Dear Parents,
A warm welcome back! I hope you all had a lovely summer. Just a few dates for your diary and some important
notices .
Dates for the
Diary
Half term – Monday 28th October to Friday 1st
November 2013
Mrs. Caroline
Davies
As many of you are aware, Mrs. Davies sadly passed
away over the summer break. Mrs. Davies taught at Pontyclun Primary for 22
years and will be an enormous loss to the school, the staff and the community.
As well as being an inspirational teacher, Mrs. Davies
was renowned for producing many successful concerts and plays. She was also keen
to ensure that our pupils had many opportunities to experience residential
trips. She accompanied hundreds of pupils over the years on trips such as
Llangrannog, Morfa Bay and Kingswood.
I would like to thank parents, past and present, for their
support over the last few weeks. All cards and messages have been gratefully received
and will be passed onto the family. We have been supporting, and will continue
to support pupils and staff through this difficult time. We will look to celebrate
Mrs. Davies’ teaching career and the immeasurable contribution that she made to
Pontyclun Primary School in the near future.
Yard
Improvements - You will have noticed that the Nursery, Year 2, Year
3/4 and Year 5/6 yards have recently had child friendly resources installed
bringing them in-line with the fort on the Reception / Year 1 yard . In order to promote "pupil voice"
the children chose the play items and discussed with staff where to
appropriately place them. The pupils chose age related items. Therefore, it is
not appropriate for an infant pupil to use some of the junior equipment. In addition we can only supervise junior
yards from 8.50 am. Infant yards are not supervised in the mornings as we
admit pupils from 8.50am. Please could parents help the school by not allowing
their children to play on any
school equipment before and after
school.
PTA AGM - Message from
the PTA - the PTA would like to welcome everyone back
after the summer break as they look
forward to an exciting year of fundraising ahead. The AGM is on Monday September 23rd
at 7pm in the staff room. All parents
new and old are very welcome to come along and join us for the meeting and have
a cup of tea or coffee afterwards. We
would especially welcome any new members to our friendly and lively committee
and are always open to new ideas and initiatives. Please put this date in your
diary and we look forward to seeing you there.
Spellings - Pupils in the
Juniors will still bring home weekly spelling patterns and we ask you to work
on the spelling patterns with your child.
One change from last year, is that Junior children will no longer have a spelling test on a
Friday. They will instead receive a spelling dictation every 3 to 4 weeks which
will use the spelling patterns covered in context.
Breakfast Club - A polite reminder - no
cars are to be driven into the school grounds to drop off pupils due to safety
reasons. Please could all parents drop
children at the entrance to the hall. Again, for safety reasons parents are not
allowed to stay with their children in the hall.
Cars using the
lanes – It has been brought to my attention that some parents have been using
the lanes around the school as a shortcut. This is obviously dangerous for our
pupils and other pedestrians. Please help us keep the surrounding area of the
school as safe as possible by refraining from using the lanes for access.
Dinner Money -
Please can dinner money be brought into school on a Monday morning
inside an envelope for the attention of your child’s Class Teacher. Please ensure
that your child’s name, class and the amount is clearly marked on the envelope.
Parent Questionnaires
Thank you for taking the time to fill in the Parent Questionnaires
before the summer break. Your views are invaluable to us as we constantly look
to evolve and improve. Two areas that we as a school would like to clarify are
healthy snacks and celebrating pupils’ achievements outside of school.
Healthy snack -Our pupil, parental and staff surveys identified that we all wanted to conform to the status of a healthy school. Nursery and Reception are now having fruit provided as snack for a fee of £1 per week. Please could all parents of Yr1 - Yr6 ensure that snacks are fruit. Crisps, biscuits etc. can be provided as part of a packed lunch. Pupils having school dinners are offered a dessert daily.
Celebrating
achievements outside of school - For many years we have “celebrated pupils achievements
outside of school” during assemblies. This is something that we feel is very
important for instilling confidence and pupil well-being. If your child has achieved
success outside of school and they would like it celebrated in school we would
encourage them to bring their trophies, certificates etc to school on a Tuesday
(Infants) and a Wednesday (Juniors).
Many thanks for your continued support.
Miss S. Harwood
