Our first days of the 2024-25 academic year have certainly been busy and, already, we have solved some difficult scenarios by working well together. Thank you for everyone’s cooperation.
To our new families, it is a warm welcome and to all families returning: welcome back.
This could well be the 8th year I have been Head at Thurlbear and my 13th year at the school! In all that time – and those miles travelled – my passion and drive to help Thurlbear pupils enjoy their school days and achieve as much as they can hasn’t diminished. I look forward to another school year of working alongside you all.
On the side of our school is the Foundation Stone with the Bible inscription “Train up a child in the way he should go….” (we use ‘they go’ to include everyone) And we try and live up to this vision daily. I talk to our children about being ‘a Thurlbear family’ as I feel our lives in school in many ways follow the same patterns and pathways as our lives at home. Just like lots of families, we aren’t perfect, and we will get things wrong. We try not to make the same mistake twice and always aim to communicate as effectively as possible when things change or we spot an error. You’ll make mistakes, too, and that is fine! Forgetting events, who’s picking up or a lost lunch order; contacting us and talking will help us all. office@thurlbearprimaryschool.co.uk is our Office email and we endeavour to get back to you the same day if you have a query. Mrs Carter is our excellent ‘Office Team’. You might need to leave a message between approximately 1:25 – 2:15pm daily and after 2pm on Thursdays.
Our Christian Values:
Thankfulness, Hope, Friendship, Wisdom and Trust (friendship is this half term!)
We focus on these values in many of our Collective Worships and our Church visitors from the Seven Sowers benefice – Rev Joanna and her team – also use these to keep us all united in thought and vision. In each half term, we look at a new value and classes lead their own Key Stage worships with this theme at its heart. Rev Joanna also sends us updates of Benefice worships in our local churches, which we then pass on to our families.
Your children will be part of 4 church groups in our school:
We use these groups at events, such as Sports Day and for Inter-house competitions! You will be notified as to the team your child has joined (siblings join the same colour Saint!).
When relevant, I will aim to collate the most important weekly information, updates, signposts and requests from teachers, office team and me, ensuring you don’t miss out on key information.
Social Media / Website / Parental Engagement tools:
1. We do have a Facebook page for both our school and our PTA (more on this later), and this is where I publish a link to the newsletter. Facebook is a wonderful tool for lots of people, but many of you will not use it. You will not miss any newsletters or updates if you do not use Facebook, as I paste information into both our website and FB.
2. Our website has a blog where I post our weekly newsletters as well as any news updates. You can SUBSCRIBE to this blog and never miss out on information. Simply got to our school website https://www.thurlbear.somerset.sch.uk/news/ and enter your email, hitting subscribe, afterwards! You will then be automatically sent blog items (newsletters/news etc).
3. Every class will also have a specific parental engagement tool. For years 1 to 6, this will be Class Dojo, where teachers and parent/carers can communicate securely about your own child, as well as post general class messages. Teachers will let you know more about this in their own half termly newsletters. Here is an excellent example from Year 5:
Dojo is a brilliant place to share photos securely and I regularly comment on the work done or updates from families! Foundation Stage pupils will have Tapestry and, again, Mrs Strong and Miss Quartly will give out more information to Chestnut parents. We also have Miss Shearman starting an apprenticeship with us; we warmly welcome her and she has made a great start.
4. These engagement tools are excellent, but they have limitations! PLEASE don’t expect immediate responses if you send messages using FaceBook, as I don’t monitor it during school hours and I don’t have access to it over the weekends. Email or phone the office is the route for an immediate response! Also, please bear in mind that teachers should separate professional and personal lives and, therefore, should not be replying to any messages you send during the evening. We also have teachers who are not working full-time, so won’t be accessing communications on their non-working days. Again, message the office if you have a concern or update for us. We always try and reply on the same day.
Uniform: everyone has turned up looking incredibly smart! During the year, the main things that happen are:
1. Shoes fall to bits. Please just communicate with us if something goes wrong with school shoes. We understand it can take some time to replace them. If possible, keep them plain, black and without flashing lights, hidden toys or edible pieces (I made that bit up, but it wouldn’t surprise me). Shoes simply need to be sensible, safe and practical. Our pupils grow out of them so quickly, it might be good to create a swap-shop for shoes!
2. Hair accessories. Without sounding draconian, please ensure that headbands, scrunchies, alice bands, hair clip and bobbles are discrete and simple in colour! We aren’t trying to suck the fun out of hair care, but it simply keeps a consistency across the school and we can celebrate the uniqueness of our children through their living and learning in the school day (and they can express themselves through their hair on a Dress Down Friday!).
3. Pre-loved. The school has some used uniform that is in very good condition. Families can access and Mrs Linthorne, a parent, kindly oversees this for us. I am sure there will be information regarding this very soon.4. PLEASE name everything. We have a lost property and it saddens me greatly to see so many items that get left in there. The Year 6 try and help me give it back out but the amount of clothes without names makes this almost impossible…the sniff test is not perfect! Lots of you are teachers or work in schools. If you have any genius things that work for your settings, please let me know; I am not precious!
