A couple of weeks ago we announced that we were really pleased and excited to have selected this year’s first Positive Play Partners. The PPP's have all now received their Play Partner sports bibs to highlight who they are at lunch times, they have also had their first official meeting with Mr Price and Mrs Byrne.

Feedback so far is very positive as the children have been supporting our OPAL play initiative, ensuring children have role models to help resolve issues and have happy and safe play experiences.

We are excited to launch our family snowman making competition. Building on the success of our autumn pumpkin decorating competition, we invite you all to make a snowman that can sit on school window sills during the winter months. We hope that the following pictures will inspire you.

Please bring your entries to school as soon as they are ready. The competition will be judged in the final week of term so you have a couple of weeks to make your entry. Please label you snowman clearly and make sure that he is able to sit on a window sill (which is 25cm deep). 

This week in Year 1, we were lucky enough to walk to the Holst Museum to learn about a Victorian Christmas. We made mincemeat, played parlour games and had a look at how different a Christmas stocking would be in Victorian times. Today we have made the mincemeat into a pie and will have a taste later.

Gloucestershire County Council have updated the information on their website relating to Free School Meals. If you think that it is possible that your child(ren) might be eligible for them, please follow the link below.

Why should I apply?

It's well worth applying for free school meals. Schools are allocated extra funding for every child who is eligible. This enables us to enhance our provision and improve progress and outcomes for children.

Please apply even if you do not wish to take up your offer of a free school meal.

Whilst all children are entitled to a free school meal from Reception to year 2, it is important to apply for Free School Meals at this point so that your child benefits from the extra funding in school and also continues to receive free school meals after year 2. 

What are the qualifying criteria for Free School Meals? 

Your child might be able to get free school meals if you get any of the following:

• Income Support
• income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
• income-related Employment and Support Allowance
• support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• the guaranteed element of Pension Credit
• Child Tax Credit (provided you’re not also entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual gross income of no more than £16,190)
• Working Tax Credit run-on - paid for 4 weeks after you stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit
• Universal Credit - your household income must be less than £7,400 a year (after tax and not including any benefits you get)

AiP Refund Form

At the end of term families will need to reclaim a refund for any unspent lunch money directly from AiP.  Please complete the form at the link below, photograph it and email it to [email protected].  Paper copies are available from the school office.

Next week we are on Week 3 of our menu choices:

We are very excited to be moving across to our new catering company 'Dolce Ltd' from January. We are now starting to put in place the new systems and earlier this week families will have received a welcome email and log in details from SchoolGrid (the booking and payment system for Dolce Ltd). There will be a direct link to this system via EdulinkOne for convenience for our families.

Above all else we are really pleased that when Dolce take over in January, parents will be able to log in and choose their children's lunches from home.

The welcome email from SchoolGrid allows you to set up for payments too. Accounts will be required to always be in credit, if you pay for school lunches.  SchoolGrid will only be used for lunch payments, ParentPay will continue to be used for everything else.

We are currently working with Dolce Ltd to confirm our bespoke menu which we hope to share with families prior to the Christmas holidays. 

Our Reception classes would welcome some donations of spare pants, socks and jogging bottoms for emergencies.  We need sizes 4-6 years.

If you are able to help, please drop them at the school office.

Thank you for your continued support.

If your child is being collected by someone different or going home with a friend, please just send in a short note with your child for their teacher.

Thank you for the £112.66 donation.

Your support has made a real difference to those in the Armed Forces community.

Without your efforts, we couldn't do the work we do.