There are all sorts of events taking place during the rest of this term so please make sure you read the details in this Newsletter carefully and keep it handy so that you can refer to it as the weeks go by.

First of all there are all sorts of thankyous to say:

To all of you who have collected vouchers from Tesco’s and Sainsbury’s – a huge thankyou. We have just over 35,000 Tesco vouchers which will buy us a complete new system and some other bits and pieces too. We have well over 5,000 Sainsbury’s vouchers and we will be purchasing items for the children to use at playtimes with these.

I would also like to thank all those of you who donated tiles and who helped out at the Patchwork session on Saturday. Our mosaic is fantastic and we are really thrilled with it. I would like to thank Mr Hayes and his father who very kindly hacked up the slabs and prepared the ground for the patchwork – backbreaking work for which we are really grateful. Our thanks also go to Mr Hedges who masterminded the project.

In the future we hope to be participating in a larger project with the other local schools to do something similar in the Maidenbower community. We will keep all of the spare tiles and use them for that project later in the year.

Workshops

During this term we have run two parents workshops. One of these was led by our literacy adviser on reading and writing at home with your children. This was an excellent course and a big thankyou to those of you who came along. The feedback has been excellent with parents saying that they have learnt an enormous amount. We may well repeat this workshop in the future so keep an eye out for dates etc as it really is worth your while.

Some of the teachers have been running a course called SHARE which is about working parents sharing activities with their children at home. Again this has been very successful and I would like to thank the staff who have taken this on. Again we will probably run this course again so keep an eye out for dates etc

Annual Reports

This term you will all be receiving a report from your child’s teacher about his/her progress during the past school year. This will be coming home on Friday July 8th when you will also be notified of your child’s classteacher for next year. We are having quite a change around of teachers and as from September the organisation will be as follows:

Lists will be up for you to sign for Parents Consultations from
tomorrow. Please take this opportunity to have a one to one discussion
about your children’s progress and development before they go to
their next year group.

Get Fit Kids

You will have received a letter about this event which is taking place in school this week. We do hope that you will feel able to support your children in this as it is quite an experience for them to take part and also to watch superb gymnasts at such close quarters. The money we raise will go towards further outdoor equipment for the children.

Year 2

We have put a comprehensive programme into place with the Brook and the Junior School to support the children as they make their transition to the Junior School. There will be a number of visits to the Junior School and also Junior school staff will be visiting the children here. There will be an opportunity for the children to have another visit with their counterparts at The Brook so that they begin to get to know each other a little better. The children will be divided into 5 classes as will the children from the Brook so that the year group is mixed.

Reception

We will be welcoming 90 new children into our reception year in September and it is wonderful that half of these children have been in our Nursery and are therefore already familiar with the surroundings. The new parents evening has been held and a full induction programme is in place to ensure that the children have a smooth and secure start to their school life. As from September we are carrying out an experiment for one year to see how a more flexible start for the children works out. The children will be able to start fulltime at any time whenever their birthday falls during the year which offers scope for children to come to school full time when they are ready rather than at a specified time. We will take stock of how this goes during the Autumn term and then make a decision about the future.

I would like to recommend the two After School Clubs that are held here. Irish Dancing classes are on a Tuesday after school and Karate is on Fridays. The children who currently attend these clubs really enjoy themselves and are getting a great deal out of them. If you are interested for September we can give you contact details or you could pop in to the classes to have a look and talk to the leaders.

Hotline

The West Sussex County Council Education Service is now available 24/7 on their new telephone number: 0845 075 1007. They can answer your queries about your child at school and if you need to speak to an individual, they can take a message and get them to call you back!

Also on the West Sussex Grid for Learning there is a whole section, `Your Child’s Education – everything a parent needs to know’ – definitely worth a visit! http://wsgfl.westsussex.gov.uk/yourchildseducation

Reminders

I have been asked to remind you about driving slowly (20 mph) near the school, especially close to the roundabout. There have, over the years, been so many near misses – please don’t be the person who causes an accident.

There are also problems with dogs being tied up down the footpath at the side of our school as children are afraid to pass them. If you do bring dogs to school please would you tie them up nearer the gates so that there is room for children who are afraid of dogs to get by. Many thanks

Classroom and Learning Support Assistants

We are currently looking for a classroom assistant to work in the Blue unit. If you are interested in this position please call into the School Office for a job description and an application form. The closing date for applications will be Friday 24th June with interviews taking place in the next week. The hours for this position will be from 8.30am – 3.30pm for 5 days per week.

We also need to appoint a CA for one day each week (Thursdays) to work in Year 1 to cover for one of our classroom assistants who is involved a course.

In addition we need to make appointments for Learning Support Assistants to work with specific children who have Special Educational Needs. These will be part-time possibly for two or three days each week. Again if you are interested please could you collect an application form from the Office?

Please be sure to make it clear on the top of your application which position you are interested in. These positions will all be temporary in the first instance.

So I come to the end of my final Newsletter. As you can imagine I have very mixed feelings at the moment although I know that I have made the right decision. It is a great disappointment that the Governors have not yet been able to appoint a new Headteacher but I know that the right person for our school will be appointed in due course and I have every confidence that the school will continue to go from strength to strength. I will of course miss all of my Maidenbower friends and their children – but I take with me many many happy memories. Maidenbower has been a big part of my life and it has been a privilege to work with you and your children.
Thankyou to all of you.

Lynda Lowe