Dear Parents/Carers,

Thank you for your patience, kind words and awareness with everything that is happening/has happened this week. We have enjoyed welcoming people back into school for Parent's Evenings, thank you for following the expectations and returning the books as requested.

Values at Madley

Attached is a document that exemplifies how people who work at Madley Primary feel about values, their connection to children and learning. It is a privilege to work alongside people so dedicated to the children, opportunities and constant development.

Roof works - as you can see it has all started and this week has been extremely busy. Thank you to parents/carers in Class R and 1 who have adjusted quickly and made coming in/going out work. The actual roofing work starts on Monday and will move around the school roof from the ICT room and Year 2 to Year 1 and Reception to Year 4 ! It is all being paid for by the Local Authority as it is their school building.

From Monday Year 2 and the ICT room will be out of action as we cannot be in a room with heat and work happening above. A separate e-mail for arrangements will be sent to Year 2 parents/carers as they will be using the Parish Hall next door (this will also apply to Year R and Year 1 in a few weeks and then Year 4 after that).

We need to have the roof fixed as water pours in when it rains, if we waited until next Summer it would be too disruptive and not safe. We are taking the disruption now so we can have a dry future !

The generator will not be running whilst you drop off or pick up as the exhaust points towards the children and you !

All of this happens whilst the school still functions and alongside everything else.........

Children In Need - Friday 19th November will be 'Fancy Dress Day' and the challenge is not to buy anything new but use what you have or make/borrow/swap. There is no theme except to dress up and bring a donation of at least £1 for Children In Need.

Remembrance

Year 6 were amazing at forest school around the fire as they stopped for the two minute silence. They were so respectful and thoughtful.

The rest of the school also displayed great respect and thoughtfulness by forming a huge circle and holding the two minute silence together outside.

Forest School reflections (all of the following happened this week !).

This week Reception and Year 1 displayed how safe they can be around the fire.

Year 2 did some amazing map reading and tracked deer using our story maps.

Year 6 classified leaves and also reflected on remembrance and conflict around the fire. They also saw 12 deer (including 2 stags) moving across the forest school area.

Year 4 completed their Young Foresters Award with Tim from The Royal Forestry Society.

Year 5 were on-site this week but produced some amazing, natural North American head-dresses using leaves to represent feathers and they were only allowed to use natural materials (no glue, sellotape or anything artificial !). They also produced some amazing leaf art and took the attached photos themselves (focussing on form, composition and light).

There are photos of examples of all of the above on Twitter (@MadleyPrimarySc).

Attendance/Covid/sickness

WE ARE COVID FREE ! (that's done it !!). If we have another 'free' week then we can mix at breaktimes/lunchtimes and open up some more things.

As you can see below attendance is good and rates of sickness etc are low.

Have a good weekend, roof works start properly on Monday.

kind regards

Mr Batstone