newsletter autumn 8 2011

8/3/2019 Newsletter Autumn 8 2011

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Helping children be the best they can beDear Parents, Governors and Children,

OUR NEXT HOLIDAYOur next holiday is Christmas, and school

will close at 3.30 p.m. onFriday 16th December. We will re-open at 8.45a.m. on Tuesday 3rd January.

UPDATE TO EMERGENCY NUMBERSWe are experiencing difficulties at the moment contacting parents when their child is ill, or leftbehind from an after-school club or activity. Please make sure, if you change your mobilenumber, or even move house, that you let school know. Thank you.

REMEMBRANCE POPPIES ON SALE FROM 31ST OCTOBEROnce again the Royal British Legion are allowing us to sell Remembrance Poppieson their behalf. Children are able to buy a poppy for a minimum donation of 20p. These

poppies are sold in the school breaks by older children, so if your child wishes to buy one,please send the money with them. Many thanks.

DAMAGE TO READING BOOKSWhen your child brings their reading book home, please make sure that younger childrendont get hold of it and scribble on the pages. We are having quite a number of booksreturned that are damaged in this way, and we are unable to remove the scribble. Manythanks for your co-operation.

SCHOOL MEALS AND HEALTHY PACKED LUNCHESOur new Winter menus are now operating for school meals, on a four-week cycle.Copies of these are available from the school office if you would like to go through themwith your child and help them choose what they would like to eat. We are also workinghard to try and encourage the children who bring a packed lunch from home to bring ahealthy lunch. Here are some Healthy lunchbox suggestions - Use a different sandwichfilling each day - preferably including a fruit or vegetable. For example: Chicken, Ham,Egg, Grated cheese, Tuna, Mashed banana, Cottage cheese. Fruit and vegetables

Seedless grapes, satsuma, tangerines or clementines (peeled and wrapped for younger children) smallbananas, apples, plums, dried fruit such as apricots, dates or raisins. Avoid bananas because they gobrown. Some vegetables to try - Cherry tomatoes, Carrot sticks, Celery sticks, Cucumber chunks, Babysweet corn, Grated carrot and raisin salad. Drink - Avoid sugary and fizzy drinks. Instead use water or fruit

juice. Other lunch box items - Scones, malt loaf, flapjack, yoghurt, teacakes. Savoury suggestions -Rice cakes, Bread sticks, boiled egg, Cheese and crackers. Keep it cool - to keep it fresh by supplyingan insulated bag or box.

DONF FORGET YOUR SHOEBOXAs usual, St James church is supporting Operation Christmas Child shoebox appeal.Please help by donating a gift-filled shoebox. These will be sent to children who are inneed living on the streets or in large orphanages. Further details of items suitable to beincluded are on the leaflet that your child has brought home. Please bring shoeboxes toschool before Monday 8th November. If you require further information, please contact JeanGravette on 01302 856859. Many thanks for your gifts, which really make a difference.


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PARENTS COFFEE MORNINGWe are holding another Coffee Morning for parents on Wednesday 16th November. If youwould like to come along and share your ideas and opinions about school life with us, youwill be most welcome. The coffee (and biscuits) will be served in the school hall, starting ataround 9.00 a.m. We look forward to seeing you there.

CHILDREN IN NEED, FRIDAY 18th NOVEMBER

SHOW YOUR SPOTS FOR PUDSEYChildren are invited to come in spots or dots for Children in Need day on Friday 20thNovember (or just colourful if they choose). We are asking for donations of English coins,from pennies to pounds to put in our Pudsey Buckets, and the more coins we can collect onthe day then the more money there is for Pudsey Bear. Thank you for your support.

MINOR ACCIDENTS IN SCHOOLThis is just to remind you of our procedures for minor accidents in school, now that the childrenare playing mostly on the hard playground because of the damp weather. If a child has a bumpor scrape, we will treat them in school according to our First Aid policy, and give them a bumpnote to take home in case they forget to tell you about it. If we feel concerned about your child,we will telephone and ask you to come to school. We will keep your childs class teacher informedabout the circumstances of the accident.

SAFER NEIGHBOURHOOD TEAM MEETINGSThe next meetings for the Safer Neighbourhood Team are all being held at Woodfield PrimarySchool, at 6.30 p.m. on the last Friday of every month, starting Friday 28th October andcontinuing each month, right through to Friday 27th July. If you have anything on your mindabout your neighbourhood, go along and speak to one of the Police Support Officers, orcontact them on Doncaster 385339

CROSSING LITTLEMOOR LANEPlease be aware that if there is no Crossing Patrol warden and no-one from the SaferNeighbourhood team is available to cross children over the road, school staff are notallowed to perform this duty. DMBC have left us in no doubt that we should not try to take

the place of these wardens, so please impress upon your children the need tobe vigilant if they cross unaccompanied. Similarly, please parksensitively when you bring and collect your children, bearing in mind notblocking our neighbours drives or double parking and causing problems for childrentrying to cross the roads. Additionally, please do not park ON the pavement, asbuggies and wheelchairs need the space on the footpath, as well as it beingdangerous for children if you try to drive on the path. Thank you for your co-

operation.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO OUR NEWSLETTERWe are encouraging the children to contribute to our weekly newsletter withstories, pictures and items of interest they have done in the classroom ouroutside school. The contributions this week are from Year 5 Yellow class.

