The Year 6 pupils have been sent the following Year 6 Leavers Service video from the Diocese of Hereford – and as we are holding our own Leavers Assembly this afternoon we thought it the perfect time to share!

We have been so lucky over the past 18 months to be able to keep our class ‘bubbles’ open – and with 3 days left to go to the end of this academic year we kindly ask parents to maintain the 2m social distancing, and to also ensure that young children stay with their parents at collection time.

The virus is in the village and we currently have some staff/pupils isolating at the moment and with the summer holidays approaching, we really want all our families to look forwards to starting the summer break without any risk of having to isolate.

Please note there have been press reports that the Delta variant can feel “more like a bad cold” – particularly for young people with reports of symptoms like a headache, runny nose and sore throat being commonly linked to this new variant. Remember if you are at all unsure please take a test.

In September we will be using ParentPay to pre-order and pre-pay for School Meals.

We are pleased to let you know that our ParentPay site will shortly be active and all parents have got their own account with an individual Username and Password.  You will find details on the attached letter, along with instructions on how to activate your account.  In order to activate your account you need to do the following:-

1. Visit http://www.parentpay.com and enter your Activation username and password in the Account Login section of the homepage. (NB. These are for one-time use only, please choose your own username and password for future access during the activation process).
2. Provide all the necessary information and choose your new username and password for your account – registering your email address will enable us to send you receipts and reminders.
3. Once activation is complete you can go straight to Items for payment, select which item(s) you want to add to your basket and proceed to complete your payment.

As from September all School Meals will need to be pre-ordered and pre-paid using ParentPay; with the cost of a school meal remaining £2.30.  If you are the parent of a child entitled to a Free School Meal, you will still need to pre-order but no payment is required.

A letter is being sent home today with further information and also your Username and Password – so please let us know if you don’t receive this.

At this stage we are only using ParentPay for School Meals, but we will be looking to expand it in the future to cover payments for Breakfast Club, Care Club and School Trips.

There is more information on ParentPay on this video:-

ParentPay – Parents Overview from ParentPay on Vimeo.

Good Morning Brown Clee!

I hope you had a good weekend – and at the time of writing this I have no idea what the outcome of the Euros Final is – so I don’t know whether we are celebrating a win, as well as celebrating the exceptional team-spirit, commitment and pride that the England football team have demonstrated throughout the tournament.  Whatever happened I am sure that the team will be just as dignified whether they win or lose!

Last week in our live assembly we talked about HOPE – and of course we were all being very hopeful that there would be a win in the football – but we also had lots of other hopes.  Some of us hoped that we could improve our handwriting, some hoped for more time to play with friends, and I am definitely very hopeful that in September the Brown Clee Team can be fully back together again – with assemblies in the hall, welcoming parents to join us for Well Done assembles, a normal school meals menu that we can eat in the hall together, and playtimes where all classes can mix and play together!

We discussed that HOPE is where we feel positive about the future – where we have dreams and wishes and believe that things will work out right!  Let’s see if things work out right for a little paper boat…have a watch of this video about a little paper boat with big ambitions and dreams of sailing around the world like a giant cruise ship…..

That little paper boat had so many challenges along his journey – he was all on his own at the beginning in a world that he didn’t understand, and then there was the scary rat, the rain, the wind, traffic and the drains  – so many scary experiences!  But along the way, he was always hopeful – and he made friends (the dog!) and at the end  – his adventures had only just begun!

It made me think about our Year 6 pupils – who are coming to the end of their time at Brown Clee – but who, just like the paper boat, their adventures have really only just begun!  As we go through this week – let’s reflect more on the value of HOPE, and how important it is – particularly for our Year 6 pupils as they are about to leave the Brown Clee Team and step out into secondary education.  I am very hopeful that they will take the Brown Clee spirit of ‘being the best that they can be’ with them and am sure that they will have many exciting adventures ahead of them!

Prayer of the Day

Dear God,
When things go wrong, help us to keep hoping.
When we are sad, help us to remember that happiness will come.
When we are lonely, help us to remember that people care for us.
When we are worried, help us to trust that you will never leave us.
Please help us to live in hope.
Amen.

