Dear Families,

Free School Meals
Did you know that if your child is entitled to free school meals, the school receives funding from the Government.  This funding is spent on support for your child. Even if your child has packed lunches, you can still apply and the school will still receive this extra funding.  See below for more information.  You can find out more by clicking Staffordshire County Council

Who can get free school meals?

The general low income entitlement criteria is -

• Income Support

• Income Based Job Seekers Allowance. Please note the ‘new style’ job seekers allowance is not a qualifying benefit, as this is based upon payment of National Insurance contributions and not the household income

• Income Related Employment and Support Allowance. Please note the ‘new style’ employment and support allowance is not a qualifying benefit, as this is based upon payment of National Insurance contributions and not the household income

• eligible for Child Tax Credit but not Working Tax Credit and the household income (as used by HMRC to assess tax credits) is not more that £16,190. Please note: anyone eligible for Working Tax Credit, or if you have a partner and they receive it, regardless of Income, you will not qualify

• The Guarantee element of State Pension Credit

• Support under part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999

• In receipt of the 4 week run on of working tax credit (this is where someone becomes unemployed or reduces their hours and so is no longer entitled to working tax credit but will continue to receive it for a further 4 weeks and is entitled to free meals during that time)

• Universal credit (provided you have an annual net earned household income of no more than £7,400 as assessed by earnings from up to three of your most recent assessment periods). Your net earned income is your household income after taxes and deductions and does not include income from Universal Credit or any other benefits you may receive.

To make an application under any of these criteria please use our online application form

National Teaching Assistant Day
Today we celebrated all of our wonderful teaching assistants.  Without their invaluable support in the classroom, the children wouldn’t have another adult to support them with their learning.  As a way of saying thank you, we treated our TAs to a special breakfast. 

Learning in the classrooms
This week I have been around to all of the classrooms and seen some amazing learning going on.  Year 6 has been learning about personification and produced some very thoughtful sentences. Year 5 were very knowledgeable about the dangers of electricity.  Year 4 has amazed me with their spelling results.  So many of the children are getting full marks and remembering spellings from previous weeks, which is great!  Years 3, 2 and 1 have been working their socks off with their maths work.  And early years children have been amazing with their activities especially Reception children who weren’t too sure about having a spider or a shark for a pet!

I showed some new families around yesterday who were very impressed with what they saw. 

Small & Tall
On Friday 25th October, Small & Tall is closed after school due to staff training.  We are open in the morning.

Water Beads and young children
If you have young children, please take a moment to read this safety alert regarding water beads. 

Attendance
At Friarswood we are very lucky to have super overall attendance.  As you will be aware, the Government is raising awareness about attendance in schools across the country and has put new guidelines in place.  Here are the links to our Attendance policy and the DfE information.  One of the updates refers to penalty notices to families who have been on holiday but haven’t informed the school of this.  Due to this, please can we ask that you do let us know if you’re on holiday as we now have to do home visits if a child is off school for more than 2 days. If your child or someone talks to us about you being on holiday (and we‘re not aware of this)  we still have to refer this to the authority.  Again, I would just like to say that Friarswood has the best attendance across all of the Co-op Academies Trust.  Thank you for your support with this.

Have a lovely weekend

Take care and stay safe.

Mrs Wilmer

Over the summer, Friarswood was delighted to welcome volunteers from DHL who came to help with maintenance of our Environmental Garden in the quad. The school’s Eco Warriors have been working hard to keep on top of the weeds that have inevitably been trying to make a comeback in the holidays.

Welcome back to school everyone,

It’s been lovely to chat with so many of you this week.  The children have settled so well.  They’ve picked up the new routines easily and have made a super start to their learning.

Over the summer, we’ve had new flooring on the ground floor which looks great.  We’ve had new broadband cabling around the school which should help with the speed we can access our lessons.  Teachers have also had new computers as the old ones were over 12 years old and ran very slowly.  Too slow for our children’s needs.

I thought I’d put a few reminders on this letter, mainly linked to safeguarding and health & safety.  If you would like any further information just pop in and ask.

Jewellery
Only a watch and a pair of small stud earrings are allowed.  No jewellery at all is allowed for PE / swimming.  Your child must be able to remove the earrings by themselves for PE as staff can’t do this.

Grass Banks
Please be aware that these are really slippy in the mornings.  We’ve had some children slide down and hurt themselves before school has started.

Beginning / end of day

Doors are open from 8:40 - 8:50am.  Gates close at 8:50am.

Early Years (Nursery and Reception classes) starts at 8:45am and finishes at 3:15pm.

We will open the gate at 3:10pm for collection at the end of the day.

(If you’re collecting from Nursery, please ring the buzzer on the gate at your chosen time)

Coming into school
If you’re coming into school throughout the day, please do not let any strangers through the gate.  Everyone needs to speak to a member of staff through the intercom before being let into the school grounds.

CCTV
We have CCTV cameras around the school for safety reasons.  

Visitors in school
Every visitor coming to Friarswood is asked to sign in and wear a lanyard.  Children are taught that our visitors wear lanyards, which shows we know who they are.  We teach children to speak to a member of staff if a visitor isn’t wearing a lanyard.

When we have family events (shows, open afternoons etc), we will not be asking you to sign in and wear lanyards.

Community Herb Garden
Over the summer, volunteers from DHL as well as our Academy Community Pioneer have been working on this garden.  You may have seen it; it’s next to the playground, by the side road.  We have had a gate donated to us from Wickes which will go on the outside of the fence.  The school grounds are fenced off so when this garden is up and running, nobody will be able to get into the school grounds.

We will have open times for the garden and hopefully many if not all of our families will use this area.  I’ll keep you posted.

