Newsletters

Newsletters 2023-2024 no. 10 12th January 2024

I hope that you all had an enjoyable school holiday and Christmas. Our return to school has gone very smoothly - it is always lovely to bring the school back to life.

Here's to a wonderful 2024 for everyone with continued happiness, progress, creativity, community spirit, teamwork and positivity at DPS.

As Year 1 parents will be aware, Miss Nocito has now started her maternity leave and as a result, the staffing has changed in Year 1 Brachiosaurus class. In the morning sessions, I teach the class and Mrs Tapp teaches in the afternoons. We are well-supported by Mrs. Anderson and Miss Forward in Stegosaurus class.

As I am now teaching every morning (and loving it), it does mean that any meetings with me would need to be before school, in the afternoon, or after school. It also means that I need to close the gate on time each morning.

School day timings - reminder

The school day starts at 8.45 am every day with the register taken just a few minutes later. Please try hard to get your child to school for this time to avoid missing the beginning of the day and lots of information sharing about the day ahead. Whilst we definitely prefer children to be in school and a little late rather than not at all, it would be good to welcome everyone to the school day at the same time. Thank you

Attendance

Not only do we want to see children in school every day, but we also have a statutory role to monitor attendance to ensure that all children have the greatest access to learning opportunities.

We fully appreciate that illnesses happen and children need to be cared for at home. Wherever possible though, please make non-urgent dental and doctor appointments and haircuts etc, outside school hours. Holidays in term time should also be avoided.

Fines from the Local Authority are issues where there are attendance concerns and holidays in term time.

Governor Updates

Mr. Andy Limbert is our Acting Chair of Governors now that Mr. Peter Nickoll has stepped down (due to relocating). Should you wish to contact Mr Limbert, his email address is as follows: ALGovernor@deanshanger.northants.sch.uk

For further information about our local academy committee, please look on the 'About Us' tab and 'Governor's' page of the school website.

Save the date Invitations - Guides, Tips and advice

We will be hosting a Mother's Day event over lunchtime on

8th March 2024

All mums and mum figures, are warmly invited to join us.

Further info to follow shortly.

PAG Meeting Two – Wednesday 31^st January at 14:30

Our second Parent Action Group meeting of the academic year will be held in the library. The focal point of this meeting will be homework, including what homework your child should be set and how valuable you deem homework to be. I aim to keep the meeting positive and constructive and whilst all opinions are welcome, I want to use your input and ideas to help continue moving the school forward. Everyone is welcome to attend and, after the success of our first meeting, I hope many of you do so.

Mr. Mike Pennington

Deputy Head

Hi,

We are Deanshanger Primary School’s Digital Leaders.

We volunteered to help out with the school’s computing.

It’s our job to address complaints from children and help keep the computers charged and ready for lessons.

We can help children in the school with their computing, and we’ll be helping parents too; through the school website and newsletters, we’ll be giving information about dangerous websites or apps, suggestions of online places that help with homework, safe games to play and sites which are good for creating things.

Because coding is important in today’s world, we want to make a guide to help you and the children understand more about it.

We meet weekly on Wednesday at lunchtime to talk about important areas of Computing we can improve. After that, we run a Computing Club for children in Years 3 -6. In this club we will teach coding (for example, to make a game), give them a look at new safe and useful websites, and have fun!

Children might see us in an assembly soon, because we will be helping with Internet Safety Week.

Also, look out for our Computing Blog – we’ll send details out soon.

If you or your children have any questions, please contact us in school, and we will be pleased to help.

From Cameron, Sam, Taylor-May, Euan, Layla, Vale, Leo and Bayley

Digital Leaders

Please be reminded that orders for Fresh Start lunches need to be placed on the Thursday for the week ahead by 12pm. Should you forget to place an order, you can order on the actual day before 9 am but at this time you can only choose the blue option (jacket potato or pasta) or the yellow option (deli bar).

Over the break, try to remember to plan ahead so that your child is not disappointed by the choices on offer to them.

