It has been wonderful to welcome everyone back this week, to get to know our new pupils and families across the school and those joining us in Reception. The week has gone extremely smoothly and we have all commented on how prepared the children were for the return and how calm and focused it has been. Our Chair of Governors, Mr Peter Nickoll, visited on Tuesday to welcome everyone and we both recognised how focused everyone was already! The CEO of the Grand Union Partnership, Mr Phil Webster and the Head of Development, Mr Jez Wilsdon, visited on Wednesday and the same was true. There was, and is, a lovely excited buzz around the school.
The Reception groups have been just incredible this week, taking everything in their stride and showing a real readiness for the start of their school journey!
Over the summer break, the Wrap Club team ran the provision for four weeks. Huge thanks to them for providing lots of fun and excellent care. There was also a huge amount going on in the school as staff set up for the year ahead and lots of maintenance jobs were tackled. You’ll recall that we had a couple of volunteer days at the end of the summer term - these had an incredible impact on our provision and made a big difference to us. Thank you so much.
The two training days gave us the opportunity to welcome to staff, get together with the other schools in the Trust, focus on the main priorities for the year, and be inspired by the poet Harry Baker - he was phenomenal! We hope to welcome him to our school at some point. We also had an update training in Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) and safeguarding.
As we look forward to the year ahead, our plans are firmly in place to provide your children with a safe and inspiring environment in which to make good progress, have lots of fun, build a strong sense of community, and thrive.
If you have any ideas or concerns about your child’s education at any time, please be sure to pass these on immediately as it is very important to us that there is honest and open communication.
We are pleased to welcome new staff to the team this week and benefit from their different areas of expertise and experiences. They will help support our ongoing commitment to providing the best educational opportunities possible.
You will get to know more about our new teachers, and indeed all staff, in the coming weeks.
Mr Mike Pennington - Deputy Head, Year 6 teacher in Spinosaurus Class and Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead
Miss Rosalba Nocito - Year 1 teacher in
Brachiosaurus class
Mr John Bass - Year 4 teacher in
Allosaurus class
A very warm welcome back to Mrs Zoe Watson as she returns to Reception; the very same classroom and year group that we waved her off from two years ago.
It's wonderful to have Zoe's passion and skills back on the staff team.
We are also fortunate to have Mrs. Emilie Simons teaching in Year 5 Ankylosaurus, one day a week alongside Mrs Hannah Bailey.
Emilie will be familiar to you as she has been working as our librarian for the past year.
We are also delighted that although Miss Rosanna Zeolla has moved from her SEND role, she hasn't gone too far! She is now working alongside Mrs Hannah Hodge in the school office, so you'll see her and Hannah lots.
At the end of the summer term, the PTA commissioned a very special gift to the school in honour of the dedication and immense impact of Mrs Sarah Webb, our former deputy head, during her 21 years at DPS. Recognising her love of reading, and how she has tirelessly supported its development across the school (and a lot more), they commissioned a new reading area – one in which we will all delight in stories for years to come and think about the impact that Sarah had on our school. The spider’s web on the plaque is a subtle nod to Mrs Webb.
Thank you very much to the PTA for this new area, to the wonderful group of craftspeople who built the chair and stools and, of course, to Mrs Webb for everything that she brought to the Deanshanger community.
Safeguarding
Our prime responsibility as a school is to ensure that all children (and adults) in it are safe, that procedures are in place to ensure this, and that we fully support children who have been identified as requiring protection.
Safeguarding training is regular and last week, on the training days, we received updated safeguarding training as a Trust. The core document referenced is Keeping Children Safe in Education 2023.
Everyone in the school setting is trained to support safeguarding, but the following staff have particular responsibilities.
Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) - Mrs Rachel Rice
Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads (DDSLs) - Mrs. Lynn Mildren, Mrs. Natalie Parsonson, Miss. Steph Forward and Mr. Mike Pennington.
Recognising and understanding the use of a variety of Apps formed another part of our training. Although child-friendly apps can make using the internet a more accessible and enjoyable experience, the thousands of apps available for different types of people mean it’s important to make sure children use appropriate ones.
The table below shows just some of the Apps available and the age ratings, but even more so after our training, I would recommend looking carefully at what your child is accessing and ensuring that parental controls are set up.
We will regularly share general safeguarding information with you, but always make contact if you have any specific concerns or questions. Keeping children safe is everyone's responsibility.
