One week to go before we all return to school and so far we have had 39% of parents activate their Parent Pay account.  If you are going to want your child to have a school meal you need to activate your Parent Pay account and place your orders online on the Parent Pay APP or website.  You should have received your activation letter by paper at the end of term, or via email during the summer holidays (new Reception parents). If you have any questions regarding activating your account please do contact us on admin@brownclee.shropshire.sch.uk.

Can we please remind parents of the importance of activating their ParentPay account ahead of the Autumn Term.  Without this you will be unable to order a school meal as we need to have pre-orders in before the start of term.

The menus are all up and running now, so you can sign in and order your September meals at any point from now – why not get ahead of the game and book your meals so it is one less job to do before September?

We would like to say a massive thank you to all our families for their support throughout this strangest of years!  We really appreciate and value the partnership, working together to ensure we can do our very best for the children.

Wishing you a wonderful summer and we look forwards to welcoming everyone back to school on Thursday 2nd September.

Due to our power being off all morning, we are unable to provide a hot school meal today for the children – so instead they will be having a packed lunch, which we are all going to eat in a 4 bubble whole school picnic on the field.

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.