Fairfields Primary School

Dear Fairfields Community,

We have had a fantastic return to school and the children have settled well back into the routine.  The school has been so calm and happy, and I hope that your children have reported the same back to you.  We will be updating the information over the next week and so please use these emails as the main source of information until then.

We have created an annual declaration which will mean that we will not have to ask for photographic permission for each event.  It also clarifies our expectations around allergies and medical conditions.  We ask for all parents to complete this by Friday 15^th September.  Please follow the link: https://forms.gle/prCRZHSqWc4hfXoj7

If you would like a paper copy, please come to the school office.  We will contact parents the following week if they have not completed this.  We have also changed our policy on medical consent forms for trips and will only ask parents to complete one for the year.  This will be sent out for the first visit and then kept for the year in a confidential filing cabinet. 

Afterschool clubs

We will be starting clubs the week beginning the 25^th September.  More information will be sent out next week and we would like children to sign up again to maintain up to date registers.  This also includes the Drama club run by Becky Kitter.

Please find attached information about the afterschool singing club run by SingStar and the Bootcamp for fitness run by Sarah and Steve. 

If you are interested in booking onto the singing club for your child, please click on the link: https://sing-star-vocal-coaching.classforkids.io/term/6

Football club will be starting soon and will be little different this year as Miss Warwick has entered the children into two new events.  To start with, we are just going to invite year 6 children to trial for the club and will add year 5 children in due course.  This is because both of the events are only for one team.   We will be holding a trial from 3.15 until 4.15 p.m. on Thursday 21^st September.  If you have a year 6 child who is interested in trialling for a place, please could they return the attached form.  We will only be able to keep children who have returned the form after school.   

These children will need to be wearing P.E. kit on the Thursday but no football boots are permitted at this stage.  We will return to the playground for collection by 4.15.  An announcement will then be made as to who is in the squad.  Football club training sessions are likely to be mostly on the Monday at the moment.  Thank you.

Parent Representatives

We have a diverse community at Fairfields, and parents who want to support other parents, particularly when they are new to the school, and when their home language is not English. Almost half of the children at our school speak another language as well as English, and as a school we celebrate culture and diversity.

We have a number of parents who have volunteered to work with the school as Parent Representatives to support other parents who may speak the same language as them. They are happy to be contacted to help explain the school systems, routines and procedures. They are also happy to be a friendly face to help welcome you to the school community and to help to introduce you to other parents. 

We currently have parent representatives for Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Urdu, Telugu, Hindi, German, Italian, Polish and Danish languages. Parent representatives details can be found on the school website by clicking on the 'Parents' tab, and then by clicking 'Parent Representatives'. They can be contacted though the school office, or by emailing the school on admin@fairfields.hants.sch.uk. 

Children with Medical Needs

Children with individual health care plans (IHCP) should bring home a copy today for parents to check. Please can you sign and date the first page if there are no changes. Please annotate the copy sent home with any changes and write on the front page that changes have been made. Your child's class will be updated when shared with staff. Please return by Friday 29^th September to Miss Moore. Miss Moore will then review all plans and share an updated copy to all relevant members of staff. If you do have any questions about IHCP, please speak to you child's class teacher or please book in to see Miss Moore. 

Doodle Time

We have reviewed the data from the Summer term and there is a significant reduction in the number of incidents which took place due to the children coming into school at the end part of lunch.  The teachers have also reported that the afternoon lessons started on time as children had time to use the toilet and to fill up water bottles.  For this reason, we will be continuing with Doodle Time for the foreseeable future. 

We would like to offer children the opportunity to bring in their own pens, pencils, or small stickers to add to their doodle books.  These need to be brought in in a separate pencil case and we will not accept responsibility for any items in them.  We will continue to provide pens and pencils for them to use alongside this. 

Afterschool Care

Your child must be collected at 3:10pm for Foundation Stage, Year 1 and 2 or 3:15pm for children in Year 3-6.  The only afterschool care for children in the school is the Junior Adventure Group which is chargeable to yourselves.  If your child is not collected at their finishing time, we will contact you to see why this is the case.

