Updates from Mrs Norden

This week seems to have gone so quickly, and we are now truly back 'into the swing' of school life.  Today's newsletter is at least the drinking length of a 'full cup of tea or coffee' - maybe with a biscuit dunk. Hopefully the information is supportive of planning and answering questions for you. 

Our 'mini giraffe' arrived this week, and Mrs Cowburn has talked to the children about how they can become involved in making it ready for the 'Walking Tall' exhibition. We want our giraffe to reflect the work we are doing as a 'Rights Respecting School' and so illustrations need to reflect ideas linked to the 42 articles.  You can find a copy of the leaflet Mrs Cowburn gave to the children here.  Suggestions for the giraffe's name can also be made.

The PTA will also be fundraising through the Cauliflower cards project for Christmas items and Mrs Cowburn introduced this to the children today.  The children will complete their illustrations in school over the next week and then bring the form home for you to see their finished picture and options for orders.  We are on a tight deadline, with forms needing to be sent back to the company on 2nd October - so please look out for the form in about a week.

Thank you those who have offered volunteering time through  our form linked in last week's newsletter, the relevant member of staff will be in touch shortly. Should you have missed this last week, please see the volunteering section below.

If you would like a pack of our chickens' eggs please complete the very short form accessed by clicking here.  We give out eggs on week days and will use the order you sign up to the form in as the order of giving them out to you i.e. first come, first served. At the moment we are generally getting 5 eggs a day. We ask for a donation of £1 per pack, which will go towards feed, bedding etc..

As you may remember from information I sent out in the autumn term last year, the government has now brought in new attendance guidance and legislation, which came into effect from 1st September.  As a maintained school, we are awaiting the updated guidance and attendance policy from the Local Authority which will be based on these changes and staff will be attending a briefing on them next week.  Once the new policy is in place this will be uploaded to the website for your access, and we will highlight this to you. 

In the meantime the present policy continues, which can be accessed here. Please remember that it is vitally important you notify us as soon as possible if children are going to be absent from school stating the reason why - this can easily be done by leaving a message on the answer machine or sending an email to the office.  Safeguarding protocols mean that admin staff need to verify why children are absent quickly each morning and having to 'chase' the information takes valuable time away from other priorities.

As parents who attended the Year 1/2 parent information meeting this week will know, there will no longer be a legal remit for formal 'end of KS1' data to be submitted to the DfE, and so KS1 Standard Attainment Tests (SATs) will no longer be a compulsory part of the teacher assessment process.  Staff will continue to assess children's knowledge and understanding through formative and summative assessment across the year, with attainment continuing to be assessed for all children at the end of the academic year and reported to parents and carers.  For the present Yr2s, and all subsequent years, progress measures at the end of KS2 will be taken from the Reception baseline assessment undertaken in the first half-term of your child's autumn reception year.  We do not know yet know how the DfE plan to calculate that progress.

All other statutory assessments will continue and the dates for these can be found in the diary dates and on the government website. It is vitally important that the children are present to undertake these because, whilst as a school we try to make them as low-key as possible, missing them creates issues for future planning.  For example in the case of KS2 SATs, secondary schools often use the data to determine the level of GCSE papers children will be entered for and/or whether children need additional tuition in some areas. Although there are DfE guidelines which enable those absent through illness to sit a paper later than the published day, absence for other reasons such as holidays will see a child unable to take a missed paper resulting in no score being given.

We hope the parent/carer information meetings this week were useful to those able to attend.  The presentations are available on the website as a PDF and will be sent out today along with termly letters and other information.  The bottom of every newsletter has a link to the phase pages on the website through which current information is available to support you at home.

In finishing my update today, I would like to say a huge well done to our Eco Committee, who have achieved the Eco Schools Green Flag award.  This recognises the work they have been doing in supporting the school in being more environmentally aware and active.  You can see more details about this in their blog accessed further down the newsletter.  The continuing work they do will further strengthen our commitment to the environment, and the judges comments really highlighted the children's passion.

_{Anna-Claire Norden} 

_Headteacher

Autumn Term Updates and Admin

Office hours - please note that the outside of these hours the office is not manned and so phone calls and emails will not be able to be dealt with.

Monday Tuesday, Thursday and Friday - 8.45am to 4pm

Wednesday - 8.45am to 4pm

Front pedestrian Gate - please can you make sure that the front gate is closed carefully.  It has already had to be mended this term due to it being regularly slammed shut over the last two weeks.  This often happens when children are shutting it without supervision. Slamming it causes the magnets to drop and then misalign, so the gate then does not lock in place.  This creates a serious safeguarding issue for us where the gate can then be ajar and therefore the premises easily accessed.

