Good Morning Brown Clee!

We have been thinking about how important it is to treat others with respect and be kind.  Kindness is such an important quality, and sometimes, in the heat of the moment, we can say or do things that aren’t as kind as they should be.  It is so important that we try and think before we act or speak, so that we can regulate our actions and words.

In the Bible,  Jesus was asked which commandment was the first and most important of all. Jesus answered, ‘The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.’”  (Mark 12:29-31).

Here is a parable that Jesus told his followers to help teach them to be kind – it is called “The Good Samaritan”…

What did you think when watching?  Can you think of a time when someone has been kind to you?  How did it make you feel?  How did you react?

Prayer of the Day

Dear God,
Please help us to look each day for opportunities to be kind to others.
Help us never to be so busy looking after ourselves that we forget about other people.
Amen.

Good Morning Brown Clee!

We have been focusing on the importance of Kindness this week – and how sometimes a small thoughtful word or action can make a big difference to how someone might feel.  Sometimes we don’t know that our friends are feeling down or sad, but it is amazing how powerful a small act of kindness might be!

Here is a short story about Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed!  Enjoy listening and have a think about the difference Mary made to an ordinary world!

Have a think now – what could you do today, an ordinary day, to care for someone else?

Prayer of the Day

Dear God,
Please help us to be kind to those around us.
Please help us to think about the needs of other people.
Please help us to seek to live in peace.
Amen.

Ahead of a ‘warn and inform’ letter being distributed later today, as a result of having additional Covid19 cases in school we request that parents return to social distancing as much as possible at collection at the end of the day, as we have now reached the DfE threshold for step-up measures – all of which are intended to keep school operating as normally and safely as possible.

Packed Lunch Guidance

Introduction

To grow and stay healthy children need to eat a nutritionally well balanced diet.

Schools are an influential setting and can contribute significantly to improving the health and well-being of pupils. Good nutrition in childhood can help to prevent a variety of health problems, both in the short term and later in life. There is increasing concern that many children are consuming too much fat, sugar and salt and too little fibre, fruit and vegetables.

Packed lunches can contribute to almost a third of a child’s weekly food intake and therefore need to be balanced and nutritious.

Aim

To ensure that packed lunches (brought in from home) reflect the new standards for school meals.

Rationale

The content of lunchboxes needs to reflect the requirement of schools to meet minimum food and nutrition standards for school meals. The contents of lunchboxes in some schools can be extremely unhealthy, recent audits of lunchboxes have shown that in the main they contain foods with high levels of fat, sugar and salt, and very few fruit and vegetables.

The short term effects of unhealthy packed lunches and food intake can include poor growth, tooth decay, obesity, anaemia, constipation, poor concentration and behavioural problems which may have an impact on a child’s learning. The longer term effects of a poor diet in childhood can be an increased risk of stroke, cancer, heart disease and diabetes in adulthood.

Children’s packed lunches should include items from the 5 main food groups;  1) Bread, Rice, Potatoes, Pasta. These starchy foods are a healthy source of energy. Packed lunches should include 2 or more portions eg pasta salad, sandwich.

2) Fruit and Vegetables. These foods provide vitamins, minerals and fibre. Lunches should include at least 1 portion of fruit and 1 portion of vegetables / salad, or more e.g. carrot/cucumber sticks, cherry tomatoes, a piece of fruit.

3) Milk and Dairy foods. These foods provide calcium for healthy bones and teeth. Include 1 portion at lunch e.g. yoghurt, fromage frais, milk.

4) Meat, Fish, Eggs, Beans. These foods provide protein for growth. Packed lunches should include 1 portion of these foods e.g. boiled egg as filling in sandwich, mixed bean salad.

5) Drinks – any drinks provided in lunch boxes should only include either plain water, milk (semi-skimmed), unsweetened fresh fruit juice, diluted fresh fruit juice, fruit or dairy based smoothies.

