EGPS News

Emersons Green Primary School

Diary Dates

Dates below are subject to change

TERM 2

Week 1

Monday 4th November – First

Day of Term 2 Tuesday 5

th November – Indi-

vidual photos Tuesday 5

th November—Y6

Cycling Proficiency Level 2 Tuesday 5

th November – Lunch

Bonfire menu Wednesday 6

th November –

Swimming Year 3 Friday 8

th November – Flu Vac-

cinations Week 2 Anti-bullying week National School Meals Week Monday 11

th November—Year 6

Remembrance Assembly Tuesday 12

th November—Y6

Cycling Proficiency Level 2 Wednesday 13

th November—

Swimming Year 3 Friday 15

th November—Children

in Need Friday 15

th November—Stay

and Read Friday 15

th November—Y6 Rug-

by Tournament 12.30-16.30 Week 3 Tuesday 19th November—Parent learning meetings Tuesday 19

th November—Y6

Cycling Proficiency Level 2 Wednesday 20th November—swimming year 3 Thursday 21st November—Parent Learning Meetings

18th October 2019

Issue 4

Email: admin@egps.org.uk WEB: www.emersonsgreenprimary.co.uk

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” - Robert Louis Stevenson

1

South Gloucestershire SEND Consultation Update

As I am sure you will be aware, I sent a letter out to parents and

carers just before the summer holidays to inform them that the LA

were planning a South Gloucestershire-wide consultation on Special

Needs provision in school. The most important aspect of this for us

was the recommendation that our Resource Base be phased out.

Over the summer and since, there have been various meetings

between staff, Governors, parents and the LA, including an

Engagement Meeting at Blackhorse Primary school attended by

many staff, Governors, parents, ex-parents and representatives from

other agencies such as Health.

As we go into the half term break, we believe it is important for you to

know where we are with this process. Yesterday we had a visit from

two LA Officers in order to further review our Resource Base.

Further dates you should be aware of are:

4th November—the executive committee of South Glos (the cabinet)

decide whether the consultation is carried out. If it is, the following

will occur.

11th November—4th January South Glos SEND consultation is open

for all residents of South Gloucestershire. We would urge you all to

contribute to this.

January 2020—March 2020 The results of the consultation are

reviewed and a recommendation is passed to the LA

23rd January — Schools Forum meet to contribute to the consultation

(Schools Forum includes representatives from clusters of schools

and LA Officers)

2nd March — Recommendations from the consultation go to the LA.

23rd March — IF the LAL Council agree to the recommendations then

a statutory notice is put forward in regard to potentially phasing out

our Resource Base.

We are obviously proud of the provision we have here at Emersons

Green for all of our pupils and we are sure you are, too. What we

would ask of you is, if the consultation goes ahead, that you contrib-

ute to it and encourage your friends and neighbours to do the same.

Have a lovely half term!

Karl Hemmings

Headteacher

Thank you Sainsburys

A big Thank You goes to Sainsburys, who sent four volunteers in for the day to

work in library. They spent the day cataloguing, labelling and shelving lots of

brand-new and donated books which can now be enjoyed by the whole school.

2

Parent Learning Meetings

Parent/Teacher learning meetings are being held for all classes on Tuesday

19th November and Thursday 21st November. A letter with details will be sent

to you by email with this newsletter.

Appointments do tend to book up quite quickly so please check the online

booking system sooner rather than later to avoid disappointment. If you experi-

ence any problems booking an appointment for your child, please speak to the

office.

Browse to https://emersonsgreen.parentseveningsystem.co.uk/

No Nuts in School

All infant children are given

a piece of fruit every day.

Key Strange 2 children are

welcome to bring fresh fruit

to school. No wrapped

snacks are to be brought

into school.

It is imperative that we have

NO NUTS in school, includ-

ing pack lunch & playtime

snacks - as we have a num-

ber of children with a severe

nut allergy.

Please check the ingredi-

ents of products with choco-

late spread as these often

have hazelnut paste within.

Year 3 Models

This term, Green Class have been investigating sculp-

tures in the environments around us and learning all

about Mountains. The children took ideas from both of

these topics to design and create sculptures that could

be placed in different mountain settings.

We recycled materials to make the structure and used papier mâché to cover

them. Some of the sculptures included; a football, a person sitting and enjoy-

ing the environment, a bridge, a flower and the world.

The children have really enjoyed this project and

many of them have been inspired to make model

mountains for homework or write about their own ex-

periences about visiting and climbing mountains. It

has been great sharing these in class and all of the

topic homework completed this term. Thank you for all

the effort that has gone into these projects.

