Welcome back!
I hope your children had a good break and that the weather was kind to you.
It was lovely to see all the friendly smiles from the children as they arrived this morning – we had a beautiful calm start to the new term.
I am writing primarily to share some photos of the new school hall, which I will do in just a moment but can I first mention just two things…
Ordering Meals through Arbor
Thank you so much to everyone who ordered their child’s school meals through the Arbor system. I hope it was reasonably easy to do – of course, a new system is always something to get used to and it should become easier as the weeks go on.
There was a mess up with which week of the menu was put up on the system which meant we had a bit of untangling to do at our end. Hopefully sorted now.
A really, really helpful thing that you can do to give the children the smoothest start to the day is using the system even if your child has a packed lunch from home. If you are able to book that for us then the teacher doesn’t need to ask every single day.
Poppy Appeal
We will have children on the gate selling poppies (as well as key rings and ‘snap bands’) every day this week. At other times, the collecting tin and the tray of poppies will be available at the school reception. Just remember to pop a coin in your pocket. Funds, as I’m sure you know, go the the Royal British Legion.
Every year, tens of thousands of veterans, serving personnel, and their families, turn to the Royal British Legion for help. It could be with money or housing problems, physical or mental health challenges, help caring for a loved one, loneliness, or a family breakdown. Whatever the need, the RBL is there providing practical support and expert guidance thanks to the funds raised through the poppy appeal. Every little helps and there is no minimum donation for any of the items
Building News
Hurrah and Thank Goodness! Our friends from Portacabin managed to instal the shell of the new school hall over the half term break and are now hard at work connecting it to services and fitting it out. The first week of half term was just too windy for the crane to lift the slices of the structure into place but they found a window on Wednesday and Thursday last week getting the last slice into place on Thursday morning just as the wind was starting to pick up again.
We haven’t been allowed in just yet – it’s still an area for hard hats and steel toecaps – but we commandeered one of the builders and sent him in with Mr Keirle’s phone to take some pictures for us to share. The photo’s below hopefully give you some impression of the space inside the new building. There is plenty of storage space at both ends of the hall, a big kitchen area, space for us to move the library into the hall and lots of space for all the things you usually do in a school hall like lunches, assemblies, PE lessons and the rest.
Although the critical craning in of the slices was delayed by a week, Portacabin have rescheduled the work and expect to hand the build over to us as planned in a couple of week’s time. The children are back on our tiny ‘pocket playground’ until then – we will get them out onto the field whenever the weather allows. As with the precious phase, there is limited parking up at the school site and anyone who can park in the triangle or walk from home can really help us out by doing so.
