School Dinners
We are extremely lucky at school to have such wonderful kitchen staff working with us. Mrs Matthews and Mrs Lemm, as our school cooks, have been with us for a number of years and they are passionate about delivering high quality food for your children. However, recently we have noticed the numbers of packed lunches increasing and recognise that for many families this is for financial reasons. I continue to work with Herts Catering (HCL) to ensure parents are getting value for money and I have asked them to look at discount schemes for larger families. So far I have got nowhere but I will continue to try!
However, school funding is influenced by the number of children having lunch on particular days – Census days are very important to a school like ours. Therefore I would like to invite ALL pupils, including those who currently have packed lunch to have a school dinner on Thursday 3rd October, Census Day. This is the reason you will have been asked to reorder your child’s lunch for that day. If your child has a packed lunch and they would like a school dinner on the 3rd October, please see the office.
After half term we have a complete change of menu from HCL. Mrs Matthews has studied this and feels it is a much more traditional menu, like we always used to have. Therefore we have decided we will run with this menu for the first 3 weeks. We will then seek views from children & parents about their likes and dislikes and we will monitor how much waste there is. We will then make any changes to personalise the menu to make it a ‘William Ransom’ menu and this will be reflected on Live Kitchen.
Harvest Hampers
Thank you for your wonderful donations of fresh fruit and vegetables for the Harvest Hampers. We managed to create a magnificent 55 prizes and we raised £300 to send to Hitchin Partnership to support vulnerable families.
Well Being Wednesdays
We have introduced a new idea of ‘Well Being Wednesdays’ where there will be an additional focus in school on pupils’ health and well-being. An aspect of well-being will be introduced in an assembly and the children will have opportunities at some point during their day to practice these skills and to focus on their own well-being. We hope this will help some pupils who might get anxious about different things that happen and they may find ways to solve the issue.
Talk Topics
For the last five years we have been sharing Talk Topics with suggestions for a conversation at home. These started with great enthusiasm but towards the end of last year it was getting harder and harder to think of new ideas. We have decided to try a new approach of sending you a question to ask your child. I know many of you get a mute response when you ask ‘What did you do today?’ so perhaps some of our questions will put a positive spin on it and still generate a discussion. These will be posted on Twitter.
Parking
It is encouraging to see how environmentally aware many of our children are and I had some really interesting discussions about climate change following the International day of Action last week. In an assembly we discussed what we could all do to help the environment. Many children commented on cars leaving their engines running in the school car park. That is something we could change! Please DO NOT sit in the school car park with your engine idling. Think of your children and think of the environment.
We do ask that parents avoid parking inside the school grounds as the car park gets extremely busy at the beginning and end of the day. If you need to park in school for reasons of disability, please ask for a school parking permit.
SPA Events
We have been very pleased with attendance at a couple of events this year. We held a welcome drinks evening for our reception parents to give them the opportunity to get to know each other. Thank you to those of you who came and for the positive feedback we have received. Thank you also to those of you who braved the weather and came out for our Family Fun Day last weekend. The SPA organised some great activities and everyone seemed to have a great time. Thank you to all the organisers for their hard work.
Free school meals – are you entitled?
Please remember that as a school we can apply for extra funding when we have children who are on free school meals. This is dealt with on a confidential basis. If you think you might be eligible please follow this link. Alternatively come and talk to me!
Festival of Languages
Today we have had a wonderful Festival of Languages where the children have travelled around the world to different countries (different classrooms!) and learned something new about their culture. Thank you to all the parents who came and joined us today and taught us something about where they come from. It is lovely to be able to celebrate the diverse cultures we have within school.
Please remember if you have any concerns about your child at school, do not hesitate to come in to see me. I look forward to seeing you in school in the very near future.
Yours sincerely
Mary Driver