Happy holidays everyone!

Business as usual to the end!

It’s been non-stop busy-ness right to the end of term at CVPS

– as always! Y4 finally got to visit the Discovery Museum and enjoyed a lovely day away as you can see from some of their photos at the end of the newsletter.

All the year group teachers have now completed their planning days and have some wonderful musical experiences planned for the autumn term. We will be asking families with musical expertise to contribute where possible! And all classes in school were also able to welcome in a member of their family to share some of the physical activities that the children have begun during transition weeks.

It was great to see the families taking part in the tennis session on Wednesday afternoon! Y6 Basketball coaching showed some great sportsmanship from our Y6s develop on Tuesday and last week, the Y6 children were really inspired by Darius Dafoe who still scores baskets for the Eagles after 18 years!

We hosted Stephen Miller the Paralympian gold medal winner on Wednesday as well as the Newcastle Eagles Basketball coaches on Tuesday. Stephen visited all the children across Y2, Y3, Y4 and Y6 and shared some signed postcards as well as his explanation of the role he has, answering the children’s questions adeptly. He shared how his self belief has been positively impacted by finding his distinctive skills that he could succeed with in the Olympics. His discussion with the children was inspirational and we were so thankful he could visit CVPS. On Thursday this week we also had a chance to see a genuine 2012 Olympic torch that was shared with us. The children have certainly been immersed in a whole host of physical activities mostly outside, aided by the slightly cooler weather.

COVID Update

We have literally felt as if we have ‘limped’ to the end of the term, with a larger than ever number of staff isolating, and our Y5 bubble closed. We are pleased we did close it – as there have been 5 more positive test results in children as of today.

Closing the Y5 bubble was hugely inconvenient and disruptive, but we do feel it limited the spread of Covid particularly in those families who subsequently tested positive with siblings attending other classes. Let’s hope next year is a new year, with greater immunity and better reach of the vaccination programme, so that we can experience a lot less disruption.

Return to school reminders

Children return to school on Thursday the 2nd September at 8.30am for YN, Y1-6 and 8.45am for YR

Y1/Y2 change to the end of school time

We would like to pilot a change to the school day in the autumn time.

Letters have been shared online with parents of pupils in Y1 and Y2 to explain the reasons. The new finish times of 3.30pm for children in Y1 and Y2 will start from the first day back in September. Please let the school office know if you have any questions.

Staff awards finish the year on a high!

We held our annual staff awards event on Wednesday awarding trophies to everyone and extra special wishes to our staff leavers this week. We wish them all well and will miss them greatly. We really enjoyed hearing so many positive and encouraging stories of the staff team’s individual achievements. It was wonderful to be able to finish this reflective and celebratory event with the feedback from all our families which were taken from the parent survey sent out last term.

Thank you so much for those comments – with an overwhelmingly positive feedback from everyone who replied,

we were greatly encouraged. Some of us were even moved to tears with some of the gratitude and positivity making many of the challenges we’ve faced this year, pale into comparison when you’ve fed back how valuable and successful the impact of the teaching teams have been. Our team is hugely committed to your children, and this was recognised, alongside the many successes the children made being partly attributed to the support and nurturing approaches we have had at CVPS.

Summer Camp

Angela Hall has planned a fantastic summer camp programme and has some places available still from Week 2 to Week 4. These will continue to provide the same activities and games and ideas alongside a breakfast and lunch. We currently have around 50 children booked in to attend.

Stay Safe in the holidays

We have worked on reminders to the children about staying safe in and around :

• water
• sun
• strangers
• traffic

We hope you all enjoy a wonderful time in the summer – but please remember to stay safe when out and about!

School uniform reminders

I have spoken to a few older children to give them a bit of advance notice about the uniform requirements, as I explained in last week’s newsletter.

The only branded uniform we expect families to provide for their children is the blazer with the school logo in Y5/6 and the purple school sweatshirts/cardigans across the rest of school. This is particularly important when we take part in the many school trips that we do. The school is proud of its standing in the community and we work hard to provide clarity about the common uniform. Government guidance has asked that we return to our usual expectations from September next year so if you have any questions please let us know.

Copies of the uniform policy are all listed on the school website for those who have not been able to read last week’s newsletter. We also have a large number of clean, ironed second hand uniforms that are available for those who need them, and we also donate uniform to the clothing bank. We do appreciate that the branded clothing does cost more than non branded and while school funds receive commission from the branded clothing, we also appreciate that some families like to buy enough polo shirts to have a new one every day and that it can be costly. So plain white polo shirts, typical grey school trousers, black school shoes not trainers and the plain PE kit as stipulated last week does not have to be with the school logo. The school coat is also optional.

We have allocated uniform voucher payments to parents of pupils entitled to free school meals to support new uniform costs and we try to be really clear to the children about colours and not logos when reminders are given for uniform. Please send any questions to the info@villageprimary.org email address as administration staff will be monitoring this email throughout August.

Start and finish times in the autumn

Apologies for the error in the last newsletter about start/finish times and thank you to those of you who sought clarification. School returns on Thursday the 2nd September after teacher training days. During transition weeks we have been trialling the start and finish times to monitor the impact on social distancing and ongoing parking issues which we have. It’s now been confirmed that the start and finish times throughout the week for each year group are as follows:

As a team we have decided to continue with the current arrival and collection procedures. We appreciate the timeliness that this has brought to school start and finish times, and as a result of the continued Covid risks we feel more confident restricting unnecessary access to school grounds. Many thanks for your cooperation with this. The school gates will continue to open at 8.20am and will be closed at 8.30am when lessons begin. Please try to be punctual to ensure that your children access the start of our first lesson which is reading.

We hope that you will all enjoy a wonderful summer break and that the weather stays fine. We look forward to hearing all the children’s news and plans when we return on Thursday the 2nd September.

Ashleigh’s last outdoor activity!

The summer is finally here! I would like you to create a bucket list of 10 activities you would like to complete these summer holidays and tick them off once you have done each one.

Achievement Awards

Kindness Champion – Lacey Fyfe