Friday 25th June 2021

Dear parents and carers of Stepney Park Primary School,

Welcome to our 32nd newsletter. 

I can't believe we will only have three weeks of the school year left.  It really has flown by, what a year it has been…!

Wednesday was ‘Thank a Teacher Day’, our teachers truly deserve to be thanked!

I am so impressed with all the hard work our staff have put in, so proud of the resilience our children have shown and so grateful for all the support and patience parents and carers have shown us in our first year as a new school. 

I hope you will enjoy reading our ‘second to last’ children’s newsletter.  Some great learning has taken place!

Covid Restrictions and Vaccinations 

You will have heard our Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s announcement that, sadly, final restrictions are not being lifted yet until later this term.  We had hoped to organise some fun end of year events for parents and children, but this seems still a bit too early.

We are hopeful however, that we will be able to lift some school Covid restrictions at the start of September, and will be writing to you about this before children will return to school.

Sadly, Covid infection rates seem to be on the rise again nationally.  We have been fortunate to have escaped any further year group isolation at Stepney Park, but I do worry that this might reoccur before the school year is over.

Almost all of our school staff have now been vaccinated, I’d like to strongly encourage parents and their eligible family members to get vaccinated as soon as possible, so we can move together towards some more normality in our lives.

Year 6 Leavers

Year 6 teachers will soon be writing to their parents and will explain what the ‘End of Year 6 Goodbyes’ will look like this year.  As restrictions have not yet been lifted, we are organising a virtual event for parents to attend, please keep an eye out for how to join us.  We will make sure that we will take photos and will pass them onto parents, so that they have a memento of this important rite of passage.

Lateness

School starts at 9.00am; all children should arrive between 8.50 and 9.00 to be on time.  However, there are a number of families whose children regularly arrive late.  I’d like to ask those families to make an extra effort to be on time every day; this sets the correct example for their children, will develop good habits for life and will ensure they do not lose any more valuable learning time. 

School uniform

The following items are not school uniform:

• Leggings, unless worn instead of tights under a skirt of dress

• Tracksuit bottoms (not even if they are grey)

• Jeans (not even if they are grey)

• White shirts 

Our pastoral care team will continue to work hard with families to remind them and to support them with sourcing the correct uniform. 

Children are welcome to bring a hat in hot and sunny weather, as it protects them from the sun.  

Travel abroad 

We have been asked by the Local Authority to remind you of the following:

Please follow Government guidance if you decide to travel abroad during the summer holidays.  If you travel to a Red Zone Country you will need to self-isolate in a hotel upon return, and if you travel to an Amber Zone country, you will need to self-isolate at home upon return. 

All children need to be out of self-isolation for the start of term, which will be September 2nd.  Schools will not be responsible for teaching children who are abroad; normal penalty notices will apply and your child’s school place might be withdrawn if your child has not returned within 21 days. 

Hot lunches

Sadly, we are still in Covid restrictions, which means that we, like many other schools, have not been able to provide a hot lunch to all Yr 3,4,5 and 6 children each week.  We are still expected to keep our year group bubbles separated, which means lunch takes us much longer, as we can not have any children from the next year group enter the dining hall until the last child has finished. 

We are however exploring the possibility of providing a hot lunch to some of the children who are on their cold lunch week.  This means that one additional class may have a hot lunch instead of a cold lunch once or twice a week. The Dining Hall will be free and clean at around 1.10pm, which is quite late to eat lunch, and it may therefore not be an ideal solution.  We will experiment with this, and would be happy to take any feedback you have around this.

Relationship, Health Education and Sex Education (Yr 6 only) consultation - Google Form questionnaire 

All Zoom meetings have now taken place. Thank you to all parents who have attended, asked questions and who have made comments.

Please follow this link if you would like to share some further thoughts and comments.  I will be feeding back to the Governing Body on Jun 30th , so please respond by Jun 28th. 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1_hNxHJtoXleBmTewJHhVMIJg7w8TbpX76cd0te-1pSk/edit 

Kind regards,

 

Edith Philipsen

Headteacher- Stepney Park Primary School