Friday 5th November 2021

Dear parents and carers of Stepney Park Primary School.

School Uniform:

Following requests from some parents, we have decided that we will be adding a purple cardigan with a school logo to our school uniform.  We have spoken to the uniform suppliers and agreed with them that they can now sell these cardigans on our behalf.  Please note that children should not wear white T-shirts, unless they are under a jumper or cardigan.

Thank you for helping us establish much better uniform wearing habits. Most children now come to school in their uniform every day, well done!

Survey and Parents’ evening:

Thank you to the parents who returned our survey to find out how you would like us to run our parents’ evenings this term.

14 families responded to the survey. 71% of these said they would prefer face-to-face meetings and 29% said they would prefer online meetings.  We will therefore be offering the option to attend either face-to-face or online.

We will be running the parents’ evenings on Tuesday 16th November and Thursday 18th November.  Your child will have a letter to give to you today, where you can indicate your preference for which day, time and type of meeting.  Please return these by Tuesday 9th November.

We will be very happy to show you some of the lovely work your child has been completing at school, when you attend the face to face appointment. 

Feedback to children:

Research has shown that verbal feedback that is given to children in lessons is more effective than written comments or traditional marking.  Like many other schools we have moved to a new marking and feedback system, and therefore you may not see long written comments made by the teacher in the children’s books any more, as would have been the case in the past.  Instead, our children will have been given and will have responded to verbal feedback, often given to them during lessons or at the start of the next lesson.

Times tables:

I would like to encourage you to try and frequently practise times tables with your child.  All children are expected to know their times tables up to 10x10 by the end of Year 4.  With enough practice in school and with your help at home, children who have not yet mastered this very important skill should be able to make very rapid progress. Knowing their times tables is really important for many other Maths areas, and will hugely benefit your child.  You can use the SumDog and Times Tables Rockstars apps for this.

One way system at pick-up times:

There are a number of parents who have stopped following our one way pickup system at the end of the day. A number of parents have recently decided to leave via the big or the small Smithy St gate as presumably this is a quicker way back towards their car or home. However, it is very hard for us to keep an overview when parents leave this way as it can get very chaotic.  We want to ensure that children do not leave on their own or leave with the wrong adult.  Despite our staff’s best efforts, some parents go against the direction of staff and carry on walking when they are asked to follow our one way system and our Health and Safety rules.

I would like us all to work together and make sure that we keep all children safe. Parents who are asked and then refuse to follow staff direction are often overheard/ overseen by their own and other children and may therefore also may also be setting the wrong example to children, which I am sure is unintended.  

Children in Need 

Friday November the 19th will be the BBC ‘Children in Need’ day. This year’s theme is ‘Together we can’.  This day will be a non -uniform day for our school and children are encouraged to bring in £1.00 for the Children in Need charity.  By donating money we can show disadvantaged children that they are not alone.  Children can come into school wearing something yellow, or they may even want to wear a (homemade) Pudsey T-shirt.  A design template can be found here:  https://www.bbcchildreninneed.co.uk/teeproject2021/ 

Have a great weekend everyone!

Kind regards,

Edith Philipsen

Headteacher- Stepney Park Primary School.