Week beginning 10th October 2022
Week beginning 10th October 2022
Harvest Festival: firstly, may we thank you for the harvest donations that you kindly gave. We have received messages of thanks from Purley food hub and from the Whyteleafe Community Hub. Your kindness will support members of our local community in their time of need.
DISCO: thank you also to the PTA for organising our fantastic discos last Friday. The children had a fantastic time dancing the night away with their friends while also raising funds for the PTA to invest in the school. Thank you to all of the volunteers who helped on the night! Photos of this event will be on the Gallery section of the website, soon.
World Mental Health Day: on Monday 11th October, we are celebrating World Mental Health Day and will be taking part in the #HelloYellow. On Monday, the children can wear an item of yellow clothing to mark this occasion and they will have a special assembly led by our Year 5 Mental Health Champions. We recommend a voluntary contribution of £1 to support the mental health charity, Young Minds. This is payable on ParentPay. Thank you.
Year 2 KS1 SATs meeting: on Thursday morning, parents of children in Year 2 are invited to a KS1 SATs meeting with Miss Slade in the school hall, at 9:05am. She will be running through what to expect for the statutory assessments at KS1 and will answer any questions that you may have about these assessments.
What are we learning? And Year 6 KS2 Sats meeting: on Friday morning at 9:05am in the hall, the same will be offered to parents of children in Year 6 with a KS2 SATs meeting. Both presentations will be put up on our school website for any parents who are unable to make this event. For parents in Year 6, this meeting will also include the rescheduled ‘What we are learning’ meeting with the Year 6 teachers.
PTA Fireworks! Friday 14th October is the PTA Fireworks event, which starts from 5pm-7:30pm. Tickets can be purchased here: The Hayes School Association (pta-events.co.uk). All stalls and activities will close for the fireworks at 7pm and will not reopen, after. This event will close at 7:30pm. All children must be accompanied by an adult. Many thanks to the PTA and all helping for this event, we are very excited!
Lastly, it is with much sadness that we must let you know that we shall be saying goodbye to three long standing members of staff this term. Mrs Ashby has worked as a TA at The Hayes for almost 25 years offering support as a class teaching assistant and as a 1:1 support assistant. During her time at The Hayes, she has supported many children as a whole class TA and also as a 1:1 TA. We will be sad to see her leave and wish her all the best for the future.
We shall also be saying farewell to Mrs Bolton, our SENCo assistant who has taken on a new role of Assistant SENCo, in a local secondary school. Mrs Bolton joined The Hayes over 12 years ago as TA and then secured the role of SENCo Assistant. She has been an invaluable member of our Inclusion team, has supported many children as a TA and SENCo Assistant, including those with additional needs to be the best they can be; staff and parents. We shall miss her dearly but wish her all the best in her new role! Mrs Ashby and Mrs Bolton will be leaving at October half term.
Lastly, Mrs Yates our Higher-Level Teaching Assistant (HLTA) will be retiring at Christmas time. Mrs Yates has taught Music across the school and led many extra curriculum activities including Infant choir and recorder/ocarina. We wish her a happy and restful retirement, more about this nearer the time. Thank you, Mrs Ashby, Mrs Bolton and Mrs Yates. We are in the process of recruiting new members of staff and will update you as soon as possible.
Free School Meal Eligibility Checker: we would like to remind all those eligible for Pupil Premium/ Free school meals that we will be providing supermarket vouchers for the October half term break. If you think you might be eligible for free school meals, please use the lgfl eligibility checker found here: Free School Meal Eligibility Checker (lgfl.org.uk) to check. Also, for those of you who are not eligible, but may be experiencing hardship, please do reach out to us as we have a small hardship fund from the local authority to help those in need. We know that hardship can happen to any of us at any time and there is no shame in it. If we can help in anyway, please do let us know.
Reception Recruitment: an update for Reception parents. As you will be aware, we have been busy trying to recruit a new member of teaching staff for our EYFS team. We are delighted to let you know that we have been successful in our drive and have appointed an excellent new teacher to join our EYFS staffing team from January 2023. Mrs Williams is a highly experienced practitioner who is passionate about teaching in the Early Years and we are delighted to welcome her to the team. From January, Mrs Williams will take over as the full-time class teacher of Rainforest and Mrs Farr and Mrs Duckett will resume their job share arrangement (3 days Mrs Farr and 2 days Mrs Duckett) as class teachers of Safari. During this term, we will ensure that there is a thorough hand over between Mrs Duckett and Mrs Williams so she can hit the ground running in the new year.
See you all tomorrow.
The Hayes Team