Good News everyone!  Chartwells have called this afternoon to advise that School Meals will be back to normal from Monday.  The menu next week is Week 3.

Thank you very much for your patience and understanding this week and providing your children with sandwiches.

We are really sorry but we will be unable to provide a school meal tomorrow (Friday 8th July), so all children will need to bring a packed lunch from home again.  Chartwells are doing their very best to get a cook to us for Monday – we will keep you informed.

Please share, and also please ensure you monitor the website, emails or school social media so that you receive the information.

Apologies for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding.

Thank you to parents for spreading the message about no school meals – every child has a packed lunch today which is brilliant!  We will let you know later today what the situation is for tomorrow – so please keep an eye out on the website, the school’s social media and your emails.

Also, if you have a preferred email, ie work rather than personal, please let us know, as it is impossible to ring everyone and the above communication channels are how we share information/news/stop press items.

I am really sorry, but we are unable to provide a school meal tomorrow, so all children will need to bring a packed lunch from home.  I am really sorry for the inconvenience, and for the short notice.  Can you please let friends and family know. I will keep you updated regards meals on Friday.

Good Morning Brown Clee!

Today I’d like to continue with our theme focused on feelings, and how important it is that we can both show empathy when other people are feeling sad or upset, but also that we can manage our own feelings.  Yesterday we learnt about anger and how we can regulate our angry feelings so that we can return to feeling calm.

Today I have a Pace Trust assembly focused on the feeling of fear; of feeling scared and how we can manage these feelings in a responsible way.

Have a think about a time when maybe you’ve been scared?  How did you feel?  What signs of fear did you show?  When I’m scared my heart beats faster, I breathe faster, I might feel hot and sweaty, I might even tremble.  It’s not a nice feeling and I don’t like that feeling – do you? I have learnt that if I am starting to feel scared that I can help myself by doing a few things:-

• I make myself breathe slowly and deeply
• I try to think about the reason I am scared – is it rational or not?  Do I really need to be scared of a spider?  Look how small they are – they can’t hurt me!
• I tell someone so that they can reassure me – sometimes I might be feeling scared of something that isn’t that big a problem and by telling someone it makes the problem go away.

Prayer of the Day

Dear God,
Thank you that you are always with us, watching over us, right by our side,
No matter what may be happening in our lives.
Thank you that we can always trust you.
Thank you that there are always people we can talk to.
Thank you that you always listen.
Amen.

Just a reminder that the last day of this academic year is Friday 16th July and children return to school on Thursday 2nd September (with Reception children staggered across the Thursday and Friday).

Good Morning Brown Clee!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend and managed to dodge the showers!

Today I want to continue with our theme of Compassion and Empathy – as now that we have had lots of discussion and experiencing identifying emotions it is important that we understand why showing empathy is important – as once we have seen someone feeling sad, for example, we need to know how to respond compassionately.

I am going to show you quite a grown up video about a fox, a bear and an antelope with a narrator describing empathy.  In the video it says that empathy has 4 stages:

1. Taking the perspective of other people (eg putting yourself in their shoes!)
2. Staying out of judgement (eg not criticising or judging)
3. Recognising emotions in other people (noticing how people are feeling – and you showed last week that you are all very good at this one!)
4. Communicating emotion (this is the tricky bit – knowing how to respond in a helpful way).

Have a watch and listen and see what you think – Which animal is sad?  Which animal shows empathy?  and why?  Which animal doesn’t show empathy?  and why?

A very grown up video – but could you work out which animal was sad? – The Fox.  Which animal was showing empathy – the bear!  The bear didn’t try and fix the sadness of the fox – the bear listened and made a connection; the bear understood the feeling but didn’t simply try and ‘look on the bright side’ or reply by saying “At least….”

What about the antelope?  Was the antelope really bothered about the fox feeling sad?  I think the antelope didn’t like seeing fox sad, and tried to make things better by saying nice things – but the antelope didn’t show empathy – he didn’t show that he knew how the fox was feeling – he didn’t connect with the fox.