Look out for more class contributions in the coming weeks


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Halloween Disco

On the evening of Monday the 31st October, Balby Central decided to invite a rather large coven ofyoung witches and ghouls from the surrounding area. Worryingly, they also happen to attend OURschool!!Luckily, we had an onsite photographer, called Mr Hirst who captured some of the creatures asthey enjoyed their evening!Various members of staff attended the disco, after being invited by the School Council. As you cansee, they are a very attractive Balby Coven!

New year 3 pupils joined our disco for the first time, and here are some of their comments.

Izzy Grady- I really liked the songs, my favourite was The Conga, but it was a bit crowded in thehall.

Jack Illman- I liked it because it was fun! But it was a little bit too noisy!

Alisha Kaur-I liked the food and the DJ. I loved the games, but not when people started runningabout.

Harvey Washer- I liked the Halloween music, it was amazing, but I did notlike all thenoise.


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Our Black and White DayThursday 20th October

Yellow Class

For our last lesson with Matt, the archaeologist,we had to dress in black and white which was lotsof fun for us! The reason being was that we weregoing to be filmed in a silent movie in Space @Once we were in groups we planned our movie ona storyboard. Soon after, we practised our littleroutine, plus adding facial expressions for effect. Aconsiderable time later, we went over to Space @for a final practise before we had to stand in front

of all of year 5 and perform our mini silent movie.At lastfilmed, what a relief!By Izzy, Ella and Faith.

Fisticuffs Jayden, Liam and Josh.

On our last day with Matt, we were asked to come to school in black and whiteclothes to perform in a silent mini movie. Matt showed us several black and whiteclips of silent movies featuring Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. They were reallyfunny! We planned our movie on a storyboard, and practised our movements atSpace@ again and again! But it was a great day.

By Iain,

Ouch.That hurt! Ha ha , that fooled him! What a pushover!Maddie, Ebony and Maisie Rhys, Thabiso and Deacon


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Childrens behaviour in school

Dear Parents and Children, 4.11.11

We have been looking again at how children behave in school, how we encourage good behaviourand what we do when things go wrong including any bullying that may be taking place.

We want life at school to be enjoyable and focussed very much on learning and we all put a lot ofeffort into this aspect of school life. Every visitor to school, from Ofsted to supply teachers,comments on the excellent behaviour of Balby Central pupils, something in which, we can all takegreat pride. Children throughout school are nearly always calm, polite, thoughtful, respectfulto adults and each other and enjoy their time in school.

However, there are occasions when things go wrong children fall out with each other, losetheir tempers and even occasionally hurt each other. Sometimes this is because of events that startoutside of school or at home, and sometimes it is generated by events in school wet and windyweather at lunchtime, falling out over a game, play that gets too rough, teasing that goes too farand so on. Sometimes it is repeated and intentional, and can involve one child being older ormore powerful in some way than the other, or small groups ganging up on an individual. When thisis the case, we would recognise this as bullying and is clearly something that we take veryseriously. In all events, whether it is a minor squabble or a serious incident, our aim is consistent

to help children understand what good behaviour looks like and help them achieve it.Sometimes this involves children being separated from others, being kept in, talking to parents,with older children, getting strikes or being on report, even leading to exclusion. However, mostof the time it means that we talk it through with them, help them to settle the disputes, agree how tobehave better in the future and get on with their friends or work better with adults in other words itis a very important part of their education.

Adults, including parents and staff, play a very important part in this modelling decentvalues and behaviour, keeping calm and respectful, even when things go wrong, defusing ratherthan inciting, exercising judgement rather than blindly applying rules always with childrens bestinterests in mind. It is a complex and long-term business children change as they grow up andwhat is common behaviour at one age or situation can be a problem at another.

Please can we all continue to work together to help keep Balby Central such a good school children by thinking about their behaviour and its impact on others, staff by keeping positive andlooking to the educational aspect of behaviour and parents by calming things down and discussingsituations.

If parents or other adults do need to intervene to help children behave better with eachother, it always works better if it is done with, and through, the school please talk to amember of staff if there is a situation that you are not happy with we will work with youand the children to resolve it.

With best regards, Pete McGuigan

newsletter autumn 8 2011

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