Newsletters
Please keep up to date with all the news happening in school at the moment and click a headline to read more.
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Week beginning 31st January
Fri 28 Jan 2022Week Beginning 31st January 2022
E-Safety
Next week we welcome 3 Discovery into school who will be leading e-safety workshops with all children to ensure they understand ways to stay safe online. They will also be holding a parents’ workshop between 3:30-4:30 on Tuesday 1st Feb. This will be delivered remotely and can be accessed via the following link: https://three-uk.zoom.us/j/3479597370?
Governors Morning
On Wednesday next week we will be holding a virtual Governor’s morning. Our Board of Governors provide us with support and challenge in helping us to be the best that we can be. We would like to thank those who have put their name forward for parent governor, the opportunity to stand for this role has now closed. I am delighted to let you know that we have received five expressions of interest and I will be sharing information on the candidates with you shortly. We will then hold a secret ballot and announce who has been elected.
Household Support Fund has launched to support Croydon families
After receiving funding from government, the council has launched a fund to support residents who are struggling to buy food, heat their home or purchase essentials such as fridge/freezer, oven/microwave, a bed or bedding. The fund is open until 31 March 2022. Croydon residents can refer themselves or a school can refer on a parent/carers’ behalf, with permission. Residents will be asked to demonstrate that they do not have funds to cover the items being requested and will need to evidence any income and provide a bank statement. Full details and application form can be found at the link below. Applications for food/fuel will be processed within 48 hours and household items, within 4 weeks.
https://www.croydon.gov.uk/benefits/household-support-fund-hsf
Mobile Phones
Please may we remind parents and carers that no children are permitted to bring mobile phones into school with the exception of Year 6 children who walk alone from school. Those bringing them into school must sign them into the school office at the beginning of the day and collect them at home time. If your child is in a year group other than Year 6 and you have a compelling reason why your child needs to have a mobile phone in school, you must apply for permission from Miss Slade. This will only be granted in exceptional circumstances. Thank you.
Art Competition
The Royal Academy of Arts is hosting an Art competition that provides an exciting opportunity for children aged 4-19 to exhibit their work online. Submissions are open from the 10th January to the 30th March. If you have a budding artist who may be interested in this opportunity further information can be found here:
Call for entries’ poster: https://yass.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/yass-poster-2022.pdf
Guideline for submission: https://yass.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/YASS+Submission+Guidelines+2022+-+Teachers.pdf
Permission Form: https://yass.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/yass-permissions-form-2022.pdf
How to photograph your work: https://yass.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/YASS+Photographic+Guidelines+2022.pdf12 Days of Xmas Raffle Prizes
Thank you to the PTA for organising the 12 days of Christmas Raffle. We are now busy organising prizes for the winners. Sylvia in Safari won a mufti day for her class and this will take place on the last day of term, Friday 11th February 2022. Additionally, Caleb in Rainforest won glitter tattoos for his class. These will be offered to the children in Rainforest on the same day (during the afternoon). If you would prefer your child not to have a glitter tattoo applied, please inform the office.
Lateral Flow: if your child is not well before school (Covid symptoms), please do a LFT. Although numbers of children and staff with CV has reduced this week, we do not want to have another spike with poorly children coming into school that have not been tested. Many thanks.
Above and Beyond the Call of Duty Award: this week the award goes Miss Headley, nominated by an adult and child: ‘for inspiring me with your multi-sensory teaching’ and ‘for being a lovely teacher, using amazing voices in the Great Kapok Tree’. Well done!
Croydon Schools Sports Partnership: on Thursday, CSSP are coming in to do Playground Leadership training with Year 5.
We thank you for your ongoing support and wish you all a relaxing and safe weekend.
The Hayes Team
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Week beginning 24th January 2022
Fri 21 Jan 2022A huge congratulations to Class 10 who performed a remarkable assembly on Wednesday which was recorded and put on Google Classroom for parents to watch and in school. Particular well dones to those children who jumped in on the day to take over the lines of a few children who were poorly, at home. Well done.
Restrictions Easing: I am sure you will be aware that from 20th January, the Prime Minister has announced that face coverings are no longer recommended in classrooms, teaching spaces or communal areas. This government decision comes in response to national infection data showing the prevalence of COVID-19 to be on a downward trajectory. However, we must make you aware that at The Hayes, our numbers have been increasing. We know this figure will go down next week when many pupils return from isolation, however for now and as a precaution, we must continue with our present risk assessment:
*year group bubbles (except for Y6 which are presently in class bubbles and this will remain for now);
*wearing face coverings in communal areas and at drop off and pick up;
*limiting visitors to school;
*ventilation and all the other systems of control that we currently have in place (see risk assessment).
