Newsletter

The World of Work

As part of PSHE (Personal Social Health and Economic Education), we explore the world of work and learn about the many different jobs people do. To help bring this to life for the children, we would love to invite visitors into school to talk about their jobs and share their experiences. We are looking for volunteers from a wide range of careers and sectors, for example: builder, doctor, baker, hairdresser, personal trainer, engineer, office worker, shop worker, artist, scientist, nurse, chef, and many more. The aim is to show children the variety of opportunities that are available and to help them understand what different jobs involve.

If you, a family member, or a friend would be willing to visit the school, the visit would involve:

Talking to the children about what you do in your job
Explaining a typical day at work
Bringing in (if appropriate) any safe equipment, tools, uniforms, or objects you use in your job
Answering simple questions from the children about your job

The sessions would be short and age-appropriate, and full guidance and support would be provided by school staff. If you are able to help, please email the office and let us know your job, your availability, and the best way to contact you. We would be very grateful for your support in helping to make this a fun and inspiring experience for the children.

Learning Organisers

We send out a curriculum newsletter every term so that parents know what their children will be learning at school as an overview. If parents would like more information about what exactly has been taught as they would like to support this, they can find some learning organisers on the year group pages the half term after it has been taught. For example, on the Year 1 page, parents can find learning organisers for: DT food (gingerbread biscuits) R.E celebrations and geography – Where do I live?

Playtime Snacks

Just a reminder of our snack policy: – fresh fruit/veg (not dried fruit) no grapes (due to choking hazard) – plain carbohydrate (e.g. breadstick, cracker, rice cake) If a child brings in a snack that is not allowed, they will not be told off but will be reminded of what is allowed and asked to put the snack in their book bag to take home. A reminder that we are a nut free school and that nuts of any kind or nuts in anything else are not allowed. Attached to the bottom of this newsletter is a chart showing which snacks are and are not allowed. The class teachers will be reminding the children in class using this chart. If you are in any doubt about the snack policy, please feel free to talk to your class teacher or Mrs Mehtar about it.

Attendance

In the coming weeks, all children (except those new to the school) will receive a letter about attendance. The letter will indicate where a child’s attendance is at for this point in the school year. It is very important that we make parents aware of attendance figures. We realise that some children may have had authorised attendance due to illness etc. However, this still counts as absence – although it cannot be helped. Any absence from learning means that a child is missing out. The letter is just to make you aware of how your child’s attendance looks so far this academic year and how they compare with the DFE expectation for all children to be attending 96% or more.

You will receive one of the following letters in an envelope.

A green letter will indicate attendance of 97% or more – which is better than average – this is great.

An amber letter will indicate attendance of 95%-96% – this is in line with expected attendance.

A pink letter will indicate attendance of 91% – 94% – this is of concern because it is below the expected attendance levels.

A dark pink letter which will indicate attendance of 90% or lower – which is of serious concern and will be flagged up and monitored by the Barnet Education Welfare officer.

At parent evening in the Spring Term you will receive a breakdown of your child’s attendance again at that point – which will be approximately half way through the school year. This will give the exact attendance figure at that point and will show where the absences have occurred. We hope that you will find these two pieces of information useful.

Jewellery

A reminder that children cannot wear jewellery to school. The policy is very clear: ‘It is encouraged that pupils do not wear jewellery to school, especially as individuals become very upset if a treasured piece of jewellery goes missing. The only acceptable items of jewellery to be worn are a simple wristwatch (Smart watches or any type of phone watch or phones that have games or cameras on are not allowed) and earring studs or jewellery of a religious significance. Should a pupil have pierced ears, plain studs should only be worn. Fitbits may be worn. Please note that the school will be unable to take any responsibility for any jewellery that is lost. We have noticed a lot of bracelets, necklaces and other jewellery creeping in. Children will be asked to remove them if they are wearing them.

Parental Donations

As in previous years, I wrote to parents in December with a request. The request was that we are asking parents across the school to make a voluntary contribution for the benefit of the school towards the cost of resources to support the learning of the children. School budgets continue to be tighter and more challenging than ever. Continuing falling pupil numbers in the UK and specifically (for us) Barnet, continues to seriously affect our budget as we only receive money for the children on roll – NOT for the number of places we have. We have cut back as much as we can on spending.

Parent contributions over past years have been very generous and an enormous help which meant that we were still able to buy resources for art, DT etc so that curriculum provision in the classrooms was not affected. We really appreciate the support that parents give with this. We know that we are not alone as a school in asking parents to make a voluntary contribution each year. Most schools both primary and secondary ask for contributions from parents annually. All of our local schools do this. We are asking parents across the school to help us again this year. Resources inevitably get broken or worn out with such a lot of use and need to be replaced. We are therefore asking all of our parents to volunteer to contribute (per child) for the academic year 2025- 2026. Thank you to those people who have already done this – we are very grateful. I realise that December was a difficult time to ask for money from families. We would be grateful if families could make a donation via School Money now. Thank you.

Second Hand Uniform

The PTA have a good range of second-hand uniform items and a variety of sizes available currently. We have a new location for this uniform where parents can go along at the end of the day and help themselves to items they need. This is part of our work on sustainability to reuse items. Laura from the PTA has sorted the items by item type and arranged then beautifully, so that parents can have a look through for the size needed. Laura will aim to top up the boxes up regularly however we do ask that parents leave the boxes tidy as they found them for the next parents to visit. The uniform is located in the family area just outside Miss Michaels office in some flap top boxes. Parents can visit as required at the end of a school day but we ask that children are well behaved and that for safeguarding reasons nobody wanders off into other parts of the junior building.

Special Themed Lunch – Chinese New Year

We will be having a special menu for Chinese New Year on Tuesday 24th February. The menu will be:

Chicken Chow Mein
Vegetable stir fry noodles with broccoli and baby corn
Pineapple fried rice
Caramel banana cake

Attendance

Whole school attendance for the last week was 94% Well done to Year 5 Maple Class with the best attendance at 98%.

Dates

Monday 2nd February Annual House Challenge
Wednesday 4th February Meeting for Y4 parents about the Y5 residential 2026
Thursday 12th February Cross Country
Friday 14th February End of Half term at 3.30pm

There is a facility to translate this newsletter and the whole school website at the bottom of the website home page.