Welcome to SS Mary & Michael's News PageFair Processing of Data - Information for Parents
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Schoolfunds Reward Scheme
Our current total is 38,324 points, so is growing very nicely! Thank you to everyone who has bought online via this site - for every 10,000 points earned school can buy £50 worth of goods - so we now have almost £200. See below for more information on the scheme, which earns the school points for purchases you make over the internet, at no extra cost to yourself - new retailers are being added all the time so it's worth checking back if a particular retailer wasn't listed previously. We are always looking to boost our points total, so remember to visit the Schoolfunds website first when shopping online, then select the required website from the links - don't forget to choose our school first so that the points you earn can be awarded to the correct school.
Basic Skills Quality Mark
We are pleased to welcome a visit from Mr Ned Ratcliffe, Assistant Director of NIACE/Basic Skills Agency along with Mr Jonathan Hewitt, Acting Head of Lancashire School Effectiveness Service on Monday 9th June at 10:30am to present school with the Basic Skills Quality Mark. The award is in recognition of our continued hard work in improving standards in basic Literacy and Numeracy skills. Well done to everyone in contributing the required evidence in order to achieve the award and thank you to all the staff and children.
Cycling Proficiency
Once again there will be the opportunity for our Year 6 children to take part in the Cycling Proficiency course. More information will follow but please make a note in your diaries that the bike and helmet check will take place on Tuesday 20th May at 2pm.
Sponsored Sing
On Wednesday 7th May Ruth Walbank, Jessica Jones and Roisin McCann will be holding a sponsored sing-off in aid of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. If you would like to support them please send your donation into school in a named envelope marked RSPB. Thank you.
Section 48 Denominational Inspection
Please click here to read Mrs Wilkinson's letter regarding our recent RE Inspection. A link to download a copy of the report can be found on our School Information page.
Whit Festival Float
The Float Committee has given out letters to everyone who has signed the list in the playground porch, if you have missed out there are some spare copies in the porch. If your child would like to take part, especially girls (we have more boys than girls at present and need a couple more girls to balance the numbers) please sign up asap - costumes need to be organised well in advance. Parent volunteers are needed to either walk with the float or to sit on with the children - you must be willing to dress up in keeping with the Victorian theme! There will be a short meeting on Tuesday 29th April at 3:30pm in school to check on progress. Bags of crepe paper and instructions for making flowers will be available very soon. Please see Steph McGrath or Janet Miller if you have any queries.
May Procession Details
Sunday 18th May at 3pm is the date chosen for the May Procession. This event is part of the 150 years celebrations of SS Mary & Michael school and parish and it will be lovely to see as many families as possible attending. We plan to meet in the school hall at 2:30pm on the day. First Communicants (2008) can wear their Communion outfits and all the other children should wear school uniform. All girls who take part will have the opportunity to be selected to crown the statue of Our Lady. Children taking part in the procession must be accompanied by an adult for the afternoon.
Environmental Club
Mrs Wilkinson hopes to initiate a summer term weekly gardening club. We will be calling this our Environmental Club and hope that this will take place from 3:30-4:30 pm starting the week beginning 6th May. A suitable evening would be Thursday and the club will be open to any child, initially in Year 3 or Year 4. The club's first project will be to revamp the large planters in the school playground. Adult volunteers will be warmly welcomed.
Primary Admissions - September 2009
If your child was born between 1.9.04 and 31.8.05 then they will start school in September 2009. If you have included your child on our list in school then you will be contacted in September 2008 and will receive a Primary Admission Booklet with the form necessary to secure your child's place. If you haven't included your child on our list it is imperative that you do so to ensure that your child has a place in our school for September 2009.
School Association News
100 Club - The April draw took place on Friday 25th April, the winning number was 36, which belongs to Mrs Sue Turner who received a cheque for £67. There are still a few units available for anyone interested - contact Mrs Georgina Inman or call into the school office for further details.
Talent Night - Our annual Talent Night was once again a great success. All the children who took part performedbrilliantly. Well done to the winners - 1st Place - Katie & Genie Heywood, 2nd Place - Roisin McCann, 3rd Place - Christopher Miller. A big 'Thank you' to Mrs Jacqui Luczynska, who organised the event, and to everyone who helped and supported on the night. Over £300 was made for School Association funds.
