Newsletter Week 15: w/e 12th Jan 2024

the best you can

Newsletter

w/e 12th January 2024

Message from the Head

How can I help?

If your child is too unwell to attend school, let us know as early as you can giving as much detail as you can.

ü We can administer both over the counter medicines and prescription medicine in school after you have signed a form, which is available in the main office. Your child can return to school before antibiotics have finished, if they are well enough.

Wherever possible, book holidays during the school holidays. Any unauthorised holiday of 6 days or more will be referred to the Local Authority who will issue a Fixed Penalty Notice.

Keep communications open with us – if you are struggling to get your child to school regularly, tell us the reasons why so that we can put a supportive plan into place.

If you have any concerns about your child’s attendance, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will be happy to discuss this with you, and look to support in any way I or the wider school can.

I am looking forward to another successful term here at Mabe where we all work together to ensure that our children live out our vision of ‘Being the Best that they can Be’.

With my best wishes

Mrs Stevens

Dear Parents and Carers,

It has been lovely welcoming the children back to school for the Spring Term following the Christmas break. The children have come back into new topics of learning, which were shared with you at the end of the previous term through our half-termly planners. These help to keep you informed about what your child is learning in school in each subject, so that you can discuss their learning further at home.

The Department for Education has launched a new campaign focused on raising the level of attendance in schools called ‘Moments Matter, Attendance Counts’. Nationally, attendance has still not risen to the levels they were before the COIVD-19 pandemic, and some children are missing significant periods of their education. Any child with attendance below 90% is classed as Persistently Absent and the school is required to take action and work with families to improve attendance at this level.

Why is regular attendance so important?

Being in school every day that it is open, is important to your child’s achievement, wellbeing, and their wider development. Evidence shows that the children with the highest attendance throughout their time in school gain the best results. Here’s what the data shows:

Pupils with higher attainment at KS2 and KS4 had lower levels of absence over the key stage compared to those with lower attainment.
Generally, the higher the percentage of sessions missed across the key stage at KS2 and KS4, the lower the level of attainment at the end of the key stage.
Among pupils with no missed sessions over KS2, 83.9% achieved the expected standard compared to 40.2% of pupils who were persistently absent.

Where can I get support to help my child attend school?

We know that children may struggle to attend school for a wide range of reasons. If your child is struggling to attend school, both the school and local authority have responsibilities to help you to support your child’s attendance.

If you child has attendance which is below 90%, we will get in to contact with you to understand any barriers/challenges that is impacting on your child’s attendance and discuss ways in which together we can seek to improve this. As part of the conversation we will agree a set of joint actions we will all take to help overcome any barriers to attendance. Working together in an open, honest and non-judgemental manner will have the greatest impact on improving attendance.

Attendance Stats

Kittiwakes	90%
Sandpipers	92%
Curlews	85%
Cormorants	97%
Puffins	95%
Herons	89%
Guillemots	98%

Thank you for your support in ensuring your child has good attendance. Please be reminded that the government expects all children not to miss school due to family holidays. Any child who takes 6 days or more of unauthorised absence will need to be referred to the Local Authority.

Open Afternoon

We would like to invite parents/carers to an opportunity to come into classrooms and look at your child's learning with your child.

Class teachers will also be available for informal conversations during this time.

Friday 26th January 2:45pm - 3:15pm

Notices

National Tutoring Programme

For the last 3 years, the Department for Education has provided schools with additional funding as part of the COVID-19 recovery strategy. If your child is being invited to a tutoring session, it is because their teacher believes they will greatly benefit from this additional, small group targeted work.

Please support this by ensuring your child attends their session. Regularly missing this extra opportunity means that your child may lose their space which could then be offered to another child.

These sessions are invite only and are only being run in certain year groups; your child’s class teacher will send a letter home if they feel that your child would benefit in one of the offered sessions.

Spring Term Clubs

Clubs for the Spring Term will start again next week. Mrs McCarthy will let you know which clubs your child is able to attend.

Personal Development News

Side View of Running Boy, Kid Doing Sports, Healthy Lifestyle Concept Cartoon Style Vector Illustration

At Mabe our personal development programme is threaded throughout our curriculum. Our vision for Personal Development is in line with the CCEA’s definition:

'Encouraging each child to become personally, emotionally, socially and physically effective, to lead , safe and fulfilled lives; To become confident, independent and responsible citizens, making informed and responsible choices and decisions throughout their lives’

This week, as part of our Personal Development programme:

-Children from years 4, 5 and 6 took part in the Penryn Cluster Cross-Country Qualifiers this morning. We will update you with their results in next week’s newsletter.

-In assembly, we have discussed setting small step ‘Yes’ challenges as part of our new year resolutions.

We read the book ‘The Yes’ for inspiration in how we overcome self-doubt and believe in ourselves and

what we can achieve.

-In class assemblies this week, children considered and discussed the question ‘Have emojis become an

important part of communication?’