Welcome!
What an extraordinary week! Two minutes ago, it was Monday morning and we opened our doors to welcome almost three hundred excited children back into school for the first time in six weeks. Your children have made a brilliant start to the new school year and have clearly enjoyed re-acquainting themselves with friends, both children and adults. May I extend a particular welcome to children and parents who, like me, are new to our school. I hope that your child has enjoyed their first week half as much as I have, and that they have each told you at least one fascinating fact about their first week in their new class.
Communication with parents
From this point forward, there will be a weekly newsletter sent home each Friday. This will be a regular update of school news and events and a vital source of information for you. The newsletter will also be available to view online via the new school blog http://cookridgeprimaryschool.blogspot.com. We are currently upgrading the website, a further portal for information for yourselves and a brilliant learning space for your child. We will be launching this in the next few weeks... Watch this space!
Next week, you will receive your class newsletter which will outline the learning your child will be tackling across the coming term. If you have any questions about this, please contact your child’s class teacher who will be happy to arrange a time to talk.
Our first Parent Consultations of the year will take place on Tuesday 18th and Wednesday 19th October. This will be an opportunity to find out how your child has settled into their new class, and also find out about their learning and targets for the year. Appointments will be arranged nearer the time.
If you have not already done so, please provide Mrs Hall or Mrs Hyde in the school office your up to date contact information. It is vital that we are able to contact you in an emergency and we ask you to please be responsible for ensuring that mobile numbers are current. It would also be beneficial for you to give permission for your details to be included on our Parentmail service, as text messages are a great way of communicating urgent information to large groups of parents and one that we will use from time to time. You can only receive these texts if you have given permission. Again Mrs Hall or Mrs Hyde would be happy to help you sign up.
If you need to contact us, you can ring, email us via the website or call in. Your views matter to us, so please share them.
Training Days
School will be closed for staff training on Friday 21st October, Monday 7th November and Friday 30th March. Further dates will be notified as soon as they are agreed.
Get involved
We are keen to involve as many of you as possible in shaping the school into the future. To this end, there are a number of opportunities which you are very welcome to make immediate use of...
Next Wednesday, there will be an opportunity to meet myself, Mrs Laycock and – we are hoping! – a number of new parents. Please join us for coffee and biscuits in Funtime after settling your child into school. This will be an opportunity for you to ask any questions, put forward your views for shaping our school and chat with like-minded parents. We hope to see as many of you there as possible and aim to make these a regular date for your diary. Younger siblings are welcome, so come along, if just for ten minutes!
As parents in school, you are all members of the Friends of Cookridge. Our PTA group are very active and are to be celebrated for their organisation of many successful fundraising events each year. Membership is good fun and a great way to get to know other parents and staff. If you would like to get involved, please contact Mrs Willetts or come along to the first meeting of the new school year which will be coming up soon... New members would be a fabulous addition to a great team and we hope to see as many of you there as possible.
Volunteers in school are very welcome. If you are able to offer any time to help out in any way possible please contact the school office to arrange an appointment to meet us and discuss how our partnership can be mutually beneficial.
Reading
This year, a key school improvement priority is centred on reading. We believe there is no greater gift than that of ensuring all our children develop a love of books during their primary years, and take our role in that very seriously. Throughout the year, we aim to invest in new books to support both the teaching of reading in school and to improve the range of books available for your child to borrow from the school library. Next Monday’s assembly will see the outcome of our ‘Extreme Reading’ summer competition. Photos of children reading in bizarre and unusual places have been coming in all week – to our great amusement! Thank you for taking the photos that have made this competition a great success. My thanks to Miss Fowler for being the brains behind this particular initiative and for her inspirational leadership of the reading agenda in school at this early stage. We have lots planned and hope that you join forces with us to bring reading to the forefront of our children’s lives.
Finally, thank you very much for the warm welcome I have received since Monday. I am very much looking forward to the year ahead and hope to meet as many of you as possible during the next few weeks... bear with me as I get to know the many names and faces that make up our school community! If you see me around, please do say ‘hello’.
Have a great weekend.
Mrs Bailey
