Weekly Update 176 February 2023 (by admin) |
Dear parents and carers,
Apologies for the late weekly update. Last week was a wonderful penultimate week of the half term. Thank you to all the parents who were able to log onto the lessons on Wednesday. It was great to see the children having fun with the Big Ben challenge.
In total, 9 of our teachers took industrial action on the day and this meant that we were not able to support the children as described in the Government guidance. The main reasons behind the strike are to do with rise in inflation which has not been recognised in the pay for teachers across the country. Here is an extract from the National Education Union to explain. Please note that most teachers are paid between £28,000 - £38,000.
Teacher Pay: Background
In England, the Government is proposing increases for most teachers of just 5% from 1 September
2022 – with higher increases for starting pay. With RPI inflation already over 12% in August 2022
according to the latest figures at the time of writing, the Government’s proposals would mean
major real terms cuts of over 7% for most teachers. The increases to starting pay (8.9% outside
London, 8.3% in Outer London and 7.3% in Inner London) and the higher increases proposed for
points M2-M5 would also be well below inflation so are also real terms pay cuts.
In Wales, the Welsh Government proposes to increase all pay and allowances on the national
statutory pay scales by 5% from 1 September 2022. Again, with inflation over 12%, this would
mean real terms cuts of over 7%.
The other reason behind the industrial action is that the same budget awarded to the school is used to pay for staff and for resources. The budget received does not match the increase in staffing costs. This means that we will need to look for other ways to cover the costs in school.
Despite this, staff at Fairfields are firmly committed to making the school a brilliant and vibrant place to be and will continue to explore any opportunities available. Please do continue to support the PTA as much as you can as money raised will be needed in the future.
Headlice
Changing the subject completely, we have had a huge increase in cases of headlice in the school (including members of staff). Please can I urge you to wet comb your child’s hair every weekend with conditioner so that we can try to get on top of them. For more information, visit: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/head-lice-and-nits/
Congratulations to our Super Citizens
We are so proud of our newly nominated Super Citizens, who continually display our Core Values. Well done to:
Dalya in Foundation stage
Kobe in Foundation Stage
Jack in Year 1
Emily in Year 1
Anahita in Year 2
Karim in Year 2
Amelia in Year 3
Isabella W In Year 3
Akshara in Year 4
Evie in Year 4
Lawa in Year 5
Toby in Year 5
Emily in Year 6
Mikayla in Year 6
Dates for your diaries
W/beginning 6th February – Children’s Mental Health Week
8th and 9th February – Year 6 Parents evenings.
8th February – Year 6 SATs Information Evening @6pm on Zoom
10th February – Year 6 parent light up exhibition @2:30pm
13th – 17th Half Term week
27th February – Book Week with Dress up day on Friday 3rd march.
1st and 2nd March FS – Year 5 Parents Evenings
Achievements outside of school
Please do let us know if your child has achieved something outside of school. We celebrate these on our website: https://www.fairfields.hants.sch.uk/home/our-community/celebrating-our-community
Top Tip for Parents - Promise Cards
If your child asks to finish a game or a story and you agree to do it later. There is a chance that you may forget. To help with this, you can give your child a note or a promise card that they can give you back at som e point. This helps to ease their anxiety and also jog your memory!
Finally, please do wrap up warm this week- especially in the mornings. We are due to have some very cold weather and please do send your children into school with a coat.
Have a great week!
Miss Kelly Dillon
Headteacher
