Newsletter 21

Friday 3 March 2023

Notices and Reminders

To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8

This week at Thomas Coram 
It was so lovely to be celebrating World Book Day yesterday. The children really thought carefully about the books they wanted to bring in and I saw some amazing designs for their billboards. I haven’t seen this idea before in schools and it was great to see the children’s creativity in their designs. I loved going to some of the classrooms yesterday to hear the children’s favourite books and to look at the creative designs the children made with the cardboard. I also had lunch with some of the Year 5 children today and heard about what they are enjoying about school at the moment, they are particularly enjoying sewing and designing their pencil cases.  

Worship 
On Monday, we looked at justice again and the fact that sometimes it can be really difficult to make a decision. On Wednesday, Father Stuart led worship around our value of justice. On Thursday, Mrs Giles led signing assembly and was focusing on songs from Matilda and Reach for the Stars – all of the children loved reaching up and dancing along. Today, 3SB led an assembly based around making good choices and ensuring we do the right thing. 

Technology 

A reminder to parents that if your child has a phone, please ensure you are monitoring what they are doing and the messages that they are sending. There have been reports of a few unkind messages being sent amongst Year 5 and 6 pupils within groups on WhatsApp. WhatsApp should only be used by children over 16 years of age, so please do keep a check on what is happening if your child is part of a WhatsApp group.  

Parent Reps 

A reminder to send any points to your parents reps for discussion at the parent forum by Friday 10th March. Thank you.  

Reminder  
Please could parents remind Year 5 and 6 pupils that if they are meeting an adult outside of the school gate and they cannot find them, they can come back into the school as we will be open.  

PE extra shoes
Please don't forget to send your child in with an extra pair of shoes/trainers on their PE day as classes are being held on the field until the end of term. Thank you. 

Captains Club
We have had to reduce the number of available spaces for the remainder of the Spring term. If you cannot book an after school session in Arbor, this means that the requested session is now full.

Reporting Absence
Please can we remind all parents that you should contact the school by 9.00am if your child is going to be absent. This can be done by either phoning the absence line 01442 866757 option 1, emailing admin@thomascoram.herts.sch.uk or via The Thomas Coram App. Failure to report absences could result in your child being marked with an unauthorised absence. 

Cold weather warning
A spell of cold weather is expected – please take care.

The Met Office have issued an “Alert and readiness warning” across the East Of England (which includes Hertfordshire) which states that there is a high probability of severe cold weather/icy conditions/heavy snow between Monday 6th March and Thursday 9th March across England.

Please keep an eye on the weather and be prepared for a cold spell.  There may be some disruption to the delivery of services.  Please also check in on anyone who may struggle in cold weather.  Older people, children, babies under five and residents with underlying health conditions are amongst those particularly vulnerable to the effects of cold weather; icy pavements can be very slippery, and cold weather can stop people from going out.

The following Winter Health Flyer (Hertfordshire County Council) has lots of practical tips to help prepare for cold conditions.

If you or anyone you know is struggling to heat their home, or someone may need help to get shopping or medicines, please contact HertsHelp on 0300 123 4044

NHS advice about how to stay well in winter can be found here: How to stay well in winter - NHS (www.nhs.uk)

Uniform  
A reminder that children should be wearing black school shoes to school and not Ugg style boots.  

Dacorum Family Services
DFS are running a free workshop on Wednesday 15 March at 1.30 via Microsoft teams on 'Helping your child manage their anger'. More information can be found here. 

Raising money  
A few Year 5 girls, have come to me wanting to raise money for Turkey and Syria after the earthquake and for the RSPCA, we have now decided that there will be some different activities for the children to complete and they will donate money to take part in the activities. I will email next week regarding the full details. 

Hair 
A general reminder that the children should have their hair tied up in school, if their hair is past their shoulders.  

Stars of the week                                                                                  

3SB - Florence and Arthur - for their fantastic friendship, manners and wonderful paired work in English, giving an explanation of how to write a good story. 

3SG - Evie - for persevering in her maths lessons this week, working on fractions even when they got more tricky. Well done. 

3EW - Charlie - for hard work and focus in lessons. 

4HS - Roxie - for fantastic effort in all her lessons this week, particularly with her explanation text about the Romans and poem about if the world were made of sweets. 

5DH - Hamida - for her outstanding effort with spellings this week. 

5KS - Eva - for being keen and enthusiastic to share her thoughts. Eva has a positive approach to her own learning. 

5RG - Benjamin - for his super range of persuasive ideas in his English writing. Well done Benjamin!

5JR - Tommy Ben- for persevering and working incredibly hard to improve his handwriting with excellent results. Well done. 

6WT - Max - for his 'creativity' with a piece of cardboard in the cardboard challenge for World Book Day. 

6RM -  Poppy - Poppy represented the UK in Futsall in Barcelona, beating Spain. Well done Poppy!

A full calendar is available here   

Information attached this week

This weeks flyers/attachments/letters are below please click on for more information;

• DSPL - online courses for parents and carers 
• Easter Holiday courses - Game on
• The Event Hub Dacorum