They are not able to wait at the office as the office staff are there to deal with parental enquiries and answer phones. 

Homework update

We will be changing mathematics homework from next week to link to our new approach to teaching mathematics.  This does mean that children will receive their first maths homework on Friday 15^th September.  This will be linked to the maths meetings work that they are doing in class.

Governor Update from Hilary Somerville, Health and Safety Governor

I am one of the School Governors at Fairfields Primary School and one of my responsibilities is to oversee the health and safety of the school facilities.  I reviewed Fairfields on 25th August and it was clear that there has been a lot of hard work over the school holiday period to welcome the pupils back for the Autumn term.    The following tasks were noted as either complete or underway.

You will have noticed on your return to school that the leaking kitchen roof and associated safety issues are being addressed with work well underway and due to complete soon after the start of the school term.  The completed work will incorporate some large new sky lights, giving a much brighter and safer working space for the catering team.  This should be finished by the third week in September.

Being an old building, other main school roof leaks are being reviewed and addressed as well as windows and gutter cleaning.  You would be surprised at the volume of balls, bean bags and other play equipment, which is found on the roof and blocking the gutters - I certainly was!

New brightly painted stairwells, in white and navy, which took three coats of paint over three weeks to complete.  Quite an achievement given the size and height of the space.  

New blinds installed in the Library and the vertical blinds in some of the classrooms have been replaced with roller blinds, to keep the building cool on hot days.

The girls' toilets have had a partial uplift with some fresh paint and a deep clean.  The boys' toilets were also about to have a deep clean the following week and to be complete before the end of the school holidays.  A few leaky sinks in the boys' toilets were also going to be addressed before the start of term.

The first aid room now has a functioning fold away bed for any pupil or member of staff who becomes unwell.  

There are some long-term plans for enhancements to be made within the playground area, however, in the interim it was planned to be tidied in preparation for the return to school.

Outstanding Dinner Money

As a School, we currently have £290 worth of outstanding dinner money.

Just a reminder that lunches must be paid for in advance. We can accept payments online through the Arbor system, or by cash or card at the School Office.

If accounts fall into arrears, Parents will be expected to provide a packed lunch from home until the balance has been paid in full.

If you require any assistance with School Lunches, please do not hesitate to contact the School Office.

Many thanks for your co-operation in this matter.

PTA Update

AGM Meeting

We will be holding our AGM on Wednesday 27 September at 7:30pm via zoom. Everyone is invited to come along to hear some updates and share ideas for the coming school year and also details of the money we've raised and how we can spend it to benefit the school. There will also be an opportunity to vote for this year's committee so if you are interested in joining please let us know. A meeting link to this event will be sent nearer the date.

PTA Challenge

We had some successful events in the summer term which raised excellent amounts of money for the school. The winning year group for the term were the year 1 parents so the children now in year 2 (Madrid & Budapest classes) will be rewarded with a non-school uniform day next Friday, 15th September. Congratulations.

For this term we will be changing the event to be linked in with the Winter & Summer Fairs, so look out for more information later this year.

Thanks again for everyone's support last year, we look forward to another successful year, which isn't possible without the help of the parents. 

Updates from Year Groups

Dates for next week

Year 6 residential – Monday 11^th – Wednesday 13^th September

Year 6 Forest Schools Day – Tuesday 12^th September

For other key dates – please look at the calendar on the website or School Jotter.

PE days

I have contacted Liss Sport and discussed that there are some concerns about the latest batch of PE uniform and the lettering coming off on the badge on the back.  If your child’s new uniform has been affected, please send it named and into school as we will send it back to be reprinted. 

Start and finishing times are as follows:

Foundation Stage, year 1 and Year 2: 8:40am – 3:10pm (Foundation Stage have a staggered start at the beginning of the year and so please collect at the times you have been given).

Years 3- 6: 8:45am – 3:15pm

Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the remainder of the summer weather!

Miss Kelly Dillon

Headteacher