Dear Parents
If you live near enough to pass by the school on your daily walk, you may have seen the exciting developments in our construction project in the last day or two! Yesterday morning, an enormous crane arrived on site, accompanied by several trucks delivering the components for the steel structure of our new hall extension… Despite the very turbulent times we are going through, we are so pleased to have been able to press on with the project. After months of preparatory work, the external structure is ready to be erected and we are looking forward to rapid progress now, with the hall(s) due to be completed by the end of April!
We have been working with the Xavier Estates Manager to confirm the specifications for the sliding partition wall, the new gymnastics equipment, the audio-visual equipment and (with the help of our wonderful Parent Association, if we can stretch the funding that far…) the tiered seating and we are really looking forward to having a fantastic space to benefit our whole school community! It is so exciting for our children to have the opportunity for two school hall spaces – this will give us double the capacity for indoor PE, drama, music and performances, as well as enabling a smoother lunchtime transition and, of course, more capacity for parents to join us for important whole school occasions such as whole school Mass, concerts and celebrations. This project will benefit the life of the school in so many ways.
Thank you to all of you for your support for the fundraising so far – we have now raised over £100,000 and the £150,000 target is within sight! This is no mean feat in difficult financial times and we are mindful that families have many competing demands on their funds at the moment. This makes us ever-more grateful for your support. We are pleased to report that the first tranche of personalised “Buy a Brick” bricks are already on order and will become part of the internal decoration of the new hall. If you would like to “Buy a Brick” or make a further contribution to the hall fund, please contact Tina O’Kelly via tokelly@cardinalnewmanschool.co.uk. We are continuing to apply for external grants and are also grateful to those who have made match funding available via their employer schemes. The bulk of our funding comes from the regular donations to Governors Fund via standing order (forms can be found here) - thank you to the very many parents who donate this way; we really couldn’t do it without you! The new hall really will be a whole school community effort – thank you to all of you!
On a less exciting note, you might be aware that asymptomatic testing has arrived in Primary Schools! This is only for staff who are onsite and aims to reduce transmission of COVID in the local community. Our staff will be testing themselves at home twice a week and we hope this will not have too much impact on staffing. It is possible that the tests will pick up asymptomatic positive cases among staff which may lead to some changes in the support staff who are supervising children in school. We are hopeful it won’t have a significant impact on our capacity to deliver remote learning, but it may be that some more staff than currently will have to work from home! Let’s see how it all turns out! We will keep you informed of any further developments – within the bounds of confidentiality, of course!
Some more thank yous from this week!
- To those who joined the Coffee and Conversation session this week – the summary of the meeting was sent out and we are grateful as always for our positive and supportive school community. We are aware anecdotally that this is not the case in all schools, so thank you. It was clear from the feedback and the meeting that there are lots of families finding lockdown 3 particularly challenging. In case these are any use to any of our school families, Surrey have sent links to their Family Support website here: https://www.surreysfamilyhelphub.org.uk/?view=category
and Xavier have sent links to the UNICEF family resources:
https://www.unicef.org/coronavirus/covid-19-parenting-tips
- There was a further link sent out yesterday for a survey about how children are accessing the home learning. Thank you to those who have already completed it - if you missed it and would like to fill it in, the link is here
- A further thank you to the Peel family who have enabled us to access donated classroom furniture from Claremont Fan School – this includes new bookcases for the classroom book corners and new tray units for the classrooms. We will be able to get these all in situ for when the children return to school. Thank you to Claremont Fan School!
- Dominic Raab (MP) has written to school staff thanking them for their commitment and hard work during these difficult times for our community. His letter was shared with staff at our meeting on Wednesday.
- A lovely thank you card was received from Veronica Robbins, Chaplain to Whiteley Village (and Governor at Cardinal Newman) who writes on behalf of the residents who received gifts via our Giving Tree project, “Please thank all the parents and pupils for their very generous gifts and beautiful Christmas cards. I just wish you could have seen the happiness on everyone’s faces when I delivered your presents…. Your love and generosity gave a lot of lonely people so much joy. Thank you and may our wonderful God continue to bless you all.”
- Staff in school thoroughly enjoyed a delicious box of cupcakes in the staffrooms today - a thank you for all the hard work they are doing with the children from a very appreciative family. Our thanks to them and thank you to everyone who has sent lovely messages to our school staff this week - it makes such a difference - especially on a rainy Friday!
Our prayers were asked this week for a little girl – the daughter of a colleague – called Rosa who was in ITU with post-COVID inflammatory syndrome. Rosa is 8 years old with no underlying condition. Her family’s situation helps us all to remember why we are making the tremendous sacrifices we are. COVID is seemingly random and could affect any one of us, or our parents or our children. Despite the difficulties, let’s remember that no-one chose this situation and let’s continue to support each other as best we can until we come through to the other side. Happily, the prayers of our staff and school community have been heard and Rosa came out of hospital yesterday to recover further at home. Please continue to pray for her and for her family – and for all who have been adversely affected in recent weeks.
Collective Worship this week will be on Monday at 8:45am as usual. It will be led by me and the theme for this week is Children’s Mental Health Week. I hope you will be able to join us for a moment of community as a whole school – and do light a candle as a symbol of our community if you are able to do so safely. Teachers will be starting a Weekly Wellbeing check-in for the children at home from next week, to give them the opportunity to feedback how they are getting on. Please let them complete this on their own if they are able to.
All best wishes for the weekend ahead
Catherine Burnham
Headteacher