Reading Mornings
We are excited to re-launch Reading Mornings from Monday (11th September). As your children come into school at 8.45am, you are warmly invited to join them into class and spend 15 minutes reading with them in class. This is open to all year groups. If you have more than one child, you can either take it in turns to visit their classroom or read with them all at the same time. At 9.00am as you leave (via the main entrance), all children will move to their regular classrooms for the register.
We are always keen to have volunteers in the school to help with different activities and reading. Please let us know if you have an hour or so free and would like to support us on a regular basis.
If you are good at caring for fish and fish tanks and would enjoy volunteering to care for our fish on a monthly basis, please also let us know. Thank you
On Monday 11th September, at the end of the school day, we encourage you to come and help yourself to wellies from a huge pile of boots that will be outside the front area of the school; these are all unnamed and unable to be returned.
In the same way that we encourage you to help yourself to pre-loved uniform, please help yourself to any pre-loved welly boots for forest school use.
Fresh Start catering provides delicious meals for children across the school. As there is a great variety of freshly prepared meals on offer, and these meals are fully funded by the Department for Education for children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2, we strongly encourage children in Reception, to sign up and have them on a daily basis. There is a daily offer of a meat, vegetarian, jacket potato or pasta option and the deli bar. To round it all off, there is always fruit and other desserts on offer.
Wherever possible, we would really prefer not to see any packed lunches in these year groups due to the variety and quality of food that is on offer.
The Fresh Start lunches are also open to Year 3,4,5 and 6, but there is a £2.50 charge for these.
If your child has dietary needs or allergies, these can all be catered for by Fresh Start.
If you need to know anything about the lunches, would like to pop in and try one or need help getting onto the system to book your child's lunches, please make contact with the school office.
In addition to pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2, you might be entitled to a free school meal for your child...
Who is entitled to Free School Meals (FSM) in England?
Parents do not have to pay for school lunches if they receive any of the following:
Income Support
Income-based Jobseekers Allowance
Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
Support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
The guaranteed element of State Pension Credit
Child Tax Credit (provided they are not also entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual gross income of no more than £16,190)
Working Tax Credit run-on – paid for 4 weeks after a person stops qualifying for Working Tax Credit
Universal Credit – with a household income of less than £7,400 a year (after tax and not including any benefits) from 1 April 2018, with transitional protections for existing claimants
Children who get any of the above benefits in their own right (i.e. they get benefits payments directly, instead of through a parent or guardian) can also get free school meals.
Again, please make contact if any of the criteria above apply and you would like support.
It has been great to see so many of the children engaged with reading over the break and now starting to log this on Accelerated Reading.
The address formerly used to access tests is now invalid for home and school use. The new portal link is as follows :
If you have any questions about Accelerated Reading, you can either ask your child's teacher or Mr Nik Larcombe, one of our English Champions. For children In Reception, Year 1, and possibly Year 2, Reading Eggs is already up and running, and E-Collins. For any questions about this, you can either ask your child's teacher or Miss Steph Forward, English Champion (and Phase 1 Leader).
Full information will be shared about the clubs starting soon on Monday 11th September
From Monday (11th September), all children in the school that enjoy running and want a healthy start to their school day, are able to join Mrs Young for 'Run a Mile in Style'. Children must be dropped off at the school office at 8.30am. The miles that each child runs, is converted into points for the house team and added to the points on sports days.
Children do not need to be wearing their running clothes, but must wear their PE trainers. As this free opportunity is only 15 minutes, the children can not join if they turn up in the office after 8.30am.
Many thanks to Tom Harris and his family for taking great care of Terry the Tortoise over the summer break. He has come back faster than ever, it really is a myth that they are slow, and as popular as always!
If you would like to care for him over the October half-term break, please make contact.
Communication
If you have been part of our school community before this week, you will know how important open and honest communication is to us and how much we appreciate it to work in partnership with you.
There are multiple ways that you can contact us:
By writing a note in your child’s home/school diary
Sending an email to your child’s class teacher and requesting a meeting - please allow up to 48 hours for a reply
If you have any concerns or complaints about school life that have been unresolved, then you can contact our Chair of Governors, Mr Peter Nickoll PNGovernor@deanshanger.northants.sch.uk
If you are not sure about anything related to school life, we are here to help you and should be able to provide any information that you need.
We keep the school website up to date and share lots of information about school life on it including the school's event calendar. You can subscribe to the calendar to have all the dates uploaded to the calendar on any device that you use.
You might also choose to follow us on X (formerly Twitter) using DeanshangerS. This is another chosen way of sharing information, photos and videos.
Wishing you all a lovely weekend.
Rachel Rice
head@deanshanger.northants-ecl.gov.uk or head@deanshanger.northants.sch.uk
