St Cecilia's News

Dear Parents,

We hope that the term is going well for you, a very happy and prosperous New Year to all of our Chinese families! In our newsletter today we have some updates on important events, some recent special visits and some key dates for the months ahead.

We have recently purchased a new online Maths resource for children all across the school, this will support mathematical learning both in school and at home. Please look out for the login information from your child's class teacher. The children are getting used to the system in school before they login at home so the passwords will be sent home gradually over the coming days.

Numbots aims to improve calculation and mathematical thinking through helping the robots in Rusty's Scrapyard. Times Tables Rockstars gives your child a Rockstar name and invites them to join a band, the aim of the game is to play at a packed arena of fans. The teachers have rockstar names too - mine is Jimmy Talley! We will be rewarding achievements through certificates and commendations.

You can access the games through Ipads, phones, laptops and Chromebooks. They recommend a few minutes each day to help embed the learning that is taking place.

It's really important that parents and family members do not play on the account as it will give a false reading in the assessment part of the teacher's site. It's good to support your child, but please do not answer for them!

I've attached a video about Numbots below. The video on Rockstars is aimed at teachers purchasing the system but it gives a good overview.

We hope that your child enjoys the new resources and we look forward to seeing them online.

Mrs Gallant and I have been developing our systems for children with Dyslexia. As part of this we will be offering Nessy Online from the Bristol Dyslexia Centre for those children that need it. Mrs Gallant will be in touch with parents if it is felt that a Dyslexia screening test would be useful. The results of that will then determine if the child should use the Nessy Learning programme.

There are many changes at Sutton local authority level in the management of support services to schools. They have asked us to share details of their provision (detailed on the local offer website) with our parents.

The website is for children and young people with SEND, and their families, to find information about services that are available. Sutton Local Authority are working with partners from across the Local Area to keep the website up-to-date, to ensure that this is a useful resource for families.

The uniform is an important part of our central systems, it helps all children to feel part of the school community on an equal footing.

• Please make sure that your child has the correct shoes for school. Trainers and boots are not permitted in Years 1 to 6, children must wear black school shoes.
• Pinafores and skirts must be navy in colour.
• Haircuts must not be extreme with no shaved parts, logos or designs.

We appreciate the good behaviour and standards of this school, we have to also maintain those standards in our uniform, a gradual break down in policy will often start to affect other areas of school life. We really thank parents for their support in maintaining our standards.

Lost and found uniform

Mrs Long will be displaying the uniform that has been handed into the office in the playground from next Tuesday. If your child has lost any items it will give you a chance to have a look through to see if you can locate them.

Congratulations to the children who took part in the Panathlon at Sutton Sports Village yesterday, they represented the school so well, it was lovely to spend the afternoon with them. Thanks to their efforts we achieved some beautiful medals and certificates.

We have lots more sporting news on our website, see the link below.

We have just spent £5000 on new books in order to update our book stock, especially at KS1. It's a good investment which we hope that we can continue in the next financial year, we appreciate that many of our books are a little tired. All of our new books are jacketed to help them stay neater for a little longer.

We are adding to our stock with a new reading scheme called Reading Planet. In KS2 we are updating the book boxes and we have around 200 new books for the main library stock. Reading is so important at primary school, we want to encourage your child to read as much as possible.

Just before half term we will be launching a new library system from a company called AccessIt. This will enable easier access from home to the library system. In response to feedback from parents, the online library will feature recommended booklists for each year group. When your child logs in it will take them straight to a dedicated space where their class teacher will be promoting books from the library that are on our reading lists. We will provide more information after half term.

Thanks to our wonderful PTA and all your contributions to the Christmas Fair we have just purchased £7000 worth of Google Chromebooks. These have just been released for class use. It now means that we have two full trollies for use in classrooms. We are aiming for a third trolley next year and then our Chromebook programme for classrooms will be complete. They are an amazing resource and we are so grateful to all our parents for your donations are various PTA events.

Don't forget that to use our Chromebooks your child must have a Google Gmail account, these have just been issued to Year 2, please check your email for more more information.

Earlier this month we had a wonderful day at Sky News when a group of children, mostly made up of children from the school council, worked together to present a news show on the threat to our oceans from plastic. It was great to use the special resources at Sky and to see the news studios, it's looks such a beautiful place to work! It's good for pupils to see different workplace environments, even at this young age, it all helps to build ambition. We look forward to going to Sky again in future years.

Our term dates for the next year have been on the website for a while now. Please don't forget some dates coming up:

3rd and 5th March - Spring Term Parent Teacher Meetings from 3.30pm.

Thursday 5th March - World Book Day - Book character costume required!

Friday 8th May - Bank Holiday - please note the change of date.

18th - 22nd May - Wellbeing Week

Friday 12th June - Sports Day

Monday 15th June - training Day - School Closed.

16th - 19th June - Science Week

Wednesday 17th June - Science Show - activities after school from 3.30-6.30pm.

22nd - 26th June RE Week

7th and 9th July - Summer Term Parent Teacher Meetings

In looking ahead to the Autumn term, please note that we have a school closure for training on Monday 12th October.

It has been lovely to see so many families on our guided tours over the past few months, the closing date for applications to Nursery and Reception in September 2020 has now passed. Guided tours are continuing for in-year and late applications.

Local authorities will send allocations through on the national offer day, 16th April.

Following comments from local residents, please make sure that you are parking considerately on local roads, it's good for us to keep a good relationship with the local community, please remember to represent us well. We realise that parking can be tough at times and that pick up time can be pressurised.

We have recently invested in a new defibrillator, we are now part of the London Ambulance Service (LAS) Accredited Defibrillator scheme providing resuscitation support both in school and in the local community around the school.

Last week we were pleased to welcome a paramedic from the London Air Ambulance and Community Response Team to train 13 of us in resuscitation techniques using our new defibrillator. We are very grateful to all 13 staff for making this commitment to protecting and supporting our local and school communities.

With best wishes for our first non-EU member weekend!

VM Burke

Head Teacher

London Road, Sutton, Surrey, SM3 9DL

Email: office@stcecilias.school
Website: www.stcecilias.school
Phone: 020 8337 4566