Lunches: All lunches can be booked through the School Grid system and Mrs Carter can help get you set up. Just as a reminder: if your child is in Foundation Stage, Year 1 or 2, they are entitled to the Universal Infant Free School meal (UIFSM) and, therefore, no payment is required. However, you still need to order a meal!
Currently, we have nut, egg and sesame seed allergies in school, so please be very mindful of these restrictions when sending in your child’s lunch. We would never discard your child’s food for containing these and would always communicate with you. Regarding egg content in lunches, we say:
NO mayonnaise NO egg sandwiches NO mini picnic eggs /scotch eggs. These measures are put in place for the protection of our pupils who will be at risk if these requests are ignored. We monitor lunchboxes as effectively as possible, but no system is perfect and we rely on families supporting us by following our rules.
A common year-on-year concern for families is the route in to and out from our school! Just some things to consider:
- We are a rural school and tractors / combines rightly need to use our roads around school; please be mindful of them at key times in the day.
- The speed limit outside of our school is a ludicrous 60mph! There is an now advisory 20mph during the start and end of the school day and we have flashing signs that should warn motorists.
- If families could try and stick to our suggested route to and from school in a one-way system, it really does make it much better. We now have a minibus service for families on the Staple Fitzpaine side of school! This is very welcome development, but please do be mindful that it travels the opposite direction to the suggested flow.
- Please drive safely through the village, for the sake of the whole community. And please remember that we have a small number of families who walk to school. Please pass them slowly and with consideration.
Throughout the year, the teachers will be monitoring the opportunities for any visits OFF the site as well as inviting experts in. Where these visits are planned, we will give families as much time as possible to plan for payments. Teachers will communicate via their own newsletters and Class Dojo. We will also be very mindful of costs of trips. As we have mentioned before, our location makes it very expensive for coaches, so this will be taken into consideration when we plan trips. We do NOT make a profit from trips! Every penny requested is for the event.
Safeguarding is not just child protection; it is every-day guarding-the-safety of our pupils. It’s why we walk around school, why we hang up bags rather than leave them on the floor and why we have Golden Rule no.7: Do Be Safe!
Alongside this is our safe contact with you, our parents and carers. Please ensure that we have your most up to date information in school, including your mobile number, a work number, a home number if applicable and an email address. It is also necessary for us to have at least one other emergency contact should we not be able to reach you; someone local, ideally. Over the holidays, lots can change in your lives so, for example, if you move, let us know. If there are split families, we will always endeavour to get consistent communications to both parents, so please do work with us to achieve this.
We have your consent for photos, photos on the website and on our social media, and to be displayed in school. I love to publish great things about our pupils and an image will not be accompanied by the child’s full name etc.
Communication on pick-ups: one of our biggest issues can be when your pick-up plans change suddenly! We fully understand that things crop up, but please do communicate with us as soon as you can. We won’t let your child go with someone else if we haven’t been given the permission by the main carer / parent to the office team (please not notify us on class dojo, as it might not be read in time). In these instances, we contact the family and speak directly. Please do not be upset if we respectfully keep the child until we have verified; it is done with the very best of intentions!
Allergies: in school, we operate a strict no-egg and no-nuts policy due to pupils with severe allergies, as mentioned above! A polite reminder that, if you have a child with asthma, you should ensure we have an up-to-date inhaler available in the classroom.
Just as a general reminder, I (Mr Gillan) am the Designated Safeguarding Lead and Mrs Lucas and Mrs Burke is the Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead. All TAs have had up to date safeguarding training and know what to do if they have any concerns regarding our children, concerns about staff and if they have concerns about my conduct. I feel it important for families to know that everyone in school is accountable for their conduct and we are equitable in our professionalism.
Our after-school sports clubs start on Monday (gymnastics is in full-swing). We try to provide a range of clubs within our human resource partners and we ask our values Team to help suggest what clubs. Huge thanks to parents Mrs Powell and Mr Prisk for volunteering to run choir and football club respectively.
At the moment, we have Mr Lloyd delivering drum tuition and Mr Snowden with guitar lessons. Both are fantastic professionals and work with pupils across the age ranges. If you are considering lessons, then get in touch and we can pass on details.
If parents / carers want to book any breakfast or after school slots, then please ring Mrs Carter for guidance, who can then advise on setting up a School Gateway account.
I will publish a separate news blog including all dates we have for this half term, including Celebration Worships, led by a different class weekly and you are invited to watch. We will also be inviting parents to see their children receive a Worker of the Week award in the Friday Worship. Teacher swill Dojo or tapestry a message to inform you the day before. We cannot give you more advanced warning, as a pupil is building up a bank of excellent conduct or work examples during that week.