Please support us by not including these items in a packed lunch

Foods and drinks high in fat and / or sugar It is important not to fill up on too many foods that are high in fat and / or sugar at the expense of other more nutritious foods. Limiting high fat and sugar foods will help protect young people from becoming overweight as well as helping prevent tooth decay, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.

• Fizzy Pop/Fruit shoots
• Sweets
• Chocolate bars

A choice of only one of the following is permitted per day:

• A cake bar
• Packet of crisps
• Biscuit

Waste and Disposal

The school will, within reason, send any uneaten packed lunch food items back home. The rationale for this is that parents can also monitor what their child has consumed during the day and then raise any concerns over their child’s food intake with the school.

If you wish to find some helpful ideas or more information on healthy packed lunches there is plenty of information on these websites:-

www.nhs.uk/change4life/recipes/healthier-lunchboxes

www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/school-packed-lunch-inspiration

Census Day and Universal Infant Free School Meals (UIFSM) – Thursday 7th October 2021

Census Day is when Local Authorities collect information electronically from every school in their area, partly to guide them in planning and funding. They collect details such as pupil numbers on roll, numbers of pupils with Special Educational Needs, attendance information and so forth. On this day they will also be looking at the number of children taking the Universal Infant Free School Meal (UIFSM), to provide schools with appropriate funding for this service for the whole of the coming academic year.

To maximise our potential funding, could I ask all families with children entitled to UIFSM (all pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2) to order their free meal on Thursday 7th October, and for children to choose some of the food which we will have on offer from our kitchen. School staff will be on hand to help children to choose food items on offer. Pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 will be welcome to bring a packed lunch into school that day to eat as well as the food from our school kitchen if they wish.

I hope that this might be an opportunity for children who might not normally eat a free school meal to try some of the delicious food we have available for our school meals.

Thank you for your continued support.

It is the time of year when year 6 pupils are invited to open mornings or evenings to visit prospective secondary schools.  We have been informed that Ludlow Secondary School are now holding a virtual event, and that both Oldbury Wells and Lacon Childe are holding 1:1 appointments at the weekend or outside normal school hours to mitigate the risk of spreading coronavirus across their school network.

Please check with the secondary schools’ websites for further information if you want to find out more:

Oldbury Wells School

Ludlow School

Lacon Childe School

We fully support these decisions as it reduces the possibility of pupils bringing coronavirus into school and possibly impacting on teaching and learning at Brown Clee.

Can we please ask parents not to access the infant playground at the end of the day until a member of staff has opened the gate or permitted access – this will be at approximately 3:10pm.  This is for safeguarding purposes.

Apologies but we have a delay with the Burwarton Bus – children are all ok and we are holding them at school until it turns up.  Please share.

We have experienced a few issues the last 2 days at the end of the day when parents are collecting their children.  So can we please ask parents to consider the following points:-

1. Please do not park in the layby where the school buses park as this causes delays and congestion.
2. Please maintain some social distancing to be considerate to everyone.
3. Please collect children and leave the playground promptly.
4. Please park off the school site and walk if at all possible.
5. We are going to implement a one-way system at the end of the day to reduce congestion and improve social distancing. All parents who are collecting children from school need to enter via the Infant Playground, where they meet and collect their children.  Parents then walk up the path to the Top Gate to leave school – this will allow for a one way-system which should help reduce congestion. We also ask that parents maintain sensible spacing on the playground and that parents leave promptly once they have collected their child/children.

We have a list of children who are confirmed booked onto school transport.  It is really important that parents let us know if their child is not going home on the bus – either as a one off or on regular days.  We need this information to ensure that the children get home safely – either by being collected or going home on school transport – we are unable to take your child’s voice – we need you to let us know.

Our new school meal system where you pre order meals is now up and running.  Can we please remind parents that you need to book in advance – so book your child’s meals by Thursday for the week ahead.  This includes Free School Meals as well – you just don’t make any payment but you still need to book your choice of meal. You can also book for a whole half term to make your life easier!  This system means that every child is guaranteed a meal of their choice.