Fresh Start can cater for allergies – please ensure that you fill in the form on the Fresh Start system. Should you need any help, don’t forget to just let us know We are very aware that children’s food preferences, and even their allergy status, can change so don’t forget to update these as needed.

Feel free to contact us and the catering team if you have any questions about any aspect of lunchtime.

Thank you

Please find below a link to this month's Stay connected newsletter from West Northants council.

This newsletter focuses on all the amazing events, clubs and groups that families, children and young people can access across the country that are free or affordable to attend.

This particular addition contains information about course for parents on the following topics:

Managing anger within the family

Sleep right workshop for parents

Time Out for Parents - Children on the Autism Spectrum

Food workshop - for parents of children with Autism

https://sway.cloud.microsoft/XjtmGhfsKgBFTcOa?ref=email&loc=play

Safeguarding

As part of our training day on Monday, the staff undertook Prevent Duty training.

Prevent is a government strategy designed to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorist or extremist causes.

The Prevent Strategy covers all types of terrorism and extremism, including the extreme far-right wing and extreme Islamist groups.

How does the Prevent strategy apply to schools and parents?

From July 2015 all schools have had a duty to safeguard children from radicalisation and extremism.

This means we have a responsibility to protect children from extremism and violent views the same way we protect them from drugs or gang violence.

The Prevent Strategy is not just about discussing extremism itself, which may not be appropriate for younger children. However, it is about teaching children British Values such as the Rule of Law, Democracy, Individual Liberty, Tolerance and Mutual respect.

Further information can be found on the safeguarding page of our school website.

As always, please report any concerns to our safeguarding team:

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

It's not too late for your children to be part of our invention convention next week.

This year, if possible, we would like the inventions to half the environment in some way with a green / eco funtion. The children are encouraged to record their ideas and plans and then, if at all possible, create a model to demonstrate the invention - it is not expected that the model will work.

The event on 16th January, is an opportunity for all children in the school to share their invention with the school in true Dragon's Den style! Tables will be set up around the hall for the children to showcase their models on. They should be ready to talk about their invention, why they made it and how it works.

If your child is showcasing their invention on 16th January, you are welcome to come along from 2.30pm to see the inventions.

The week after our internal Invention Convention, we will be hosting a Grand Union Partnership one here @DPS for some of the contestants from our school and the other schools in the partnership.

The next three weeks @DPS

Eco Invention Convention

All Day

January

Fencing experience for one class in each year group (Jan 22nd for the rest of the school)

8:45am – 3:25pm

January

Year 6 Spinosaurus Class Assembly

2:40pm – 3:25pm

January

Fencing experience for one class in each year group

8:45am – 3:25pm

January

PTA Meeting @6PM in the school studio

6:00pm – 7:00pm

January

Year 5 Dilophosaurus Class Assembly

2:40pm – 3:25pm

January

Year 4 Allosaurus Class Assembly

2:40pm – 3:25pm

February

Can we please remind you that the car park is for staff use only? As it is limited in size anyway, it makes it very tricky if families use it too.

We recognise that it works fine for early morning drop-offs and late pick-ups (for wrap club) but should be left for staff at all other times. Thank you

We are a no-smoking zone and thank you for respecting this.

Although it is nice and warm inside school, your child must have a warm coat for break and lunchtime, please. Hats, gloves and scarves would be great too. For Forest School, feel free to send in extra warm socks and another jumper. Thank you

Wishing you all a lovely weekend.

Rachel Rice

head@deanshanger.northants-ecl.gov.uk or head@deanshanger.northants.sch.uk

School day timings - reminder

Attendance

Governor Updates

We will be hosting a Mother's Day event over lunchtime on

8th March 2024

PAG Meeting Two – Wednesday 31st January at 14:30

Mr. Mike Pennington

Deputy Head

Over the break, try to remember to plan ahead so that your child is not disappointed by the choices on offer to them.

Feel free to contact us and the catering team if you have any questions about any aspect of lunchtime.

Thank you

Safeguarding

Further information can be found on the safeguarding page of our school website.

It's not too late for your children to be part of our invention convention next week.

The next three weeks @DPS

PAG Meeting Two – Wednesday 31^st January at 14:30