Stay and Read

Our annual Stay and Read event will now take place on Friday 15th November at 9am. Parents and carers are invited to sign in at the main office and make their way to the hall, where Mrs Leech will give a quick talk. They will then be able to head into classes to read with their child(ren). Children will be organised into houses (Amber, Citrine, Emerald, Ruby, Sapphire) so members of the same family will all be in the same place!

After School Clubs

Subject to uptake, PSF our out of school club provider, will be offering the following clubs:

Hockey, Football for KS1, KS2 and girls, Gymnastics and Dodgeball next term. Chess club will continue on

Thursday evenings and Wednesdays for year 3 pupils. Netball practice will start on Tuesdays for those in

the team, Mrs Knight has sent home a letter separately. A club timetable will be sent home separately.

School Uniform

There is a school uni-

form. The wearing of uni-

form is strongly encour-

aged and supported by

the Governors, staff and

parents. Uniform empha-

sises a business like cor-

porate image, which

strengthens and unites

the school. Many parents

find it no more expensive

than leisure clothing; of-

ten harder wearing and

there are fewer ‘disputes’

on school days as to

what the children will

wear.

The school website

clearly displays our uni-

form policy. Uniform is

available from Initially

Yours

http://

www.initiallyyours.co.uk/

schools/

emer-

sons_green_primary_sch

ool/

uni-

form_and_sports_kit.htm

Please do not wear black

skirts, tights or trousers

as our colour ways are

grey, white or jade.

Please ensure that your

child wears ‘sensible’

black fitted shoes in

school not trainers.

Many thanks for your

support.

3

Harvest Assemblies Once again our children performed beautifully at the harvest assemblies. The reception children singing about an enormous turnip for their very first parent performance. Many thanks for all your kind donations, the local food bank have collected them today..

Photographs

Jack from Tulip Photography will once again be

visiting to take our individual and sibling photos on

Tuesday 5th November. If you have younger

siblings at home you are welcome to come into the

hall before school to take family and group photos.

Younger siblings can be brought to school between

8.20am-9am.

CBBC—Let’s Go For A Walk

Recently three of our year 1 pupils were selected to take

part in the Cbeebies program “Let’s Go For A Walk”

filmed at Westonbirt Arboretum. They came back and

told us all about their exciting day of filming.

“We went for a walk in the forest, Ranger Hamza helped us go across the bridge and then

build the den. We wore orange sweat-tops to keep us warm. We saw Cbeebies people

and some men took photos with a very big camera. We had

lots of fun.”

“We each waited our turn and then we

talked into a microphone.”

“We wore water-proof trousers and

we kept the t-shirts”

We hope to see them on the TV in

spring 2020, we will let you know

when we have a broadcast date.

Christmas Cards

Look out for artwork in bookbags that came home this week for Christmas

Cards. If you would like to order any products from Cauliflower cards please

order online and return original artwork to school before November 8th.

Children In Need

We will be having a dress down

day with a suggested donation of

£1 in aid of Children In Need. Official merchandise is available in local

stores, if so desired, however we do not sell anything in school.

Inset Days 2019/2020

Friday 29th November

Monday 24th February

Friday 3rd July

Monday 20th July

Primary School Admissions

The closing date for all applica-

tions is 15th January 2020

We have allocated times for

people wishing to visit our

school:

Monday 25th November—13.30-

14.30

Thursday 9th January—18.00-

19.00

No need to book, please just

turn up on the day.

Secondary School Admissions

Please remember to complete

and submit your child's

application for secondary school

before 31st October.

LBS Vacancy

We have vacancies for lunch-

break supervisors. If you are

interested in this vacancy,

please contact the office for

further information.

4

Flu Vaccination—Friday 8th November

Thank you to all the parents who returned their Flu vaccination forms.

These have now been collected by the team in readiness for the

vaccination program at the beginning of term. If you have not returned a

form, the team may be in contact with you directly.

This programme is being led by North Somerset Community Partnership

working with Bristol Community Health and Sirona. If you have any

queries about flu vaccinations and whether your child should have them,

please contact the NSCP

team on 01275 373104 or

nscp.sch-imms@nhs.net.

Music Lessons — Mini Music Explorers

Begins Saturday 9th November 2019

We are proud to launch ‘Mini Music Explorers’ an early years group for four to six year olds. The new programme is designed to develop your child’s musicianship and ensemble performance whilst ex-ploring various musical instruments, allowing each pupil a truly immersive musical experience. To begin with the pupils will play percussion, sing and move to music. As the year goes on they will get the chance to play other instruments including wind, strings and ukulele. We hope that at the end of the year your child will have a clear idea of which instrument they wish to learn and play in a band! The Mini Music Explorers sessions will run on Saturday mornings from 9th November 2019 at 9:30-10:15. How do I book? To book your child’s place on the Mini Music Explorers programme, simply go to live.paritor.com/p/1748 and select Enrol for an Activity and Kingswood – Mini Music Explorers from the ‘Ensembles and Band’ list. Please email me to let me know if you plan to attend on Saturday 9th Nov.

