Headteacher’s Message
Although Autumn is always a long term, this half term has really flown over. All of the children are now settled into their new classes and learning is well under way.
I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your patience, support and understanding as our school transitions into a new chapter.
For those of you who don’t know me, I’d like to formally introduce myself. My name is Dawn Simpson – I was appointed as Head of School in July. I have worked at Hartside Primary for 14 years. I started my career in EYFS and gradually worked my way up through the school, gaining experience teaching in most year groups. My leadership journey started when I took over the leadership of literacy in 2012. Shortly after, I was appointed Key Stage 2 Lead and subsequently Assistant Head Teacher. In 2017, I took over the deputy headship and broadened my leadership experience, by taking on responsibility of outdoor play and learning (OPAL) and Personal Development (PD), as well as retaining the leadership of Literacy.
Moving forward, I continue to work closely with Mr Laws on school improvement and look forward to getting to know you all, in my new capacity as Head of School.
Packed Lunches
I want to take this opportunity to thank you all for embracing the new packed lunch/ snack guidance. As I explained in the guidance, considering the wellbeing of the whole child is so important and a healthy diet has many benefits, including improving concentration and behaviour, which is integral to learning.
As a parent of a fussy eater, I understand that mealtimes can be a battle and following guidance is not as easy as it sounds. I have seen a huge difference in the packed lunches and snacks that have been provided over the past few weeks and I really appreciate the time, thought and effort that you have all put into making it work.
Communication
Dojo is a fantastic tool that helps streamline our communication – it has made getting in touch with each other so much quicker and easier. We have found that Dojo is most effective for information sharing, quick reminders, or when parents/teachers want to pass on a quick message. It’s not so effective when communicating important or urgent messages, or where there is an issue that needs resolved. This is because a message can be quite impersonal or misinterpreted. For that reason, I have asked staff to use Dojos for reminders, information sharing and quick messages, but to save important, urgent or issues that need to be resolved, for a phone call or a face to face interaction. I politely ask that parents do the same. I realise that it’s not always possible to speak to the member of staff immediately, due to teaching commitments, however you are welcome to leave a message and a member of staff will get back to you.
To be mindful of wellbeing and to support staff with work-life balance, we have a staff communication policy where we don’t email each other outside of the following hours: Monday – Friday, 8am – 6pm. If staff are catching up on emails outside of this time, they use the ‘schedule send’ option and schedule it to send within the hours mentioned above. This means that staff can send it when it’s convenient for them, but the person receiving it won’t be notified outside of their working hours.
We’ve recently discovered that this is also possible on Dojo and we’d really appreciate it if you could use it too, to help support the staff with their wellbeing and work life balance.
Once you have typed your message, click the arrow next to the send button and it will give you some default options such as, tomorrow 8am; alternatively, you can select a specific time through the custom option.
Punctuality and Attendance
One of the areas of school life most impacted by COVID is attendance. This is one of the reasons that the government published guidance for schools in May 2022.
The guidance says:
‘Central to raising standards in education and ensuring all pupils can fulfil their potential… pupils need to attend school regularly to benefit from their education. Missing out on lessons leaves children vulnerable to falling behind. Children with poor attendance tend to achieve less in both primary and secondary school’.
The government expects:
Schools and local authorities to:
- promote good attendance and reduce absence, including persistent absence
- ensure every pupil has access to full-time education to which they are entitled
- act early to address patterns of absence
- parents to perform their legal duty by ensuring their children of compulsory school age, who are registered at school, attend regularly
- all pupils to be punctual to their lessons.
Our whole school attendance currently sits at 94.5%; this is something that I am keen to improve. Alongside this, we have accrued many minutes of lost learning time, due to lateness. Whilst I realise that sometimes this can’t be helped due to unforeseen circumstances, this should not become a regular occurrence and I am keen to work together with families to provide support with improving this – not just because of policy and guidance, but because of the impact it can have on the children’s learning. If child misses as little as 5 minutes per day across a term, this adds up to two and a half hours of lost learning.
Start and End Times
The Schools White Paper outlines that schools should offer a 32.5-hour week by September 2023 – this equates to 6.5 hours per day. With our current arrangements, we fall short of the 6.5 hours. In order to align with the measures outlined by the government, we plan to make a slight change to the start of the school day. There will be no change to the end of the school day – it will remain 3:20pm.
Starting 9th January 2023, the school day will start at 08:50am. This is for all children from Reception to Y6 (nursery times will not change). This means that children need to be in school and ready to start learning at this time. The gates will continue to be opened at 08:45am and will close at 08:55am to allow parents time to leave the premises after drop off. Any children that arrive after 08:55am will need to walk around to the main office, where they will be marked as late, in line with our attendance policy.
We know that many children benefit from the soft start to the day, where the children arrive and come straight into school, rather than lining up, so we have no intention of changing those arrangements.
Reporting Absences
Registers, absences and attendance are all handled by the office, so that everything is kept centrally. If you need to report an absence, please call the office and speak to a member of the office team as soon as possible, or leave a message. I know that many parents/carers like to let the class teacher know out of courtesy and that is appreciated by staff, but it’s really important that the office are also informed via phone call/message. If you need to provide further evidence associated with an absence, please follow up your phone call with a Dojo message to Mrs Cunningham, who is our attendance officer.
We need to check every absence on our register and record it appropriately. This helps us to avoid recording any unnecessary unauthorised absences.
Harvest Collection
Thank you for your contributions towards our Harvest collection; we managed to collect over 20 bags of food that we’re going to donate to a food bank, supporting local families. With the ongoing rise to the cost of living, this gesture is more important than ever.
Macmillan Coffee Afternoon
Despite the torrential downpour, our school community put on their waterproofs and supported our Macmillan coffee afternoon. Thank you to everyone who contributed or attended – we raised over £200. We dedicated our event to Mrs Pratt, who retired from Hartside in July. Mrs Pratt is going through her own battle with cancer at the moment and she was really touched by the support. Special thanks to Mr Pratt and our Friends of Hartside who helped to make it happen.
Polite Reminders
- Children travelling to school via bike, or scooter, must wear a helmet.
- School is a no vaping, no smoking zone, including the car park and gates.
- Dogs are not permitted on the premises.
- Parking away from school and walking a short stretch helps us to make the road outside of school safer for our children.
- Reading is a fundamental life skill and getting children into good reading habits can help them to reach their full potential. Please read regularly with your child and record if appropriate.
Staffing Changes
I’d like to thank you all for your ongoing support, while we were in a transition between office staff. You have all been incredibly patient when we’ve taken a little longer than normal to resolve issues. Many of you have already met Mrs Cunningham and we look forward to appointing our new admin assistant in the coming weeks.
School Holidays
I have provided a parent calendar below to outline key dates, events and holidays. Please take a moment to review it. It is also available on the website, should you need to refer to it at a later date. We intend to adhere to the dates outlined, however some dates still need to be confirmed. If there are any changes, I will let you know.
I hope that you enjoy our newsletter, as much as we enjoy showcasing what we’ve been up to.
Many thanks,
Dawn Simpson
Head of School
