Beecroft Primary School

Dear Parents/Carers,
Thank you for all your support and a ‘big’ thankyou to those parents who supported us towards our Healthy Schools Award (we passed and the full report is on the website) 

“The school is a very strong advocate for the Healthy Schools Award. It is evident that the school invests much in health and wellbeing and that the Healthy Schools programme has a very high profile. All staff are highly motivated to raise aspirations and improve the health and wellbeing of all pupils. …..All pupils I met were happy, confident, articulate, engaged polite and friendly and demonstrated an excellent knowledge of health and wellbeing….The school works well with parents and families and strong relationships have been established with families and the community as a whole. Parents all commented on the excellent communication from school and accessibility to staff, when needed.
The commitment, passion hands-on approach and vision of the head teacher and the Healthy Schools Coordinator/PSHE lead and mind mate are very apparent.”

Attendance:
The government is ‘stepping up’ expectation with attendance – the majority of our Beecroft parents ensure that their child attends every day the school is open and are absent only when there is a statutory reason (illness) However the government’s new list says all parents are expected to:

1. Book any medical appointments around the school day when possible. (Not during lessons.)
2. Only request leave of absence in exceptional circumstances and do so in advance and this would not be every year. (Not holidays in term time)
3. Notify the school as soon as possible if their child has to be unexpectedly absent (e.g. sickness )

Number 1 and 2 can be improved upon by some of our parents as leave that becomes up to a month out of school is unacceptable.

Where a child is persistently absent (below 90%) the parent is asked by the government to work with school to improve this. (Individual letters are being sent out this week for appointments and these must be attended.)

The majority of our parents are always supportive but there remains a number of parents who do not support us enough. Attendance at school is the law.

Family Assembly: Wednesday 25^th May – all welcome (Please bring any surplus/old uniform to swap – stall after assembly)

Consultation Evening Video Call: Wednesday 25 May – 2.15-5.15 (Not Y6) If you were happy on the last meeting and had enough time you may want to wait until the July meeting.

Year 5 go to Nell Bank 16th-19^th May. We wish them a ‘happy holiday’ and good weather.

Best wishes,

J. Turner

Headteacher
Beecroft Primary School

Dear Parents/Carers,

Below is a timetable of your child’s PE sessions this summer term so that you know which 2 days (Years1-6) your child requires their PE kit.

• If your child is in Year 3 they have one session of PE and one session of swimming.
• If your child is in Year 6 they also have one session of PE and one session of swimming, which we have introduced this year as part of our Covid Catch-up using the Sports Premium Funding.

Please remember school PE kit consists of:

• Plain white t-shirt
• Plain black or navy shorts
• Sensible trainers
• Your child can wear either their school jumper or a plain black hoodie on colder days

In addition to this, please ensure if your child has asthma that your class teacher has an up-to-date inhaler. As the weather gets warmer, children may also bring a sunhat while they will need their water bottles and sun cream (please apply this at home).

Please send PE kit in a named pump bag.

The majority of classes will be taught by our specialist PE teacher Mrs Farthing-Kaye.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Campbell

Deputy Head

Dear Parents,
What a fantastic way to end the half-term! All children were impeccably behaved and despite the weather, they all enjoyed taking part in a range of activities including:

· Magic with Mr Schofield

· Forestry (fire-lighting) with Elite FOREST SCHOOLS

· Cooking (healthy smoothie making) with Miss Pinder

· KS1 Mixed Football/ KS2 Girls’ Football with Mr Campbell

· Orienteering with Mr Smith

· Internet Safety with Miss Halliday

· Dance with Mrs Glasby

· Happy Wellbeing bags with Miss Walker

· Music inspired artwork with Mrs Pickard

· Board games and Lego with Mrs Waggitt

We look forward to our next Wellbeing Day in May.

Well done everyone who took part in the Lego Comic Relief competition. 

There were some amazing habitats produced ranging from Lego rainforests to shoe box salt lakes and even water-coloured wetlands.  Everyone who took part received 20 colour points for their efforts. 

To take part in Comic Relief this year, we will be having a wear red and/or your red nose day on Friday 18^th March. All children may bring in a voluntary contribution of up to £1 to support the cause. Money raised will go towards helping people in the UK who the COVID-19 pandemic has made life harder for; whilst this year, Red Nose Day donations will also be used to support people fleeing the war in Ukraine, as the terrible conflict intensifies. In school children will learn about the causes being helped and take part in a fun red nose class quiz.  As another part of our fundraising, we will be taking part in Comic Relief’s Lego Challenge.  

The challenge is to design or make a habitat fortheir favourite of this year’s themed red nose creatures. You can find the creatures and information about their habitats at:  

https://www.comicrelief.com/rednoseday/schools/lego#get-lego-factsheets-anchor

Entries can be built out of Lego, made out of card and other materials or simply drawn/painted on paper. If your child brings their habitat entry in on Friday 18^th March, they will be judged by school council with the top 3 entries being photographed and sent through to Comic Relief for the main competition. 

Good luck with your designing! 

