NEWSLETTER: January 31 st 2014

1. Trimley St Martin Primary School NEWSLETTER: January 31st 2014 www.thelifecloud.net/schools/TrimleyStMartinPrimarySchool Parent Forum Skipping Week The latest minutes from January Parent Forum are now available on the school website in the new Parent section. Turn out to these meetings has been low. Forum members who have been unable to attend have emailed any issues / concerns to me so I can bring them up in the meeting. From this point forward, I do want to suggest that the Parent Forum isn’t exclusively for Parent Forum members. If you have an issue or concern or just want to be able to comment about things happening in school then you are more than welcome to attend. The next Parent Forum meeting will take place on: Wednesday 19th March at 2:30pm. Skipping week is due to take place during the final week of this half term. In P.E. time, children will be introduced to a range of different games linked to skipping whilst learning the fitness benefits gained from this type of exercise. During break times and lunchtimes skipping activities will also be taking place. Art Open Day The Art Open day will take place on the 13th of February. The aim of the day is for you to work alongside your child to produce a ‘quality’ piece of art work, following the full process from looking at artists in detail, carryout out initial designs and practices before finally building up to a final piece of work. The work will then be presented around the school in a particular location. Children will work within their classes on a piece of art pitched at the level relevant to their year group. Year 3 / 4 and 5 will be split into single year group classes. You will receive more detailed information soon. OFSTED & HMI Where are we? You may remember that in November 2012 the school was inspected and graded ‘Requires Improvement’. As a result HMI Inspectors came in to work with the school back in February 2013 and were happy with the progress made. We are expecting another visit from HMI very soon, where we again hope to show the progress we’ve made. With regards to OFSTED, if they were to return now, it would be highly likely that the school would be graded the same. This is because OFSTED use the KS1 and KS2 results from the last 3 years as a starting point for measuring our effectiveness. Last years results were much more positive, however, possibly not enough to move us into the good category yet! Predictions for this year are looking much stronger than the previous 3 years and so the hope is, if the OFSTED team visit us after we receive this years results, we’ll be in a stronger position to prove that we are a ‘good’ school. Dates this term Reading at Home x5 Maths Homework Attendance

2. Safeguarding Money, success & perception We are becoming increasingly concerned about reports of children misusing (intentionally or unintentionally) the internet outside school. In some cases, children are making comments about other children in their class which are not appropriate. In other cases, children are uploading videos onto YouTube (with totally acceptable content) however, their username is quite clearly their own name and on occasions pupils are wearing school uniform – so easily identifiable and traceable. I'm worried that this is potentially making the children vulnerable. In school, we cannot discipline children for misusing the internet when at home or control content that is uploaded. We can, however, continue to educate the children on safer internet use whilst informing Parents of any misuse that is brought to our attention. Technology is moving so quickly that things that often appear to be risk free can put children at danger. They are also much more aware of technology these daysthan us adults and therefore it is inevitable that we may report things to you that you never even felt your child had access to! We are currently waiting on our projected budget for April. One of the biggest things that impacts the amount we receive is the number of children we have on roll. The numbers of children on roll are increasing and therefore more money should be heading in our direction. Our school has capacity for 210 pupils (7 classes of 30). Currently on roll we have 173. Each pupil equates to around £3,000 pounds so if we were full we’d be about £114,000 better off! (That’s three extra teachers or two more full teachers and 3 teaching assistants!) I am pleased to say that numbers are on the increase, we have, in previous years, been as low as 130 on roll. So you can imagine how challenging it was to manage that budget! The reason for telling you this is because people in the area are hearing positive things about this school and are considering us as an option. This year, I have a number of future reception parents out of catchment applying for spaces in our reception. This means that perception of this school is changing and people are seeing us as a place they would like to send their children. Money isn’t everything… but money buys us more teachers, more teachers will enable us to provide greater support for our children leading to stronger results and stronger results means children have the best possible start in life! Everyone is happy and the reputation of the school continues to improve. In this sense, being a school in a close knit community has its advantages. If people are saying positive things about us, everyone gets the message! And attitudes towards this school change! Everybody knowing everybody can also have its disadvantages when comments about the school are negative and derogatory. Interestingly, this information finds its way back to me much quicker than any positive comments! And regardless of how many positive things people have to say about the school… the negative ones stick! Therefore, the aim of this message is to highlight that if something is concerning you, or you are particularly unhappy about anything at Trimley St Martin come and tell us! Give us a chance to do something about it! I feel we are an honest, open and reflective school and therefore we will do our utmost to try and solve anything that is brought to our attention. Thank you, Mr Stock Lost Property FINAL OPP! The Lost Property held in school was laid out, after school, in the hall for the last two Thursdays. All lost property has been bagged up in categories and will be thrown away very soon. Any clothing which included names was taken round to the children’s classes. Everything that remained was put on display in the hall. This is your last chance to claim any lost property before we throw it away. Start and End of day One issue which came up during the Parent Forum was the problem of Parents not being able to speak with Teachers first thing in the morning and Key Stage 2 teachers (in particular) not always being visible at the end of the school day. Therefore, I have insisted that KS2 Teachers are visible after school if you need to chat and whilst I am in the playground in the morning I will carry a clipboard with message sheets to record any messages that I can then pass directly to class teachers. If there is a particularly serious issue that needs to be reported to a member of staff, we can arrange for an adult to release the teacher from the classroom to come and speak to you. Alternatively, I can get staff to phone you back at break time.