Welcome back to everyone! I hope you and your families have had a relaxing summer break and are refreshed and ready for an exciting autumn term. It has been wonderful seeing the children all being allowed to mix together, see their friends and teachers in other year groups and in short feel like ordinary schoolchildren again. They are all so excited to be back and the school has been resounding with laughter and joy once again.
A heartfelt welcome to our new staff who have joined us this year: Miss Hobbs (1AH), Miss Chambers (2SC), Miss Flanagan (3CF), Mr Travers (5LT), Mr Porter (Sports), Mrs Lotriet (teaching assistant) and Miss Knight (teaching assistant). We hope they will settle in and quickly feel part of the St Patrick’s family.
Next week we look forward to welcoming our new Foundation children, who are starting part-time.
Thank You
While the school was on holiday, a number of people were working incredibly hard to keep the school clean, maintained and running smoothly. So a big thank you to our cleaning staff Mrs Homer, Mrs Bieda, Mrs Biles and Miss Payne, our site manager Mr Homer, our Business Manager Mrs Lindfield and of course our Family Liaison Officer, Mrs Mullin.
Holiday Club
This was a great success and the children enjoyed such a range of activities including archery, circus skills, cooking and zoo-keeping! Thank you to our regular team of Sharon, Molly, Hayley, Maka, Bekah and James and all the other staff who gave up their time to help. We are hoping to get funding for the next holidays and it would really help to have some more feedback from anyone who attended. You can do this on the feedback form by 5pm Thursday 16th:
Playground
We are slowly getting there! We were in the unfortunate situation that our original contractor pulled out of the job 2 days before we were due to start and our architect, Liam Watford from Hop Architects, had to spend the first few weeks of the summer holiday re-tendering the job, with the result that the tarmacking was only just finished in time for this week.
You may have noticed today that there are large piles of bark chippings ready to be laid around the trees over the weekend and a new canopy will also be installed outside 2GN. We can then start to plan the different areas of the playground in more detail. Watch this space!
Dates for the Term
We are finalising dates of events for this term and will send out to you next week; they will also be on the website and on the new Arbor app.
Could You Help?
Now that we are allowed to have visitors back in school again, we would be very grateful for any parents (or grandparents) that may be able to spare a few hours a week to help in school; this could be to hear reading, to help with gardening or to help in our new school library (particularly anyone with library experience!). Please contact the school office if you think you could help.
Arbor App/ Parent Portal
There has been a great response to this and a large number of our parents have already signed up. If you’re having any difficulties logging in, please contact the school office.
Pupil Premium and Free School Meals
This is the time of year when we are checking and updating our records. If you think you might qualify for this benefit, please contact the school office and they will be able to help you. It not only provides free school meals, but help with other costs, free music lessons and some extra tuition.
In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples that anyone who wants to follow him must take up his cross – in other words, be prepared to suffer difficulties; life today is not easy, particularly with all the issues in our world today. Next Tuesday, 14th September, we celebrate the feast of the Triumph of the Cross - if we follow Jesus’ loving example, we can conquer anything,
Have a lovely weekend.
Michael Lobo