Amble First School
www.amble.firstschool.org.uk
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Newsletter, March 2017
Dear Parents and Friends,
We hope you all enjoyed the half term break – we are now all preparing for
that very special time in school… Easter! Details of our events are below.
Coming soon…
 Easter holidays - school closes at the usual time on Friday 7th April
and re-opens on Monday 24th.
 Year 3 residential trip to Dukes House Wood is on 22nd – 24th March.
 Beach week – all classes will visit the beach at some point during week
commencing 27th March (details below).
 Easter Service at St Cuthbert’s Church, Thursday 6th April at
10.00am, followed by tea, coffee and hot cross buns back at school.
Nursery will be having their own celebration, in school on the same day.
Details of arrangements for nursery will be sent out by Mrs Donaldson.
 Fat Mermaid visit – years 1 – 4 will be visiting the café and harbour on
Wednesday 5th April to learn more about some of our local birdlife. See
below for more details. Years 2 and 3 in the morning, and 1 and 4 in the
afternoon.
 Red Nose Day – be as whacky as you like in what you wear to school
today – Friday 24th March.
Beach week
We love making the most of the natural resources available to us in Amble and
try to get out to do our learning on the beach at least once
a term! Dates for this term’s visits are
 Reception – Tuesday 28th March
 Years 1 and 2 – Thursday 30th March
 Years 3 and 4 – Wednesday 29th March
Children should come dressed warmly and with waterproofs if possible.
Sensible footwear is essential. Teachers will let you know if a packed lunch or
any other equipment is required. If the weather is REALLY bad, visits will be
postponed, but we expect that all classes will go at some point.
Health and Safety procedures
For the safety of children and staff, we have a clear policy that
any visitors to the school MUST sign in, come in through the front
door and be accompanied by a member of staff.
However, there have recently been several occasions when parents
have come into school through both the front and back doors
without letting anyone know and without a member of staff to escort them.
Much as we welcome parents in school, it is vital that everyone who enters the
building when children are in has signed in at the front door, has a visitor
badge if they are staying for more than a couple of minutes and is
accompanied by a member of staff – please help us to stick to our routines for
everyone’s sake.
If you need to see a class teacher or other member of staff and they are not
available on the playground at the start or end of day, just ask another staff
member, who will try to locate who you need or find someone else who can
help.
Information point
We have now completed the building work in our meeting room (the wooden
structure opposite year 4) and a selection of school forms and documents are
now available in the corridor. If you need holiday forms, holiday dates, nursery
applications, newsletters etc., why not try there first and save having to wait
in a queue at the office?
Attendance
Year 2 have been our best attenders for the last two half terms and
have been rewarded with trips to the park on Acklington Road.
Great performance, year 2!
We do have some concerns about the current levels of absenteeism at school
and are working hard with our Educational Welfare Officer to address this.
Did you know that if your child’s attendance falls below 90% they are
classified as a persistent absentee? If this happens we are no longer able to
authorise absences for any reason.
To encourage children to attend regularly, we have a number of reward
systems in place;
*our class of the week gets a star on the attendance wall and the
trophy in the classroom for a week,
*best class of the half term gets a visit to the park,
*trip to Spurelli’s for ice cream in the summer term for 100%
attendance all year.
We will be introducing some additional incentives soon, with termly 100%
attendance badges and “Class of the Month” rewards too.
Please support us in helping your child be as successful as possible in school by
ensuring they come regularly and if you think that there are any issues that
mean that children are not keen to come, please let us know and we will do our
utmost to sort it out.
Fat Mermaid
Thanks to Paul Morrison from RSPB Coquet Island for
arranging to come into school to talk to children in year
1 -4 about some of our local birds and to carry out
some art and craft activities. This will be followed by a
trip for these classes to the Fat Mermaid Café and a
walk around the harbour to learn about Coquet Island. Paul has links with a
café in France too, and both places are keen to celebrate our local wildlife so
this is a great way of developing some international links too! More details to
follow nearer the time, but if you are able to help with escort duty, we would
appreciate that greatly – please let class teachers know.
Parent Volunteers
If any parent would like to volunteer to help during school time, please let us
know. Currently, we could really do with regular help with hearing readers,
escorting children to the swimming baths and with our Friday afternoon “Juice
and Biscuits” sale. Please speak to the office or to class teachers if you are
able to help with any of these. Regular helpers are required to complete a
child protection police check, which is simple and will be paid for by school.
Easter Disco
Continuing with their fabulous fundraising efforts, our PTA
are now planning an Easter disco - date to follow as soon as
arrangements are confirmed.
Parking….
Sadly, we have had further complaints from neighbours about inconsiderate
parking and driving around school. We have also had a visit from the police
asking about this. The police will be carrying out spot checks at peak times of
day over the next few weeks, so yet again, we ask that drivers are safe and
thoughtful when bringing cars onto Edwin Street, Albert Street, Aidan Road
and Lindisfarne Road. Thank you.
Pantosaurus – child safety resources
We have come across some super safety resources produced by the NSPCC.
Based on the idea that “what’s in your pants belongs only to you” there is
information for parents at
https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-childrensafe/underwear-rule/
and a catchy little song and dance for children at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn6AVSZk008
Have fun (and try not to sing it in the supermarket!)
Best wishes to you all, have a lovely Easter Holiday!
The Amble First School Team