Who would you be – the bear or the antelope?

I want you to imagine that you are really, really sad….you’ve lost something that’s very special to you – and then think how you would want your friends to behave towards you.  For example, if I had lost my dog I would definitely be feeling very sad.  Do you think I would be happy if my friend just said “At least you had a dog” or if they said “Don’t worry, you can always get another one!”.  I don’t think this would make me feel better – as that person isn’t showing that they understand why I am so sad – they just want to make me feel better.  But if I had lost my dog I think it would take a bit of time before I felt better – and I think it would be ok to feel sad.  I think what I would need would be someone to show me that they care about me feeling sad as they know what feeling sad is like…so they might listen to me or lend a friendly shoulder to cry on or offer a hug.  Does that make sense?

Empathy is complicated and tricky – if you can try and put yourself in your friends shoes when they are feeling sad then that’s the first big step!  We all need to be that person that friends can lean on in times of trouble.

Prayer of the Day

Dear God

We thank you for our friends and for the happy times we share with them.

Help us to be a good friend to them.

Teach us how to play fairly and to share.

Help us to recognise sadness in others and show friendliness towards them.

We know that you are our friend and will be with us always.

Amen.

We are sad to inform you that Mrs Welch is leaving us at the end of this term for a change of career direction.  Mrs Welch has been a highly valued member of the team and we are going to miss her very much!  We wish Mrs Welch all the very best in her new career and know that she will shine – and hopefully she will take some very happy memories of Brown Clee School with her!

We would also like to let you know that we have a new member of staff joining Class 1, alongside our new Friday teacher – Mrs Morris.  As of September, Miss Burton is joining the Fireflies, to work along side the team supporting all the Reception and Year 1 children.  I am sure you will join with me to make her feel very welcome and part of our Brown Clee team.

We thought parents would like to see some of the photos and videos from our Sports Day yesterday – enjoy…..

Good Morning Brown Clee!

This week we have been continuing on our journey thinking about our feelings – we have discussed how many different feelings there are, we have considered why we need to control our feelings and regulate them, we have practised identifying different feelings in other people and reviewed what we mean by empathy.

We know empathy is important – that if we can’t identify and understand what feelings our friends have – that we can’t help support them and we can’t show compassion. Yesterday, we had another lovely assembly outside altogether where we had some enthusiastic children miming different feelings whilst everyone else guessed what those feelings were!  We also realised that different people express feelings differently – for example when George is excited – he runs around in circles waving his arms around, whilst Rosie squeezes her arms close and grips her hands tightly whilst beaning a massive smile!

Today I would like you to watch and listen to the story of “The Invisible Boy”. He is called Brian – and I want you to put yourself in his shoes throughout the story – how do you think he feels in each page….also don’t forget to notice the beautiful illustrations!!!

Did you enjoy the story?  How did you feel as Brian before Justin arrived at school?  How did you feel as Brian when Justin praises your drawing? And what about when Justin invited Brian to join in with the activity with Emilio?  What other feelings did Brian experience, do you think?

Who showed empathy throughout the story?  …..Justin definitely did – what about Brian though – did he?  How do you know?

One last question – did you notice the illustration of Brian – what changed throughout the story?…………..did you spot that to start off with his picture is without colour – Brian is just black and white at the start – why does he change do you think?

Prayer of the Day

Dear God,
Please help us to value the people around us,
our family, our friends,
the people we meet every day of our lives.
Help us to realise that we are all special,
that we all have feelings
and can feel hurt both outside and inside.
Amen.

Can we please remind parents of the procedure if a member of the household has one of the official symptoms of coronavirus:

• a new, peristent cough
• a temperature
• loss or change of sense of taste and/or smell.

If anyone in your household has one of these symptoms:

• the whole household has to isolate
• A PCR test needs to be booked (these are not the LFD tests that are carried out at home – you need to go a centre).
• If the test result comes back negative then  the household can stop isolating.
• If someone else in the household develops symptoms later, then the procedure needs repeating – as everyone with symptoms needs to have a PCR test.
• Please keep the school informed via email of tests and test results as soon as you know.