Dear parents and carers,
I hope this newsletter finds you all well. It has been a very busy, but settled start to the year here in school. All the children have been working very hard and have really impressed their teachers with their excellent attitudes to learning. Thank you to everyone who came to our ‘Welcome back’ festival. The CRC made a generous donation of £500 to the school. This money will be used to pay for a theatre company to visit school and perform the pantomime Dick Whittington on 20th December. Thank you to the CRC for their continued hard work and dedication.
So far this half term we have celebrated national fitness day, national democracy day, run our book treasure box sessions for reception children, came 4th in the 5 Towns multi-skills competition and raised £70.66 for Jeans for Genes charity… a busy few weeks!
This week we have our RWI sessions for parents where we will teach you all about the reading books your child will take home with them and what to do with these. Thursday 9am Reception.
MacMillan Coffee Morning
On Friday we will be raising money for MacMillan Cancer support. Miss Adams and the school parliament have organised this event. Children are invited to wear green (MacMillan’s colour) to school on Friday and silver coin donations are welcomed. We will be hosting a parents coffee morning at 9am on Friday. Following this the children will all have opportunity to visit the bake sale before playtime and purchase a bun or a cake. We are asking for donations of baked goods for the sale. Please could these be given to your child’s class teacher on Thursday at pick up or Friday at drop off. The coffee morning for parents will be £1 for a tea / coffee and a bun / cake.
National Teaching Assistants Day
On Friday it is National Teaching Assistants’ day. I would like to say a special thank you to all our support staff at Common Road. Support staff are the unsung heroes of education. I know as a teacher I couldn’t imagine teaching without my teaching assistant! Teaching assistants provide direct teaching and support for all children and we are incredibly lucky to have an exceptionally skilled, dedicated and passionate team of support staff in our school. On behalf of everyone I would like to say ‘THANK YOU’ to all our support staff at Common Road.
Parking
I have been made aware of an incident on the driveway to school where a car was damaged. I just want to remind everyone that we all need to work together as a community to keep our children safe. As Headteacher I have a duty of care to ensure that when on the school site all children are safe, the school site is everything inside the green gates. This is the reason the school car park is closed to allow pedestrians to walk across the site safely. The land beyond the fence and smaller visitor car park is Wakefield Council land and as a school we have no jurisdiction over this. I would ask where possible parents walk their children to school to avoid congestion or park on Broad Lane and use the pedestrian footpath to school. I have contacted our PCSO team to come and do a parking drop-in this month and speak to parents about parking on the drive.
School dinners
Just a reminder that all children (except nursery aged children) are entitled to a free school meal every day, regardless of income. This includes meals such as roast dinner, fish fingers, pizza… but to name a few. Jacket potatoes are available daily with beans, cheese or tuna. For children who prefer sandwiches we also offer ham, tuna and cheese sandwiches daily. All children receive a free pudding and fresh drinking water. Children choose their lunch each morning as they arrive at school and you do not need to let us know in advance if they are having a school meal. If your child has packed lunches perhaps give some thought to dinners, they are free and warm especially as winter approaches.
Special needs support assistant needed
We are looking for a new SEND support assistant for our school. This would be to work directly with our children in school who have additional needs and need support to access the curriculum. The post will be 27.5 hours term time only and be temporary. The post will be paid at scale G4. Application forms are available by email office@commonroad.wakefield.sch.uk The closing date for applications will be Monday 2nd October at 12 noon and interviews will be held later that week. Good luck!
A few dates for your diary:
Tuesday 3rd October – School photos
Thursday 5th October – Dress as a word day / Miss Brown’s class assembly
Friday 6th October – School closed for teacher training
Tuesday 10th October – World Mental Health Day / Miss Adams’ class assembly
Thursday 19th October – Year 2 visit to the coal mining museum
Friday 20th October – Year 1 visit to Pontefract castle
WC 23rd October – Parent meetings with teachers
Wednesday 25th October – Harvest festival – Bring a tin day (all donations will go to our local soup kitchen) / Miss Perry’s class assembly
Thursday 26th October – Halloween movie night (Hocus Pocus)
Friday 27th October – Halloween fancy dress. Please can this be child friendly and age appropriate e.g. a witch, a cat, etc. no characters from horror movies etc as this has happened in the past and has scared our very young children. Thank you. On this day children are invited to bring a coloured donation for our fundraising hampers e.g. pack of biscuits, crackers etc Reception and Nursery are invited to bring in RED donations, Year 1 WHITE donations and Year 2 GREEN donations. These can be given to the child’s teacher on the day.
School closed for the October break Friday 27th October and re-opens 6th November 2023.
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter and for your continued support to our school. As always this is much appreciated.
Yours sincerely,
Mrs Danielle Edwards
Headteacher
