St Cecilia's News

Dear Parents,

We've had a good but challenging start to the year with many staff and children becoming infected with Coronavirus. I'm very grateful to all the staff for pulling together to help us maintain learning in school rather than online at home.

Once we reached a threshold classes were placed into bubble groups, we then had to maintain staffing within that bubble as well, adding further complications. It's important that we keep staff well so that they can be in school teaching - we can't ask staff to cover classes for absent staff and mix bubbles if we have reached the threshold for additional procedures.

As we had some year groups in bubble groups we took the decision to reduce mixed year group events - this affected assemblies, Fun Friday and after school clubs.

Our usual class assembly programme will resume after the half term holiday and we hope to have parents in the hall once again.

We will review our arrangements again after half term, as always many thanks to parents for keeping in touch with us about infection in the family home, this helps us to track numbers and alter our provision in school.

In order to prevent a rise in infections again, our Spring Term parent teacher meetings will be online, we will send more details to you after the half term break.

You can login at ourschool.schoolcloud.co.uk

We have some new staff working with us this term:

Miss Hinds joins us as a temporary SEN TA in Nursery.

Mrs Stringer is covering Mrs Harrison's maternity leave in Year 4.

Mrs Seehra is covering Miss Costello's maternity leave in Year 3.

We welcome them all to the the team as they join us through to the summer holidays.

Best wishes to you all for the half term holiday next week, I hope that you have good weather and some lovely family time.

Vince Burke

Head Teacher

Don't forget that you can find full information about our curriculum on our website at

https://www.stcecilias.school/Curriculum/

The staff have broken the curriculum down into knowledge and skills - we are using the acronym ROCKS to focus our thoughts: Remember our Curriculum Knowledge and Skills. The format helps teachers to think of the essential aspects or 'long arcs' of each curriculum subjects, the traits that run through each subject area.

For ROCKS please visit: https://www.stcecilias.school/Curriculum/Subject-progress-maps/

In history, for example, the long arcs that are frequently visited as the children act as historians are:

• childhood and toys
• crime and punishment
• structure and civilisation
• inventors and inventions
• beliefs
• jobs and lifestyles

For details of your child's curriculum for the year we have our curriculum maps for each year group and links to our Learning Labs at:

https://www.stcecilias.school/Curriculum/Curriculum-maps/

It's been a tough year for good attendance for many of our pupils, as we enter a new phase of the pandemic it's really important that children attend school as much as possible and that where there has been absence, children now catch up and attend regularly.

Our overall attendance this year has been very good, at 96%

A data report will be coming out to you after the February half term, please check your child's attendance and take action where needed.

Don't forget that:

• High attendance leads to improved and high achievement which means greater success.
• Too many missed school days can really affect your child's success in school and lead to instability in their school life.

What is Ollee?

Ollee is a digital friend for children aged 8-11, created by Parent Zone and BBC Children in Need’s A Million & Me initiative.

It helps children explore feelings around subjects – like school, family, friends and the world – and supports conversations between children and parents through connected accounts.

In the app, children can select an emotion they’re feeling – maybe happy, sad, worried or something else – and it will give them ideas about what to do. Even if they’re not sure, Ollee will help them figure it out. With prompts such as, “I feel lonely”, “no one listens to me” or “I’m growing up”, Ollee gives children supportive advice about that subject and how they feel.

Parents and guardians can create an Ollee account for themselves, as well as their child. By linking accounts, children and parents can share Ollee’s advice and ideas together, helping to start a conversation about feelings. Adults can also explore the different emotional scenarios a child might be experiencing – with tailored parenting advice.

Try it out now in a web browser or download the app to your device:

We offer Numbots to children in Yeats 1&2, Times tables Rock Stars to children in Years 2-6. In assemblies on Monday mornings we credit the children who have gained the most points over the previous 7 days. Please encourage your child to login and make use of these resources.

If you need a reminder of your child's login please contact your child's class teacher via Class Dojo.

