A quick reminder that we have a PD day on Monday 1st November after the half term break.
Email Bulletin – All
Year 6 Transferring to Secondary School – deadline date 31st October 2021
The Schools Admissions Team at Shropshire Council have asked us to remind the parents of Year 6 children that the deadline date for applying for a place at your child’s preferred secondary school is Sunday 31st October. All applications are to be made on-line at www.shropshire.gov.uk/schooladmissions During office hours, anyone struggling to apply online is advised to contact Shropshire Council customer services.
School Lunches up until Half Term
Due to the Class Bubbles being reintroduced and an issue with the freezer in the school kitchen, the meals served to the children may differ this week from the menu shown on Parent Pay. Thank you in advance for your understanding.
Reflection Time and Prayer of the Day
Good Morning Brown Clee!
Yesterday we started to think about FEELINGS – and how many different feelings there are and why they are important. We also started to think about how we can regulate or manage our feelings in an appropriate way – and today I want us to think about that some more.
Today we are going to learn a bit more about what goes on inside our brain when we have feelings so that we can understand how to manage our feelings and be in control of them – rather than feelings being in control of us. Have a watch and listen to this video which talks about the ‘upstairs’ and ‘downstairs’ parts of our brain – and have a think about which one you think is most important…
Did you decide which part of the brain you think is most important – the upstairs ‘thinking’ brain or the downstairs ‘feelings’ brain? I think that most of the time the upstairs/thinking brain is most important – as without the ability to think and manage our feelings we could end up being overwhelmed by them. Imagine if you felt sad because you’d lost your favourite toy and you didn’t have a ‘thinking’ brain – how would you ever stop being sad – would you just continue to cry and be miserable for ever? What if someone accidentally hurt you in the playground and you felt angry – if you didn’t have a thinking brain, would that anger just build and build until you ‘flipped your lid’?
A big part of growing up involves learning how to understand and manage our feelings – and this happens as we develop and grow our upstairs/thinking brain – and we will learn more about this tomorrow. Today I want us to try and be more self aware when we are experiencing a feeling – and try to learn to step back from our feelings so that we say in our minds, ‘I have angry feelings.’ rather than saying, ‘I’m angry’. This helps us to appreciate that we are more than our feelings, and that we can control them for example even though we might feel angry, being angry isn’t all of us; we don’t have to let our feelings take over.
Prayer of the Day
Dear God,
Thank you that you know me very well and that you love me.
Please help me to be patient with other people, even when they make me cross!
Please help me to try to understand them and be kind and caring.
Help me to use my thinking brain so that I can manage my feelings,
Amen.
Pre-Ordering School Meals
We are having a regular number of children without a packed lunch but who haven’t had a school meal ordered via Parent Pay. Can we please remind parents that it is essential to pre-order a school meal, even if your child is Free School Meals.
Reflection Time and Prayer of the Day
Good Morning Brown Clee!
I hope you all had a good weekend – and here we are back to online assemblies again for our last week of this half term! Hopefully we will be back together in the hall after the half-term break – but in the meantime, this week I would like us to start to think about feelings. I know that I feel sad and somewhat disappointed that we are back to ‘bubbles’ and online assemblies, but I also feel hopeful that we will be back to normal after half-term.
We all have them – and there are so many different types of feelings! Feelings are part of what makes us human – can you name some?
I know that I have felt all of these feelings at some point in my life – I am sure many of you have too! If we were asked to split these feelings into groups I would group them like this:-
1: Happy, Optimistic, Hopeful, Friendly, Glad
2: Sad, Pessimistic, Depressed, Miserable, Afraid
Can you explain how I have grouped these feelings?
…….
The lists have been separated into feelings that we generally like and those that we try to avoid….some are feelings that we would prefer to experience – and others some that we don’t like. However our feelings are not as simple as we might think. For example, isn’t it good to feel a bit nervous before being in a play, playing a sports match or taking a test? Don’t we like being a tiny bit frightened before a rollercoaster ride or during a scary film? Don’t we need to feel fired up and cross at times if we are facing a challenge and things are tough? If we always felt calm and chilled – would we have the passion and drive to work towards our aspirations and dreams?
So feelings are complicated and are part of our lives – and we need to learn to understand why we have them..
…and we need to learn how to manage them so that we don’t have to give in to our feelings and let them tell us what to do…(more on that tomorrow!)…
Prayer of the Day
Dear God,
Thank you for all the feelings we have and that each one has its place.
It’s right to be scared if we’re in danger.
It’s great to be happy when we can.
Please help us to control our bad feelings and not be overwhelmed by them.
Amen.
A TTRS care package for Peter
Look what arrived in the post for our one armed Rock Hero…a Times Table Rock Star care package from the TTRS team! Thank you so much as we know this will put a big smile on Peter’s face…and will inspire him to keep on rocking those timestables…he’s already beaten his time of 0.98s!
Reflection Time and Prayer for the Day
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.
Care Club Bookings For After Half Term
Could I please ask that any Care Club booking requests for the first week back after half term are e-mailed to me by next Thursday ( 21st October) at the latest.
Reflection Time and Prayer of the Day
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.
Covid19 Update: ‘Warn and inform’
Please find attached below a ‘warn and inform’ letter following additional positive cases of Covid19 in school, which includes information from PH Shropshire with regards booking PCR tests as well as some temporary step-up measures in place to minimise transmission.
Social Distancing – Collection today
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.
Our first one-handed Rock Hero!
Whilst waiting for his operation, Peter set himself the challenge of reaching Rock Hero status on Times Tables Rock Stars – and guess what – he did it – his time is 0.98 seconds! Well done Peter – a true hero!
Best wishes to Peter!