Ofsted Report
We are pleased to announce that the report from the Ofsted visit on 12th December 2007 has been issued.
The report identifies that our school is "a good school with outstanding features" and goes on to outline the "excellent pastoral care", support and guidance provided for our pupils as one of our strengths. Other strengths identified include pupil enjoyment of their education, behaviour, spiritual, mopral and social development and pupil contribution to their local community. Teaching, achievement and standards are deemed to be consistently good or better, as are leadership, management, governance, curriculum provision and effectiveness in the Foundation Stage. We are extremely pleased indeed with the judgements in the report.
Many thanks to the children and staff for their continued hard work, and to governors, parents and parish members for their support during what turned into a very busy run up to Christmas! The RE section 48 denominational inspection will take place at some point during the second half of this term.
The full Ofsted report is avalable online here.
Parking
When dropping off children in the morning and collecting them at the end of the day can we please ask you to park sensibly and vacate the car park as soon as possible. We share the parking area with church and Hummingbirds and would appreciate consideration for all car park users to make the best use of our limited space at peak times. Parking permits are available from Mrs Charnley which allow us to use the Church Inn car park during drop off/pick up times, which we hope will go some way towards alleviating the parking problem.
Unfortunately there have been one or two problems with parking recently. We have arranged for kitchen deliveries to fit in around parents bringing their children to school and the drivers arrive at approximately 9:15am. Unfortunately on two occasions recently the delivery driver has been unable to park close to the school kitchen door to make his delivery because parents have parked and blocked the entrance through into the school playground. Can we please ask parents to park sensibly. Be aware of others and consider emergency situations - there is no way that an ambulance or fire engine could access the school via the playground if you are parking and blocking the entrance. Thank you for your help in this matter.
Recycling
A reminder that we are collecting used batteries, buttons, good quality dressing-up clothes and various resource tokens from Tesco etc., also required are any used printer cartridges, as these can be redeemed against new ones purchased. A central collecting area has been created in the porch area by the front door, near to Mrs Gibbs' office. We are now part of the Lancashire recycling scheme - the school within the Lancashire district with the most batteries will win a substantial prize!
Telephone Calls from School
In school we have two phones which can make outgoing calls - 603023 and 600075. Only one of these , 603023, can receive incoming calls. We may try to contact parents from either number and will always try to leave a message. If 600075 appears on your phone, please be aware that it is school trying to contact you, and to return the call you must ring 603023.
www.schoolfunds.co.uk provides extra educational equipment for schools through online shopping. The Schoolfunds Reward Scheme involves all the leading online retailers including Argos, Tesco, Boots, Amazon, Comet, Debenhams, Littlewoods, Dixons, Woolworths, Currys and hundreds more, with the list growing all the time. By simply using the schoolfunds website to select online retailers, reward points are collected for every purchase, points can be exchanged for educational equipment for school. Log on to the website www.schoolfunds.co.uk, select the 'School' tab at the top right, select 'North West', then 'Lancashire', scroll down and select SS Mary and Michael Catholic Primary School. Add the site to you favourites or make it your home page. Anything you would normally purchase online, CDs, insurance, electricals, holidays etc., check first to see if you can link to the site you are using from schoolfunds to earn points for school at no extra cost to yourself. Points are updated every Monday so we can all see how many points have been earned.
e.g. online purchases from Next earn 4 points per £
book a holiday online with Portland Direct and earn 2 point per £ spent
car insurance with Lloyds TSB Insurance earns 9,000 points
buy CDs, DVDs etc online at HMV earns 5 points per £, The Hut is 7 points per £ etc, etc, etc!
There are hundreds of ways to earn points by simply shopping online as you normally would, just remember to go to schoolfunds.co.uk first and click on the link to the website from their homepage.
Nut Allergy
We would like to bring to your attention that we have young children in school with a nut allergy. In order to minimise the risk to this child could you please refrain from sending your child into school with nuts, or products containing nuts. Thank you.
Name Tapes
Can we please remind all parents that it is very important that all the children's school clothes, especially sweatshirts, jumpers, cardigans and coats, are clearly marked with their names. This is very important for all children in our school and would greatly help cut down on the amount of lost property that accumulates.