Dear Parents and Carers,

Last week’s Pentecost Mass in the hall was a very reverent and special experience for our Year Six. Father Henry, who is reasonably new to our parish explained the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It was a poignant moment as Year Six were so confident in their knowledge because of their preparation for the Sacrament of Confirmation. We hope that this can be rescheduled at some point later in the year.

At the P and F meeting last night we spoke about events that can happen and those we have to either reschedule or reimagine.  The P and F events that will no longer go ahead in their current form are the Parent Social Event pencilled in for June 20th, the Father's Day Breakfast (of course we’ll do something different for the dads) and the Spring Fair. 

As soon as restrictions ease (and working within guidelines) we  will work with the P and F throughout the rest of the year to provide alternate adventures for our students and social opportunities for our parents eg. the school disco may be able to be rescheduled and or reimagined. 

We have rescheduled Book Week to October 19th with the same theme “ Curious Minds Wild Creatures” The children's parade has been scheduled for the 20th October and visiting authors have been booked for the same week. 

A very big thank you to members of the P and F and class parents who kept in touch with families, staff and myself over our online time. They provided feedback, support and guidance in what would have been a very difficult time without them.

We are currently looking at outside providers and have tentatively booked them to be onsite from the beginning of Term 3. This will be confirmed over the next few weeks. The Sports Club are also working with our codes to look at the timelines to return to training.

One of the school’s renovation projects was completed during the last weeks of term and the Easter holidays. The project involved changing the surface of the infants undercroft and redesigning the area. The area is designed as a creative play space for all students in the school. 

Why spend the money to promote creative play? Creative Play plays a very important part in children’s growth and development. There are many ways that it helps promote better physical and mental health. Some of the ways it does this are:

Creative play helps children develop cognitively.

• Play sparks children’s creativity,
• Play improves communication, vocabulary and language, 
• Play promotes impulse control and emotional regulation (turn taking, control of negative emotions and persistence through challenges),
• Play grows social competence and empathy. It helps cultivate social skills and allows practice in negotiation, following rules, co-operation and self control,
• Play teaches life lessons by improving children’s ability to problem solve. It gives them the safe opportunity to rehearse skills and see different perspectives. 

We hope our new play area helps our children begin to develop skills for life and have lots of fun doing so.

Our end of day carline at 2.45pm is very effective (thanks to the many volunteer teachers and the prompt parents). The school day finish at 2.45/2.55pm  is a temporary change not a permanent one. These amended earlier finishing times will continue until further notice in line with Government guidelines to support social distancing at the school gate. If you would like to pick your child up rather than use car line please enter via the back gate as the social distancing and pickup is working very well at this pick up point. 

Parent teacher interviews will be held in Week 9 and 10 (beginning on the 24th June). They will be held via zoom or phone - class teachers will determine which. A link to the booking times will be sent shortly.

Regards

Julie Caldwell

COMPASS: