Gomersal St Marys CE Primary School

Autumn 1 Newsletter

October 2013

Dear Parents/Carers
As the mornings and evenings grow darker each day we are approaching the end of the first half term of the year. Although it has been an 8 weeks term it has passed so quickly! All the children have settled into their new classes and classroom routines have been established. Each teacher provides a newsletter for their class which gives useful information for the coming half term and how you can support your child. We said goodbye to Mr Rhodes, who worked in the Reception class. He is now training to be a qualified teacher. We will miss him and wish him every success in his career! Harvest Appeal Our Harvest Appeal this year is to support local charities that are helping people who are less fortunate than ourselves. Together we have collected boxes and boxes of food that will be used to make a cooked meal for people who are homeless around the Batley, Dewsbury and Heckmondwike areas. The food is also distributed to people to eat whilst living on the streets. This is such a worthy cause and once again I need to thank you for your kind generosity. Shoebox Appeal Class 2 and Miss Callow have been working very hard to wrap and fill the shoeboxes that have been donated for the appeal. Once again you have been so generous with your donations. We have enough boxes and contents now but we just need to raise the cost of the posting. Each shoebox costs 3 to send to a child. Some parents have already filled one or more shoeboxes and given the cost of the postage too! This is fantastic! To raise the rest of the postage costs the children in Class 2 have made soup from our garden produce and marrows donated by Emily Hardys Grandad. You have never seen marrows as big in your life! Our Soup kitchen sale took place on Thursday after school and we sold 76 cartons of soup! We could have sold more! We managed to raise 42 from the sale of the soup and 48 from donations. So almost there! The School Council The elections for the new School Council have been held and the new members are in post. The members are selected solely on childrens votes and the children vote for a boy and a girl from each class from YR1-6. The School Council members for this year are:Class 1: Holly Grey and Alex Hainsworth Class 2: Isabella Redman and Oliver Thornton Class 3: Helena Wilkinson and Alex Wilkinson Class 4: Emma Tierney and Corben Marshall Class 5: Morgan Hudson and Smarth Patel Class 6: Tecian Dransfield and Jack Bownes

The School council have already met and roles and responsibilities have been allocated. The council have been looking at jobs for classroom monitors including power busters to turn lights off, composters to collect fruit skins to be composted and cloakroom monitors etc. Breakfast Club Our Early Birds breakfast club is as popular as ever! Can we ask that parents leave their children at the door to the main entrance and not go into classrooms please? The children in Reception have settled into school and having parents and younger children in school can present issues regarding health and safety. If the fire bell went off we would not know how many parents and younger children would be in school. Thank you for your co-operation. School meals The new meal system appears to be working really well. There has been an increase in the numbers of children having a school meal. We now have 126 each day and 145 on Fantastic Friday. Just a reminder that children on packed lunch can have a school lunch on Friday and also on a Thursday after half term. On Thursday it is Roast Dinner day so no choice available on that day. Cost per meal is 1.90. Please order at the beginning of the week. After school clubs These will begin in the first week back. If you are already signed up for a club we presume they will continue. The cost for 5 weeks is 7.50 per club. We still have places available for both football Clubs: Tues is for YR 1 and 2, weds for YR 3-6. Sports coaches from Tong High School are providing the coaching. The club will run for the full year. I know some of our children attend Tong already and their coaching is of a very high standard! We really would like to get a team together so we can compete with other schools. Reminders PE kits: All children will need an indoor PE kit as the focus in PE is Gymnastics for the coming term. Parents with younger children please check that your childs name is down for a Nursery place Children can only bring WATER to school- no juice allowed Dates for your diary Fri 25th October 2013 School closes for half-term Mon 4th November 2013 School opens Enjoy the Autumn break with your children! Mrs Scott

Headteacher