Parking on Abbots Way
My regular plea for those of you who park along Abbots Way …. please park safely.  Please do not park in front of neighbours driveways or on the yellow lines.

Staffordshire County Council Hero Campaign

Staffordshire County Council have launched a new initiative that focuses on School attendance. The new scheme HERO helps to break down barriers that children may face when coming to school. If you have any concerns or struggling to get your child to school please come and speak to Mrs Dean. 

As always, please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any worries or concerns.

Everyone at Friarswood hopes that this is the start to another fantastic year.

Have a lovely weekend.

Take care and stay safe.

Mrs Wilmer

Dear Families,

What a busy week we’ve had.  Our winning team , Northern Ireland, won the term treat.  They had a great time taking part in Forest Schools activities along with having a BBQ.  KS2 had their sports competitions on Monday afternoon.  You could hear the cheering in every part of the school. We’ve said goodbye or good luck to some of our team.  Mrs Rafferty is going on her maternity leave.  We wish her all the best for a safe delivery of baby number 3.  Miss Coleman is getting married in August.  We wish her lots of love and happiness in her marriage.  She will be Mrs McConvey when she comes back.  Mrs Fender has retired from being a lunchtime assistant. And we’ve said goodbye and thank you to Bee Active  for all of their support with PE this year.

A huge thank you for the many lovely cards and gifts.  The staff are overwhelmed with your generosity and the words have brought lots of tears.

Most importantly, we have said goodbye to our wonderful Year 6 children as well as goodbye to some of our families who have been with us for many years.  It’s always a bittersweet day.  We’re so excited for the children and their new adventures at high school but we’re always sorry to see them leave.

Our Year 6 children have brought their own unique spark to Friarswood.  Their enthusiasm has been evident throughout their time here.  They have many wonderful memories which they will be able to cherish forever.  Every single child has achieved in big ways as well as small but equally significant ways.  Their growth, both academically and personally, has been a pleasure to watch over the years.

I wish them all the very best for high school and beyond.  It’s been a privilege to be part of their life and yours.

To the rest of our children and families, I wish you all a wonderful summer break.  I hope you manage to spend some quality time with your family and friends.  I look forward to seeing you back at school on Tuesday 3rd September.

Take care and stay safe

Mrs Wilmer and the Friarswood team.

Dear Families,

Year 1 trip

On Tuesday Year 1 had a great time at The Brampton museum.  They are learning about toys and learnt a great deal at the museum.  Super behaviour and lots of answering questions by so many of the children.

Year 5 & 6 science day

On Tuesday, Years 5 and 6 spent the day at Keele University taking part in various science workshops.  The children had so much fun bug hunting, making speakers, learning about chromatography and learning about DNA.  

Uniform and high expectations

It’s becoming more noticeable that some children aren’t wearing the correct school uniform to school or for PE.  Please can you make sure that children do not wear platform trainers for PE and that PE tops are not crop tops.

Children cannot wear makeup in school.  If your child comes into school with makeup on they will be asked to wash it off straight away.

And the last reminder - nail varnish is not allowed in school.

We value our high standards at Friarswood and appreciate your support with this.

Transition / Move up morning

This has gone very well.  The children were so excited about being in their new classroom and meeting their new teacher.  As mentioned previously, those children who will be in a different part of the school (Reception and Year 2) will be shown where they come into school several times over the next couple of weeks.

Small & Tall fee increase

Unfortunately, due to the rise in costs with fuel and food as well as living wage increases, we have had to make the decision to raise the charges for Small & Tall.  We have tried our best to keep the increase as minimal as possible.   The fees are as follows:

Before school - £5.25 (no change)

After school - £9.25 

There will be a 10% discount for children who attend all of the before / after school sessions.

The fees will be reviewed annually.

Internet Safety

For Parents - Snapchat Updated Safety Features

At the end of June Snapchat updated the app with further safety features, including updates to account blocking functionality and enhanced friending safeguards, e.g.:

• Block new friend requests sent from bad actors who were already blocked by the user, but sent from a different account from the same device.

• More frequent reminders about which friends they share their location with on Snap Maps.

• Further pop-up warnings if users add a friend who doesn't share mutual friends or is not a part of their contacts.

Further details can be found HERE.

Wishing you a fun evening later at the fair and a lovely weekend.

Take care and stay safe

Mrs Wilmer

Dear Families,

Information from the e-safety adviser 

For Parents - Y6 Transition to Secondary School 

As children make that move into secondary school it's likely that many will experience many 'digital firsts'. Internet Matters have a lovely, useful guide for parents about children moving to secondary school with advice such as:

• What are children doing online.

• Are they ready for a smartphone (if they haven't already got one!).

• Activities children and parents can do together.

• and more

You can find the guidance HERE.

KS1 sports event

The children had such a great time taking part in the races.  Thank you to everyone who came to support the children.  We managed to fit it all in just before the rain arrived.

Early Years sports event

What a beautiful afternoon for everyone.  The children had lots of fun and the crowd was very enthusiastic.

World of Work week

This week our Year 5 and 6 children have been interviewing as well as being interviewed, planned enterprise initiatives and learnt all about applying for jobs.  They’ve had such a busy week learning about jobs and specific skills needed for various jobs.  

Thank you to everyone who helped to make the week so successful.

Last swimming sessions of the year

Years 5 and 3 had a whale of time in the pool this week.  They had a chance to show off their skills, have fun in the water and they certainly showed how confident they are.  I’ve never seen so many children constantly under the water and trying to sit on the bottom of the pool.

Keele University Family Funday

Just in case you’re after something to do on Saturday 29th June ….

https://keele.ac.uk/keeleday

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Take care and stay safe.

Mrs Wilmer

Upcoming events