These measures are temporary whilst our numbers remain higher than we would like. We continue to be in contact with our Director of Public Health (as are many schools at present) and I will update you on any changes to the current risk assessment as soon as possible.PTA Disco: due to the above restrictions, The PTA disco that was provisionally booked for Thursday 10th February 2022 is no longer able to take place due to year group bubbles. We have removed this from our school calendar but we just wanted to mention this in case you had added this event to your individual diaries.
Road Safety: unfortunately, we have received a complaint from a member of the public about a family from The Hayes who are walking in the road (rather than on the pavement) on the way to school (Roke Road). We work hard to teach our children about road safety and ask parents, where possible, to ensure that children are walking on the pavement where they are safe from the risks of oncoming traffic and not causing obstructions to passing cars. We appreciate your support in reinforcing this message. Thank you.
ABCD Award: this week goes to Miss Hale who has been working super hard to prepare and plan lessons for Class 7 and 8 whilst Mrs Shaikh is absent. She has also been preparing home learning packs for pupils isolating and continuing to organise sporting fixtures! She is a superstar and still continuing to smile!
E-Safety: lastly, some advance notice that on 3rd February, between 3:30-4:30, 3Discovery will be leading a workshop for parents about e-safety and keeping the children safe on line. We will provide further details nearer the time but wanted to give you the date as early as possible to pop in your diaries.
We thank you for your ongoing support. Have a lovely weekend.
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Week beginning 17th January 2022
Fri 14 Jan 2022We have had a great week at The Hayes, particularly our Year 6 children who enjoyed their visit to the Globe Theatre, and for IPC, using their imagination to dress as a person from the future.
Team Points: Seacole (blue team) also enjoyed an extra play on Thursday as a result of winning the whole school team points last term and lastly, we were wowed by a wonderful assembly from the children in class 3 who transported us into space! This was shared with parents on Google classroom and we hope you enjoyed watching as much as we did.
Primary Admissions: to remind you all, tomorrow is the closing date for applications to be made for primary admissions. If you have a child who is due to start at The Hayes in September 2022, please ensure your applications have been submitted via the Croydon Council website. Late applications will be considered after all those who submitted on time.
PJ Day: next week, on Tuesday, the children in class 4 have a special PJ day. They are invited to wear their pyjamas to school and be super comfy all day! This was a prize won by a pupil in class 4 as part of the PTA Christmas raffle for all of their classmates to enjoy- no napping during lessons though!
Recruitment: we are currently recruiting for a class teacher. This job is advertised on the school website and in the TES (Times Educational Supplement). If you know of any fantastic teachers, or are perhaps a teacher yourself looking for a change of school please take a look or share the advert. It can be found here Vacancies | The Hayes Primary School. The pandemic has posed many challenges to schools over the last 2 years with recruitment across the borough being one of them. We appreciate your support in spreading the word about vacancies at The Hayes. The closing date for this opportunity is 20th January 2022.
Boosters: we are in the process of setting up some in-school booster groups to support children in Year 2 and 6 to prepare for the SATs (SATs take place in the summer term). These programmes offer additional teaching to children in Years 2 and 6 that take place with a qualified teacher either before or after school. If your child has been selected for one of these interventions, you will shortly receive a letter. This should not be a cause for concern. Please do not assume that it means your child is behind. Some groups are run to support children who are on the borderline for achieving greater depth for example. For others, it may be to help close gaps that have occurred as a result of the pandemic. The letter will outline, when the opportunity is being offered, which subject area is being targeted and which teacher will be leading the session. We strongly urge you to take up these opportunities if offered to your child/children.
Goodbye: we would like to say an enormous thank you to Mrs Grima who is leaving her role in breakfast club, something she has worked in for just over 4 years. We are enormously grateful to her for her work in wrap around care and for ensuring that children not only received a healthy breakfast but also had lots of fun before school. Thank you! From Monday, we are delighted to announce that Mrs Amir, who is known to the children in her role as swimming assistant, will be taking on this position.
Governor: lastly, we shall shortly be sending you a letter about governor recruitment. We have a position on our Board of Governors for a parent governor. The letter will include details of skillsets that we are looking for. If this appeals to you, and you think you may be a good fit for the role, please contact Miss Slade as per the details in the letter.
Thank you for your ongoing support.
The Hayes Team
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Week beginning 10th January 2022
Fri 07 Jan 2022Happy New Year to our school community. We hope you had a great break and those of you that were ill with COVID or otherwise, have made a swift recovery. It has been lovely to welcome the children back into school this week and we look forward to another exciting term of learning and fun.
We do, unfortunately, still have children and staff isolating in line with government guidelines. If this is you and you are usually entitled to free school meals, please do reach out to us as we are able to support families with food packages during the child’s time away from school. In addition to having COVID, we do not want any families to have the added stress of worrying about access to meals for their children. We are in a position to help, and want to help, if this is something you require.