If you need a reminder of your activation access details or any assistance with booking then please do contact us.

Good Morning Brown Clee! (It’s been a long time since I could say that!)

I hope you have all had a restful and enjoyable summer – and that you are as excited as I am to be back in school – I have been so looking forwards to meeting everyone arrive back this morning – I have missed your bright cheery smiles and greetings!

I’d like to wish everyone a massive welcome back – and a super big welcome to our new Reception children – all 21 of you – who have just joined the Fireflies.  I would also like to offer a big welcome to 2 new members of staff – Miss Burton and Mrs Morris (a new Mrs Morris!) who will be working with the Fireflies and I would also like to welcome Mrs Heath back to school – we have all missed her and are delighted she is back teaching the Dragonflies!

Next week we will be holding our assemblies ‘live’ in the hall – where we will be all together – which will be the first time for over a year and a half – something which I am very much looking forwards to as assemblies are such special times and I have missed being able to be with everyone!

Today is the start of our new academic year – and the word NEW has particular relevance this September – as lots of things will seem very new to all of us due to the disruption we have had.  I wonder if you can think of what these NEW things might be?….

Well I have already mentioned that we will be able to hold assemblies in the hall next week – and these are very special times – as these are the times that we ALL get together every day to share thoughts, reflections and praise to God – and being all together is so important to us – as we are the Brown Clee Team!

Another NEW thing is that we will be back to eating our lunch together in the school hall – and we will be able to have proper hot meals, with choices and eat at tables with our friends from other classes as well as our own.  Another new aspect of school meals is that you now have the chance to pre-order your menu choice to ensure that you can get the meal that you want – so please make sure you remind your parents to make your bookings!  We will also be holding lunch in 2 sittings – Infants and Juniors – to allow for a more calm, quiet and sociable lunch experience – plus we will be welcoming Pre-School back to join us for lunch!

The class ‘bubbles’ have now gone and you will be able to mingle and play together as well as eat together!  And the 1-way systems have also gone!

There are still school rules – and I will be talking about the importance of those next week – and I am sure your class teachers will be sharing and reteaching the rules and expectations as you start today – as these rules are what help keep the school a happy, safe and harmonious place for everyone.

I am sure you, like me, are looking forwards to this new school year – being with your friends, learning lots of new skills and knowledge and having the chance to take part in lots of new experiences such as sports, drama, music and trips – YES! – trips will be back and we have a very exciting one for the Dragonflies later on this term – watch this space!!!

Which reminds me of something else that is new – the class names!  Here they are:-

The Fireflies are taught by Mrs Fox and Mrs Morris.

The Grasshoppers are taught by Mrs Morris and Mrs Cains.

The Dragonflies are taught by Mrs Heath.

The Scorpions are taught by Mr Harley.

The names are going to take a bit of getting used to – and I will need your help to correct me if I revert back to calling them Class numbers!

I know there will be lots of other NEW things – like making new friends, new learning, new experiences – but for now I just want everyone to enjoy the newness of starting or being back in school – a more normal school. NEW can be exciting – but it can also sometimes make us feel worried or nervous – so it is so important that we look out for each other and help each other and work together to ensure that we really can provide a safe, happy place where we can all learn and grow together.

Let’s just take a moment to think and reflect on our feelings of being back together in school – have a think about what you are looking forwards to, and what you can do to help make sure we all can be the best that we can be.  Let’s remind ourselves of the greatest rule of all according to God…

Prayer of the Day

If we could now have a quiet moment of reflection and join in with the School prayer…

Dear God

Thank you for our wonderful school.

Help us to be good learners.

Help us to look after each other.

Help us be respectful and kind and to make everyone welcome.

May our school be a happy, safe place where learning is fun.

Where we all work together to be the best we can be.

Amen