notified in writing.

Help raise money for FOSS and label your children's school items. The soft plastic labels can be stuck on machine wash-care labels of clothes, but can also be used on shoes, dishwasher items and general school items.

Please order via the website www.stikins.co.uk and quote Saxton school number 17524

Please be considerate when parking near the school crossing. If parked too close it can be very difficult to see if it is safe to cross, particularly at pick up time-thank you.

Please click here to be re-directed to ParentPay, where you can pay for lunches and other school related items.

Email: admin@sp.starmat.uk
Website: http://www.sp.starmat.uk/
Location: Dam Lane, Saxton, United Kingdom
Phone: 01937 557396
Twitter: @SaxtonCE

The STAR MAT website links and twitter page.

Website: web.starmat.uk
Twitter: @CEOTheSTARMAT