Individual and Sibling Photos - 11th October 2023 

Children need to come to school in school uniform not PE kits on Wednesday 11th.  The curriculum will be adapted to support this. 

Between 8.15 and 8.45am on the hall will be open for the photographer to take sibling photos with preschool age children.  Therefore, if you would like a photograph of your 'primary children' with a 'preschool age' sibling, please attend school between these times. Primary only sibling photographs will be taken during the school day.  

Volunteering - we would be very happy for any time people can give through volunteering in varied ways from helping hear children read to weeding with our gardening club.  This year we are also hoping that our school community may be able to help us with increasing first-hand experiences for our children, through your interests and skills.  Please click here to access our volunteering 'form' and help if you can.  The form has just 10 questions and highlights lots of options, so please click into it and have a read.

Harvest Assembly 29th September - we will again be collecting for Jimmy's Shelter in Cambridge.  Jimmy’s is a community-based, people-focused organisation working alongside people experiencing homelessness in Cambridge.  We hope you will support us in donating items (foods and hygiene products) which we can then pass on to Jimmy's.  As we have little storage space please can any donations be brought into school on 29th September and not before.  Children should take these into their classrooms, so they can bring them into the hall as part of our assembly.

New Intake 2024 Talk and Tours - if you have a child starting school in September 2024 please come and join Mrs Norden for a tour of the school, to see our environment, organisation and ask questions. To support our organisation please complete the form which can be accessed here, which gives details for the three sessions we are offering across the term. 

Diary Dates - there have already been some updates and a couple of changes to the document sent out last week.  In part some changes are due to the discovery of a technical glitch where we found the original excel document had transpositions of data in some cells giving the American version of the date, and a couple of last year's dates were left in, we are sorry for the inaccuracies.  The updated list can be found here. 

Community News

SVC Music School on Saturday mornings

Tomorrow morning (16th September) the SVC Music School will be running a free taster session from 9.30am to 12pm.

Sessions include: Music theory, Choir, Orchestra and Rock Band.

Please go along and find out about the offer.  Signs will show you the way into the building from the front entrance.

LA News

Parent and Carer Survey (PASS) 

Pinpoint, SENDIASS and the Local Authority have worked together to create a short questionnaire for parents and carers to tell us what you think about the support for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities in Cambridgeshire. We will use the information to develop, improve and celebrate good support for children with SEND. We will share the survey results with parents, carers, schools and settings twice a year. ‘PASS’ is now on the SEND Information hub.  SEND Information Hub (Local Offer) | The Parent And Carer SEND Survey (PASS) (cambridgeshire.gov.uk)

Electrical Safety - E Bikes and E Scooters

You may be aware of a house fire that occurred in Cambridge at the end of June 2023 which sadly took the lives of two children and their mother. It is believed that the house fire was caused by an e-scooter charger/battery.  The below resources have been shared by our colleagues in Fire and Rescue, to share with parents. https://www.cambsfire.gov.uk/community-safety/take-charge-and-be-safe/e-bikes-and-e-scooters/

SCOPay and payable services

Initial log in details are sent to adults with parental responsibility, with one log in per child initially. Once one parent has signed up, the second parent will need to contact us directly to issue another log in. Please email the office on office@swavesey.cambs.sch.uk

When you first log in, your child may be in their previous class as the system will update until the children's first day back.

For further information about your SCOPay account please see the following guide:

SCOPay Parent Information

School Meals

Please remember meals should be paid for in advance, not retrospectively. Schools are not obliged to provide a meal where there is a debt. School meals are free for children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. For PreSchool and Years 3 through to 6 they are £2.40 per day.

Please ensure your child knows what has been booked for them to avoid confusion at registration time. This also aids the caterers in reducing wastage – we are pleased to be able to offer pupils a choice of hot meal when they approach the counter at lunch, but we need to know the total number of hot meals in advance.

Lunch Information

Early Years and Playwork Centre (EYandP)

Please take time to read the fees and payment guidance for our EYandP Centre. They can be found on our website EYandP page – through the link below:

EYandP Fees and Funding Page

SEMH (Social Emotional Mental Health) resources for parents - Please click here to access an overview sheet with signposted resources for you to use at home to support your children.  The overview sheet can also be found at the bottom of the SEND page on our website here.  

We hope you find these useful and easy to access.

SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) information can be accessed through our SEND website pages here

To find out more about Pupil premium and Free school meals, please visit our Pupil Premium page by clicking here. 

Links to each Phase page under the Curriculum tab on our website.

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