Sunshine! ☀️ I hope you all had a great half term; the weather (finally) was wonderful and it has continued in the same vein this week. Long may it continue!

Lots on the newsletter this week; the weeks seem to be flying by at the moment. I hope you all have a great weekend.

In The Media

I just wanted to let you know where things stand at school in relation to some of the stories and reports that have been in the media lately.

• Lengthening the School Day. Is not going to happen. We won’t be lengthening the school day for any of our children as we do not think it will have a positive impact at all. There has been no direction from the LA or the Government, and even if there was, we would still be saying that we are not going to lengthen the day, be that through additional time at school or through shortening the lunch time, which has been mentioned in the press.
• Shorter Summer Holidays. Will also not happen. Any provision for any summer activities will be purely voluntary and will not involve any ‘academic’ activities/lessons. Children will not be asked to break up later or come back to school earlier. Just like any other year!
• Relaxing of Restrictions. Plenty of leaks, but nothing definite yet! It is looking likely that the 21st June date will be pushed back, but at the moment we don’t know any more than that.We are still awaiting direction/notification about what is going to happen for the remainder of this term, and the beginning of next. It is highly unlikely that anything will change for the rest of this term, and as soon as we have an idea of what is going to happen in September we will let you know.

Parking Around School

Again, please be considerate when parking around school. We have had a number of calls this week from residents in Pedmore Lane about blocking of drives and cars parking right up to the roundabout, causing issues for cars on that side of the road. Please be considerate of residents who live around school.

Break The Rules Day

An update from PTA…the last ‘Break the Rules Day’ raised over £500.00 for school. ?Wow!? Thank you to everyone who donated.

#Ditto Magazine

The latest copy of Ditto Magazine can be found on the E-safety page of the school website.

Pedmore Thrive

The latest copy of Pedmore Thrive (issue #17) can be found here.

Sports Day

All our plans are in place to run sports day on Monday (14th). Unfortunately, nothing has changed so we are not able to invite any parents or carers to watch the events with us. We will be taking some video and photos and hope to share those with you next week. If you do not want your child(ren) to be on the video or photographed then please let school know before Monday.

Please make sure that your child has any earrings removed if they can’t do it themselves: staff can’t remove any child’s earrings in school and children can’t do PE with them in. Dudley LA’s policy is that earrings aren’t worn and they can’t be covered up with plasters either. This is something that has been part of Dudley’s policy for many years and it is something we have to adhere to. I appreciate that there may have been a couple of children last week who did a PE session with plasters over their earrings; this shouldn’t have happened and we won’t be able to do this in the future. Please also make sure any long hair is tied back or a band is provided to keep hair away from your child’s face. Thank you.

P.E. Reminder

As mentioned above, no jewellery is allowed to be worn during PE. If your child can’t take their own earrings out, then please make sure they are removed before coming to school as staff are not able to remove them. We have always recommended that children have their ears pierced in the summer holidays so they have enough time for everything to settle down, meaning they are able to remove them for PE from the September. Also, long hair needs to be tied back so please can you provide bobbles/ties/bands. Thank you.

World Music Day – Monday June 21st – Dress as a Rock Star!

We will be celebrating World Music Day in school on Monday 21st June and each class will be doing some music-themed work and activities. We are giving children (and staff!) the option to come dressed as their favourite rock star, just for a bit of fun. ?

LGBTQ+ and How People are Different

Over the course of the next year, we will be looking at our provision in school for teaching children about how we are all different and what that means and can look like. The new PSHE curriculum comes in from September and during the Autumn term we will be sharing with you how we are addressing that and what changes there will be in the way we address some issues. Any form of homophobic bullying, however rare it may be at Pedmore, has to be dealt with quickly and in the right way. The use of that kind of language mainly comes from a position of ignorance, and, as a school, it is vitally important that we give the children in our care all the information they need to be properly informed.

We want to involve parents and carers all the way through this process, and will send more details about how we will do this later on. If anyone would like to be involved in any forums we set up with staff, parents and governors to look at this, then please let me know.

New School MIS System

We have moved over to a new school Management Information System, which is where we record all of yours and your child’s details. You can see how we use this data and what we collect by looking at our Data Protection Policy, Information Security Policy and Privacy Notice, available here. Over the next term Mrs Perry will be contacting you about setting up an APP, which links directly to the MIS, enabling you to be able to receive messages, update details etc. This is something we will roll out over the next term.

Forest School Fundraiser

If you haven’t booked your place yet, details can be found here. Not many places left!

Summer Dance Camp

If your child is interested in dance, you may be interested in the dance camp that’s running in the summer holidays. Details here.

And Finally…

Our new outdoor play and reflection area video is here for you to see! It’s around 5 minutes and gives you a good look at what we now have. It has been used lots so far by groups and classes throughout the school day. Have a look!

Take Care & Stay Safe

Mr Dunn