Dear Parents and Carers,
It’s been a great week in school. There’s been a real buzz of learning across the seven year groups, with children fully immersed in this term’s topics and lots of exciting events going on across the school: there was a fantastic trip to Marwell Zoo for Year 3, Bikeability got underway in Year 6, at Pewley, everyone enjoyed visits to the Wild Place, and in Year 5, the arrival of our long-awaited therapy dog, Kiwi brought much “oohing and ahhing”! Then, of course our annual Harvest Festival lifted everyone’s spirits. Despite this year’s different circumstances, our harvest celebrations were as joyful as ever. It was so good to see that we’ve raised at least £1000 for the Foodbank. Thank you so much for your generosity - the option to donate is still open until this weekend. Our home-school link workers, Lucy and Bridgit are in regular contact with the Foodbank and see first-hand how much our gift will be appreciated by local Guildford families. If you find yourself in need of support, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with them (lucyc@htpd.surrey.sch.uk, bridgitb@htpd.surrey.sch.uk). As a community, we are determined to look after each other.
I’m delighted to be able to share some lovely news with you; earlier in the week, Tom Everard, our assistant head and Year 6 teacher became a Dad for the second time. Many congratulations to him, and a big welcome to the world to Joseph Peter Everard! We can’t wait to meet him.
Several of you have asked me about the Catch-Up funding, publicised earlier in the year by the government as their response to the pandemic’s impact on lost education. I thought I’d explain a little of our strategy. This small sum of money has been given to schools to ensure that any learning gaps are filled. I suppose our most important response to the challenge to “catch-up” has been to ensure that the school is safe and able to be open. At HTPD, our teachers are used to assessing children’s needs and so their first task this term has been no different to that of more normal times – they’ve worked hard to find out how to tailor the curriculum to their class, finding out exactly what each child can already do and planning lessons that ensure the next steps are achievable as well as challenging. The extra funding has meant that we are able to provide small group support and great adult:child ratios across all the year groups. Every class has at least one other adult working alongside the teachers to ensure that all children are making good progress and that gaps in learning are being addressed. Our SEN team’s hours have been increased and they are well resourced to meet specific SEN needs. We have also given three teachers time to carry out specific intervention work during the week where needs are identified.
We’ve all noticed how glad the children are to be back in the classrooms and our priority is to keep them in school for as much of the time as we can whilst the pandemic unfolds. I’m sure you’ll be delighted to hear about your own child’s progress – we’ll be sending out details of this term’s parent consultations immediately after the half term break. They’ll have to take place on Zoom or by phone, but it’ll be a lovely chance to celebrate all that the children have achieved!
With love,
Clare
Thought of the Week: “The joy of the Lord is our strength.” Where do you find joy? Do you find joy in helping others?
Whole school notice
Baby loss awareness week (9th-15th October)
This week marks the start of a significant time in our calendar. Several families in the school community have experienced bereavement and grief due to a baby being lost during pregnancy, or in early infancy.
As a way of standing beside them, you might like to join in with the “wave of light” that takes place next Thursday evening at 7pm. Lighting a candle in your window, sharing a photograph of its flickering on social media, and commemorating these little lives will be one way that you can show respect and empathy to those who are remembering babies who have died too soon, demonstrating to them that they are not alone. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest,” Matthew 11, 28. https://babyloss-awareness.org/
Playground Pickup at HT
A reminder that when you are waiting for your year 4 children in the playground at Holy Trinity outside the year 4 area with younger children, please do keep an eye on them to ensure they do not climb on benches or raised flower beds. We would hate to have any accidents.
INFANT News
Individual school photos, Monday 12 October
The school photographer will be visiting on Monday to take individual photographs of the children.
Menu: week 1 (commencing 12 October)
JUNIOR News
St Peter's Virtual Open Evening
A notice to Year 6 parents that a virtual Open Evening will take place next Thursday 15th October at 6pm for St. Peter’s Catholic School. This year, all the presentations will be available via their school website: https://www.st-petersschool.co.uk
Menu - Week 3
FOPS News
Hi All,
We have another short one this week with a few reminders:
- We are selling preloved uniform sales through the office so please do contact Ruth or Jane with details of what you would like, and they will endeavour to find it for you.
- Please do remember to use the easyfundraising homepage for your online shopping, it is quite literally an easy way for us to raise much-needed funds for the school.
- We are still looking for new FOPs Chair/Chairs and a FOPS Secretary, no experience required….. Please please do contact us if you have any questions about the outstanding roles or would like to put your name forward.
Dates for the Diary
FOPS AGM via Zoom - date tbc
FOPS meeting via Zoom - date tbc
Happy Friday!
HTSC News
Hope everyone has had a good week.
AGM
Thank you to everyone who joined the AGM on Zoom on Wednesday evening, and we are pleased to confirm the HTSC Committee for 2020/21 as follows:
Chair – Helen Day
Secretary – Claudine Nel
Treasurer – Tom Day
The first termly meeting will be put in the diary before half term to plan this term’s fundraising activity. As there will not be a Bonfire night or Christmas Fair this year, we are thinking of other ways to get the school community together as well as raising a few £ for the school. We are continuing to fundraise for the pitch throughout this year to fulfil our pledge of contributing £50K to the cost. We had raised nearly £19K before lockdown in March.
Easyfundraising If you are shopping online, one way to support the school is through www.easyfundraising.co.uk and selecting HTSC Holy Trinity School Community as your cause.
Many thanks for taking the time to read this. As always, if you have any questions, please drop an email to helen@thomasday.co.uk
Kind regards
HTSC Committee