Whole School:
The whole school continued with their termly sports challenges at break and dinner times, with the aim of getting children more active and engaged in sport. This half term the challenge was the Road To Beijing, where challenges had a Winter Olympics theme. This included hockey and curling style games, which were run and led by our young leaders. All children in KS1 and 2 enjoyed taking part. The young leaders have been learning to plan and coach other children after school with Miss Pinder. They will continue to develop their skills this half term and introduce more playground games, with new equipment they have purchased.

Dear Parents/Carers,
I would like to start by thanking you for all your support – with particular thanks for the work you do in reading with your children, listening to reading and reading to your child. Reading is the single most important skill and interest to be learned in primary school.

I hope that your family is well and that the pandemic situation is becoming easier as time passes. Just a reminder – that I am asked to pass on – please get your vaccine. As we are meeting more with parents in school the vaccines contribute to peace of mind. You can be re-assured that our staff have had all three! There has been much less disruption because of this and protection for your children.

 Dates moving forward

Wednesday 16^th February 8.50am: Playground Family Assembly (short) – and afterwards play and stay in Years Reception,  1 and 2. Years 3 to Year 6 look round at work in the hall and classroom until 9.45am. You will be warmly welcomed. Bring your own cup for tea or coffee

Friday 18^th February: Wellbeing Day

Thursday 3^rd March: World Book Day – dress as a book character and bring your favourite book to the class.

Week 28^th February: Phone calls about your child’s progress

Attendance: Thank you again to a majority of families. Our attendance overall is 97.3% from September to present. Please can I strongly recommend that extended leave and holidays are not taken in term time. Where this has happened pupils’ attendance has fallen below 90% and has become persistent absence. Pupils fall behind and together with Covid it has created difficulties in getting children to catch up.

The half-term holiday starts on 18 February and the return to school on Monday 28^th February 

With best wishes,
J. Turner

Dear Parent/ Guardian,

This Tuesday 8^th February we will be celebrating Safer Internet Day 2022 with the theme ‘All fun and games? Exploring respect and relationships online.’ Your child will take part in assembly about RESPECT online and each class will carry out work around this theme, over the week.

From gaming and chat, to streaming and video, young people are shaping the interactive entertainment spaces they are a part of. Safer Internet Day 2022 celebrates young people’s role in creating a safer internet, whether that is whilst gaming and creating content, or interacting with their friends and peers.

At Beecroft Primary we have shown our commitment to protecting our pupils online by continuing to teach your children about online safety, covering a different aspect each half term. We are also working with National Online Safety- providing up to date resources for all parents and carers: https://nationalonlinesafety.com/enrol/beecroft-primary-school

The resources include Parents & Carers courses, online video resources and weekly guides covering a huge range of topics, that can help you to keep your family safe online.

• To create your account, please follow https://nationalonlinesafety.com/enrol/beecroft-primary-schooland complete your details. When you’re set up, you’ll be able to set ‘Parent/Carer’ as your user type.
• You can also access the National Online Safety online via any device- including via the brand-new smartphone app. To download the app, please go to:https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/national-online-safety/id1530342372 or https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.nationaleducationgroup.nos

Another great resource to help with protecting your child and monitoring your child’s use of mobile devices including tablets is: https://families.google.com/familylink/ – This app enables parents to control screen time and monitor/control the content your child is accessing.

Finally, attached to this email are two useful guides which you may want to discuss with your child:

• 10 tips for RESPECT online
• How To Inspire Children To Build A Positive Digital World

If you do have any concerns about online safety, please email us on info@beecroft.leeds.sch.uk so that we can help.

Yours sincerely,
Mr Campbell

Download School Menu

Dear Parents/Carers,

Thank you for your cooperation and support. Despite Covid, the vast majority of pupils have high attendance to date and over 95%. We are writing to and ringing parents where we are particularly worried as attendance is below 90% and classed as persistent absence. For many this is because holidays/leave has been taken to other countries during term time. In many cases families have had difficulty returning to England because of cancelled flights or Covid restrictions.  Please do not book flights in term time as it results in a serious detrimental effect on your child’s education. Attendance at school is the single most important aspect of education.

Reading for pleasure and enjoyment of reading enables pupils to be successful in all aspects of school work. Please read to your child, please support your child to read at home at least 3 times during the week – any book – fiction, non-fiction, library book. By Year 6 children should be reading longer texts for pleasure and sustaining reading beyond a 20 minute slot. Please speak to myself or your child’s class teacher if you are having difficulties in getting your child to read with you.

A number of trips and visits have taken place since the start of term – Year 3 to the Discovery Museum for rocks and soil their science project and Year 5 to Armley Mills.

Just a polite reminder that key Stage 2 use a cartridge pen in school – please can you ensure that your child has their own. Thank you.

Finally, Covid cases in school are fluctuating. This week there are 5 children off school. Thank you for being vigilant and for spotting cases. Please continue to wear a mask around the school building and when speaking to staff in the playground. Once again, I will pass on the message we are asked to communicate – please get your vaccinations – it is not too late. A majority of staff have had their 3 vaccinations and because of this there is much less disruption to teaching.  We have the staff to thank for this.

Best wishes,

J. Turner