This term we welcome Miss Ingram, a final year student teacher from the university of Roehampton. She will be working in Class 4 with Miss Smallwood until April and we are sure you will give her a warm welcome. Miss Ingram is an ex-pupil of The Hayes and it is our pleasure to welcome her back in the capacity of student teacher. We are proud of the work we do to encourage new recruits to the profession and hope, as the national picture improves, we can welcome even more students into school to learn from our staff.
We would also like to let you know that from Monday, we welcome Miss Langan back to Rainforest and would like to express our enormous thanks to Mrs Lishmund who has been covering the class in her absence.
This term we have four class assemblies scheduled. To ensure the safety of all, these will now be virtual. The assembly will be recorded by in school and uploaded to the relevant google classrooms to enable parents to view these events. Class 3 will be leading our first assembly on the 13th January, followed by Class 10 on the 19th January, Class 4 on the 27th and Class 9 on the 2nd February. We will text parents to let you know when these are available to view. We will review this position at half term and let you know if future events will continue to be virtual or in person. In other virtual assemblies this term, the children will be thinking about Martin Luther King Day, Empathy, Global Belly- Laugh day, Chinese New Year, Safer Internet day (further details on this event to follow nearer the event), Love/ St Valentine and the importance of talking (as part of children’s mental health week).
For those of you with a child at home due to start in Reception in September 2022, please can we remind you that the deadline for primary admissions applications is Saturday 15th January 2022. Guidance on how to complete this can be found here on the Croydon Council website: Apply for a primary school place: step by step | Croydon Council . If you are new to our school, a virtual tour can be found on the school website.
Clubs: further to the letter at the start of the week, Miss Slade has been back in contact with Public Health with potential mitigations to enable as many clubs to take place as possible and safely. You might remember that cases at The Hayes rose significantly towards the end of the December half term and as a result of this, we met the threshold where we had to contact the Local Authority’s Public Health Team in one particular class. PHE work with Boroughs and individual schools and as you can imagine, each context is very different. Some classes in other schools had to work from home because of the numbers of children within the class with Covid or because there was not enough staff to teach classes, we were not advised to do this. Each situation is different and this is what makes it very hard – we cannot necessarily follow the Government Guidance (this is England’s Guidance, not local which can change from school to school). It is complicated but if the PHE strongly advise us to do something, it might not make us popular but it is something we will do.
At present we are still not allowed to mix year groups, particularly in classrooms. However, outside and in the hall, we can with some safety measures which have been discussed and agreed with the PHE:
Football: Year 1/2; Year 5/6 and Year 3/4 can take place outside, however, the children cannot change indoors together (different year groups) and they cannot come indoors together. Therefore, all footballers will get changed in the classroom before they go outside. Parents will need to continue to collect their children from the gate. If the weather is torrential, football cannot come into the hall.
Netball: Year 5/6 can take place outside, however, the children cannot change indoors together (different year groups) and they cannot come indoors together. Therefore, all netballers will get changed in the classroom before they go outside. If it is torrential rain – this club cannot take place.
Dance: can happen for Years 3-6 in the hall with the following actions:
*Main door to outside is open, alongside the internal doors for ventilation.
*Children will get changed in their own classrooms before entering the hall.
*Children will wash their hands/use hand sanitisers before entering the hall.
*Each year group will dance within their own year group, positioned in the four corners of the hall – to create distance between children. The teacher will be in the middle of the hall.
*Each child will have designated circles to stand on to encourage them to stay within their own space.
*Limited class size.
*Children to be collected from the foyer door (and they will line up in their year groups).
Gymnastics: can happen with Years 1/2 in the hall with the following actions:
*Children will get changed in their own classrooms before entering the hall.
*Children will wash their hands/use hand sanitisers before entering the hall.
*Each year group bubble will stay at each end of the hall.
*Each year group bubble will have one coach that will teach them for the whole session.
*Warm ups would be done on the spot.
*Doors will be open for ventilation.
*Children to be collected from the foyer door (and they will line up in their year groups, distanced).
Mini Tennis: Reception in the hall (one-year group). This will continue as usual.
Drama will continue as it did today for the next two weeks.We cannot continue at the moment with all indoor clubs at the moment, because we do not have the availability in the hall to spread the classes out. However, up until the Drama club performance (with Junior Choir) which is the end of the month, junior choir will meet on Tuesdays, in the hall with the following measures:
*Main door to outside is open, alongside the internal doors for ventilation.
*Children will wash their hands/use hand sanitisers before entering the hall.
*Each year group will be positioned in the four corners of the hall – to create distance between children. I will be in the middle of the hall, conducting.
*Children to be collected from the foyer door (and they will line up in their year groups, distanced).
Finally, you will also receive today a curriculum map from your class teacher to show ‘what we are learning this half term’.We look forward to working in partnership with you over the coming year and thank you, as always, for your continuing support.