All the Scorpions and school are sending lots of positive vibes and good wishes to Pater who is having to have an operation on his arm today – and we are very impressed with his dedication to learning times-tables whilst waiting!
What a great distraction! Remember Peter – you are stronger than you believe – and will be back home before you know it!
Whittles Bus Delayed
We have just been informed by Whittles that due to unforeseen circumstances the Whittles bus is late and it will be Boulton’s providing this service tonight. We are sorry for any inconvenience.
Scorpions – No Swimming tomorrow
Due to the current situation we think it advisable not to take the Scorpions (Year 5/6) children to the swimming session tomorrow. This is purely as a precautionary measure to minimise any risk. Dragonflies will be swimming.
Letter from Shropshire Public Health
We have received a letter from Shropshire Public Health which provides information if a school meets DfE thresholds for additional measures:-
Individual photographs – postponed
Unfortunately we have heard from the school photographer that they have had to cancel their visit today. Once we have a rearranged date for them to come into school we will let you know.
Packed Lunch Guidance
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
Roast Beef lunches
Maureen in the kitchen has asked us to let you know that the roast dinner tomorrow will be replaced with pork instead of beef which is shown on the menu on ParentPay due to supply issues. All other options remain the same.
She has also advised that all Roast Beef lunches will be replaced with pork until further notice.
Census Day Meals
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.
Parent Workshop – Help Your Child with Phonics and Early Reading
We are holding a parent workshop aimed to help parents of infant children with understanding and supporting their child with their learning or phonics and early reading. It is going to be held on Microsoft Teams on Thursday 21st October at 1:30pm.
We will share the link to the meeting via email on the morning of the workshop and all you need to do if you wish to access the session is click the link. The workshop will provide useful information on how you can support your child with their phonics learning as well as with useful strategies for supporting early reading skills.
After School Activity Clubs
We are now opening up spaces to Grasshoppers class as well as Fireflies for the Multi-Sports activity club held on Thursday afternoons.
There are also a few spaces remaining for Theatre Arts club being held on a Tuesday afternoon.
Please email me at careclub@brownclee.shropshire.sch.uk if you would like to book your child into one of the above clubs.
The clubs will start the first week back after half term.
Year 6 Open Mornings/Evenings
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:
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.
Ludlow School Year 5 & 6 Open Evening moving to Virtual
Ludlow CE School are moving their Open Evening which was due to take place next week to a virtual event on 1st October. Please see their message below –
Ludlow CE School – Open Evening – move to a virtual event
Following a discussion with Shropshire Headteachers, we have made the decision to cancel the Open Evening as a live, face-to-face event, next Wednesday 29th September. Although our number of Covid-19 cases is currently not high in number, the local community (and upper KS2 children, particularly) have higher numbers, and so it is not in anyone’s best interests to host an evening that could become a “super spreader” event.
We will hold a virtual event from 1st October, on our school website: www.ludlowschool.com, under “News and Events”.
We are very disappointed that our Open Evening cannot take place as planned, but we have taken this decision in, what we believe to be, the best interests of the wellbeing of the school and the community. Please do contact the school with any queries.
Many thanks, Paula Hearle
Self Isolation Reminder
We are getting a lot of coughs in school – so we thought it would be helpful to remind everyone of when to self-isolate:-
When you need to self-isolate
If you have any of these 3 symptoms of COVID-19, even if they are mild:
- a high temperature
- a new, continuous cough
- a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste
you need to self-isolate straight away and get a PCR test (a test that is sent to the lab) on GOV.UK as soon as possible (Lateral Flow Tests that you do at home and get a result within 30 minutes are not enough if you have one of the above symptoms as these are for asymptomatic tests only).
You should also self-isolate straight away if:
- you’ve tested positive for COVID-19 – this means you have the virus
- someone you live with has symptoms or tested positive (unless you are not required to self-isolate – check below if this applies to you)
- you’ve been told to self-isolate following contact with someone who tested positive – find out what to do if you’re told to self-isolate by NHS Test and Trace or the NHS COVID-19 app
Therefore you may get a call from school if your child develops a new cough in school asking you to collect your child and book a PCR test. We do keep a record so that we know who has received a negative PCR result and therefore then know if a child can return to school with a cough.
Please help us and be understanding – we are simply following the guidance and trying to do the right thing for our children, families and community. Currently the covid rate in Ditton Priors and Highley is well above the national average so we do need to be covid aware:-
When you do not need to self-isolate
If someone you live with has symptoms of COVID-19, or has tested positive for COVID-19, you will not need to self-isolate if any of the following apply:
- you’re fully vaccinated – this means 14 days have passed since your final dose of a COVID-19 vaccine given by the NHS
- you’re under 18 years, 6 months old
- you’re taking part or have taken part in a COVID-19 vaccine trial
- you’re not able to get vaccinated for medical reasons
Even if you do not have symptoms, you should still:
- get a PCR test on GOV.UK to check if you have COVID-19
- follow advice on how to avoid catching and spreading COVID-19
- consider limiting contact with people who are at higher risk from COVID-19
Please work with us
Idsall Cross Country – POSTPONED
Tomorrow’s cross country event at Idsall has been postponed. It will hopeful be rearranged for a later date. We will keep you informed if/when we find out a new date.
Autumn Term After Schools Activity Clubs
Dear Parents and Carers,
We are very pleased to be able to again offer after school activity clubs after October half term. Please find attached letter providing details of the clubs available.
NOVEMBER 2021 After School Activity Clubs letter
Asthma Register
We have sent the annual forms out this week to all children who are known to have asthma or require the use of an inhaler in school. Please could these be returned as soon as possible so that any changes can be noted.
If your child has asthma or uses an inhaler which they may need to use in school and you have not received a form for completion, please contact the school office.