Residential Trips

Year 5 and 6 parents, please note that your deposit to confirm attendance

of your child on the residential trip is due on Friday 8th November. Please

see the office for assistance with ParentPay if required.

OUR PTFA PTFA Email: ptfa@egps.org.uk

DRESS DOWN DAY!

A huge thank you to all our children and parents for their support for today’s Dress Down Day for the PTFA.

We haven’t got a total yet but funds for today will be used for purchasing gifts for the Secret Room, details to

follow…

Harvest Café

A huge thanks to all our parent and carers for supporting our Harvest Assembly Café this week.

Initial count is £48 a great total which will help fund lots of exciting experiences and resources

for our children.

Treasure Hunt

We are sorry to say that due to the rain we had to postpone our treasure hunt and

with next term being so busy with Christmas we are unable to set another date at this

time. We are hoping to hold another treasure hunt event in the spring.

Christmas Cards

Your child will now have brought home their personally made Christ-

mas Card. We are working with Cauliflower Cards to offer a fantastic

range of Christmas items to purchase with money from each sale go-

ing directly to the PTFA. Please place your order online and return

your child’s artwork to school by Friday 8th November. Cards and any

other items will be returned to school by 1st December.

Christmas Wreath Making

We will be holding our Christmas Wreath making workshop on Friday

6th December, 7pm, school hall. Cost is £20 per person with places

allocated on a first come, first served basis, we are about halfway full

so get your name down ASAP! The cost includes all materials to make

a wreath but please bring secateurs and gloves. There will be a PTFA

bar on the evening serving mice pies and alcoholic/soft drinks. Please

email ptfa@egps.org.uk for a place.

Fundraising

Mynametags. You can help raise funds for the school with every purchase from mynametags.co.uk

If you use this site to purchase labels for clothes and accessorises simply enter our school ID 59636 and we

receive a small percentage of the sale for school fundraising.

The Book People. We are registered for The Book People school donations. For any purchase of £10

or more £1 is donated for the school to spend on books. When ordering please select Emersons Green Pri-

mary School from the list of schools to support.

Show Racism the Red Card

At Emersons Green, one of our core responsibilities is to open our pupils’ eyes

to the complexities of the world around them. Sometimes this means we ex-

plore some quite challenging topics. This is done through assemblies, class

teaching as part of our Jigsaw PSHE scheme of work (Personal, Social and

Health Education), inviting in visitors and attending trips.

This week we were lucky enough for our Year 6 pupils to be invited to the Bris-

tol Rovers memorial Stadium to take part in an event organised by Bristol Rov-

ers Community Trust and Show Racism the Red Card. We had an outstanding

day! The pupils took part in two workshops led by staff from Show Racism the

Red Card - one exploring what Racism is and discussing stereotyping, the other focused on what constitutes

a hate-crime. These thought-provoking sessions were really insightful and our children joined in enthusiasti-

cally. We all also had a stadium tour, including spending time in the players’ changing room and the execu-

tive box.

Our final activity was a question and answer session with staff from Show Racism the Red Card, the Rovers

Assistant Manager, A Bristo City Councillor and two Rovers first team players - Tyler Smith and Victor

Adeboyejo. Our pupils asked some excellent questions and the session really brought alive for our pupils

about the reality of racism and how to tackle it. Everybody also got autographs from the players as an added

bonus.

As part of this event, several of our pupils were interviewed for ITV news and BBC Radio Bristol. You will al-

so hopefully see us showing racism the red card in the Bristol Evening Post and Bristol 24/7.

This was a fantastic opportunity for our pupils and everyone agreed it had been a great day. It was inspiring

to visit the stadium and meet the players and we all had our awareness raised about the important issue of

discrimination.

“No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background or his religion. People learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for

love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” –Nelson Mandela

School Meals Winter 2019-20

We have a new menu for the winter that came home in bookbags recently.

This will start from the first day of term 2. There are a couple of days where

we offer alternative meal options for various events.

Week 1 of Term 2 we will be offering a Bonfire Night menu

Week 2 of Term 2 is National School Meals week. To celebrate there will be

some favourite meals a national roast dinner day and a special meal day as

voted for by the children. The children have voted via the leaflet in bookbags

and their favourite meal is “all day brunch”.

Week 7 of Term 2 we will have a Christmas menu—more on that in term 2.

As always, please book all meals in advance on ParentPay, including pack

lunches.