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Apr 27th 2018Newsletter - April 2018
A Message From Miss Rawson
27th April 2018
Welcome back to the last term of this academic year and one that is traditionally extremely busy! My main reason for sending this letter home is to let you have advance notice of the events, which will be happening this term. For those happening this half term, there is more detail here. For those happening after half term, further details will follow closer to the time.
However, there are also a few other things that I would like to mention to you.
Safety of your child online
I know that I keep writing to you about this subject but I do need to remind you again about checking that your child is safe when they are online. Just this morning, we have received a phone call from a parent alerting us to the fact that her daughter has received inappropriate messages and requests from an older boy through Instagram.
We know that some of our children have Facebook, Instagram, and other social media profiles even though the permitted minimum age to use these sites is 13 years old, according to their terms and conditions. We are dealing with an increasing number of issues related to the online behaviour of pupils at weekends and in the evenings and, as we are committed to keeping our pupils safe and to promoting the safe, responsible use of the Internet, we feel it is our responsibility to raise this particular issue as a concern.
Age restrictions for social media websites are as follows:
Age limit 13: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit, Snapchat, Youtube, Wechat, musical.ly, Keek, Kik, Foursquare, Flickr
Age limit 14: LinkedIn
Age limit 16: Whatsapp ( from May 2018)
There are risks of underage use of such sites and you must make an informed decision as to whether to allow your child to have a profile or not at the moment. Whilst we have a duty to all pupils in our school, it is not the school’s responsibility to manage their behaviour or deal any events or issues that occur out of school as a result of social media interaction. To be blunt, that is your responsibility.
We will endeavour to deal with the consequences of out-of-school behaviour when it affects pupils in school and will not hesitate to work with the police/Safer Schools Community Team. We also work proactively to promote safe online behaviour, help pupils identify and avoid risky or negative behaviours online and encourage them to use social media responsibly as part of our PSHE curriculum. Please support us, so that we are able to spend our time focussed on teaching and learning, by regularly checking what your child is doing online both on their laptops or tablet and on their phones.
Fun Run
Our postponed Fun Run will take place on the morning of Friday, May 18th. The children can now choose whether they would like to dress-up with the original theme of “Fancy Pants” or ‘Red, White and Blue’/Crowns, in celebration of the Royal Wedding that weekend! Any donations that are brought in on that day will be divided between two local charities. The first is the Amelia Grace Rainbow Foundation. Amelia’s Rainbow supports children in Dorset and the surrounding area who are suffering from terminal, life-limiting and serious chronic illnesses. You can find more information about this here: http://www.ameliasrainbow.org/about-amelia/the-fund
The second charity is Marathons for the Mind which supports the work of mental health charities Mind and Livability and which has been set up by Peter Thompson, a local marathon runner. Some of you may remember that he came into school last year to talk to the children about the challenge he had set himself in running 44 marathons across Europe in 44 days and we were able to track his progress via his website. He is coming back to school to talk to the children on April 30th about his latest challenge: setting off with a seven week head start on the riders of the Tour de France, he will attempt to run the entire 2069 mile route of the 2018 Tour de France and make it to the finish line before them. This will involve running an ultra-marathon every day for 70 days and climbing the equivalent of Mount Everest over three times. Makes my Chester half marathon next weekend seem like a jog round the park! You can find out more information about his challenge here:
https://marathonsforthemind.com
We are always overwhelmed by the generosity of our school community when we do fundraising for charity and hope that you will agree that these are worthwhile causes.
Art Week
The week before half term will be our postponed Art Week in school and the children will be working in their colour teams across the school in the afternoons on projects to do with the theme of Flight. The PFA are kindly sponsoring this event and covering the cost of all resources. If you would like to come in after school and look at the displays, then you are more than welcome to do so after school during the week beginning June 11th as part of the whole MAT Arts week. Further details of this will come home in due course.
Please could you send your child in with a shirt (or something appropriate), which you wouldn’t mind getting 'arty' and which will prevent them coming home for half term covered in paint. Equally, if you have a surplus amount of 'art-worthy' shirts, which you no longer need, we would be grateful if you could donate them to us. One of the activities requires the use of cuttings from magazines, newspapers and old books - again, any donations of this type would be gratefully received.
Bushcraft – Parent Volunteer needed
Organisation of the Year 6 residential is well underway but the team are still in need of one more adult volunteer to help out on this trip. If you are interesting in finding out more, please contact Mrs Bootle through the school office team or email senior.team@sjs.email.
Reminders
We are aware that Ramadan will be taking place between May 16th and June 14th. If your child will be taking part in fasting, please can you contact the school office so that we can get a letter to you for written parental consent.
Dates
APRIL
26th
Whole School Disco
MAY
7th
Bank Holiday Monday
14th- 17th inclusive
SATs week for Year 6 pupils
18th
Fun Run (postponed from end of Spring Term)
21st -25th
Art Week
26th
Last Choir Standing competition (parents invited towards end of school day – details TBC)
HALF TERM
Monday, May 28th – Friday, June 1st
JUNE
8th
Stourfield Steam – Details to follow
13th
Staffing and Pupil Welfare Committee
21st
Resources Committee meeting 1830
JULY
w/c July 2nd
Y6 production. Details will be sent to Y6 parents from Y6 team shortly.
4h
Secondary school transfer day
6th
Winning House mufti day
9th
Y6 to Bushcraft all week
16th
Internal transfer afternoon
17th
Internal transfer morning
18th
Leavers service – St. Christopher’s Church 1900
19th
Sports Day.
Lower School – 0900-1130
Upper School -1230- 1500
20th
End of Term Service at St Christopher’s 0930 (pupils only)
School closed for the summer at 1215
Other news ...
I am pleased to say that the Pupil Leadership Team will be opening the school stationery shop from next Wednesday, April 25th. A letter from them has come to you under separate cover.
Download a PDF copy of the April 2018 Newsletter here.
