Dear Parents and Carers,
We are well into the Summer Term and are able to reflect on the good progress the children are now making with their learning. This is also mirrored in a real improvement in attendance, which is now averaging 96% across the school. Once again, this is thanks to your continuing support for the school and your commitment to making sure your children attend school regularly.
It was amazing and huge fun to see so many children and families engaging in Number Day last Friday and the whole school had a creative and exciting day of maths activities. Thank you for your generous donations to the NSPCC, we raised £282. We thought you would enjoy seeing some of the great number costumes and learning, and you can do this via the clicking the QR code found later on in this newsletter, do have a look!
We are delighted that the public consultation to make our Stargazers specialist provision permanent has now been published. I would like to encourage you to contribute to this, and you can do so via the following link:
Proposals for Belmont school – Harrow Council
After “mini” Parent Consultations at the end of the Spring Term, we have now set a date for further Consultations immediately after the June Half Term break and will give you details shortly. This will be an opportunity to discuss with you and your child/ren their learning, progress and next steps. Although there are no national statutory tests (SATs, Phonics Check etc.) for primary children this year, we are reviewing pupil progress through ongoing teacher assessment and testing towards the end of this term. This will support planning for the next academic year, but also with transition for children moving up through the key stages and in particular for Year 6 preparing for High School in September. We are currently working with our local High Schools on arrangements for a Transition Day on 7th July.
We are delighted that we have had no COVID cases confirmed in the school since we returned in March. However, we are aware of growing concerns about highly infectious new COVID variants and as a school we continue to take a cautious approach to ensure we protect our pupils, families and staff. The latest Government Guidance published this week ahead of the May 17th relaxation of more restrictions, brings a few welcome changes which allow us to plan for more ambitious learning experiences in some areas of the curriculum and this will support our plans for wellbeing and outdoor activities in particular. However, at this stage the Guidance still promotes pupils being in “bubbles”, the indoors protective measures and timetables which we already have in place, and the messages about not mixing groups, or crowding such as the beginning and end of day. So for now, we will be making no changes to our risk assessment in relation to the staggered start and end times. We will keep thus under review as the government moves forward with planned further easing of restrictions in June.
Finally, I would like to thank many of you for your supportive and constructive feedback which we have received regarding our support for pupils’ learning during the recent lockdown. Our staff team really value this. We are also very grateful to members of our wider community who have come forward with unexpected donations, which include digital devices. We recently received a generous donation from the family of a volunteer who passed away. This donation will be used to buy books for pupils in her memory.
Finally, we would like to wish many of our families a Happy Eid celebration.