Miss Greenaway, our Subject Leader for International Curriculum has news!

"This term St Cecilia's has been awarded the International Schools Award from the British Council. Throughout the academic year, the teachers have been working hard to develop children’s global awareness by helping them to learn more about other cultures and the wider world.

The school took part in different activities such as Earth Day and International Women's Day.

Sustainability, climate change, gender equality and environmental issues are just some of the many topics the children have learnt about. We aim for this work to have a long term impact on our school and the wider community.

The teachers have fed back how interested the children of all ages are to develop their global perspective.

Our next step is to develop a partnership with a school outside of the UK and this will really excite the children and bring the work to life. It has been wonderful to receive this award and we are excited to continue this journey as we apply for the accreditation level!"

It's great to see that our educational visits programme is starting to pick up once again, many thanks for your support with the costs of these visits which help us to widen and deepen our children's curricular experience.

Year 3 had a lovely day at Wisley recently, some photos above.

We have been investing heavily in new books for both the library and our classrooms this year. After the half term we will be issuing a new library card to all children in Years 1 to 6. Information about the library will be sent direct to parents, it will also include details of your child's online account which will enable us to offer online book reviews and renewals. We will keep the card in school to make it easier for your child to visit the library each week.

• We've added a new "Returns" postbox to make it easier for pupils to return books when unaccompanied.
• We are adding hundreds of new reading scheme books to our lower KS2 classes, we've also added an additional reading scheme from Read Write Inc across Early Years and Key Stage 1.
• For our older readers, we have added several hundred new paperbacks and books for our book boxes at varying colour levels.
• In the main library we have started to Book Band colour all of our non-fiction reading stock - this should make it much easier for the children to find an appropriate book at their reading level.
• We continue to invest in books which reflect the diversity of modern Britain.
• I will often visit classrooms to discover current areas of interest and favourite authors - for example, we have invested in more of the "Murder Most Unladylike" series of mystery books for older readers at Black Level and the "Warrior Cats" series at Red Level. The "Little People Big Dreams" books are proving very popular in KS1 at Grey and White level!
• We have most of the books currently stocked in the children's section of Waterstones, we will order a book if we do not stock it.

We have booked our Sports Day (for Years 1-6) at the David Weir Sports Centre for Thursday 23rd June. Children can arrive from 08:30, the first events will take place at 0900.

Parking will be available for parents in the field opposite the Centre.

We will take on board the pandemic advice and weather forecast at that time and hope that parents will be able to join us on the day.

Children will need to be in full PE kit - please check our Uniform Guide for more information, I have included the Uniform Guide for you below.

We will send out more information about Sports Day in our newsletter nearer the time.

Our Year 4 pupils will undertake the Multiplication check in June this year, the Government will confirm arrangements in the coming weeks.

Times Tables Rockstars, mentioned above, will really help the children prepare for this assessment in June. I've also included a booklet from Oxford Owl which contains some useful materials for parents.

You can find our term dates for the next academic year on our school website and online calendar.

I have also attached a copy for you below.

We are not permitted to grant permission for holidays in term time. If you are requesting any leave for your child please make sure to use our form which you can find here on our website under Parents \ Attendance.

Monday 14th to Friday 18th February - Spring Half Term

Monday 28 February - Book Week

Tuesday 1 and Wednesday 3rd March - Parent Teacher Meetings from 3.30pm

Thursday 3 March - Book Character Day (Dress Up)

Monday 7 March - STEM Week (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths Week)

Monday 14 March - ECA Bookings open for Season 3, Summer Term.

Monday 21 March - ECAs for this term end this week.

Tuesday 22 March - World Water Day

Monday 28 March Y4 Mission Week (CAFOD)

Friday 1 April - End of Term

Keep an eye on Class Dojo for other events as the term begins.
Staff are not booking as many visits or visitors due to the pandemic.

London Road, Sutton, Surrey, SM3 9DL

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