Dear Parents
Anti-Bullying Week
We have had a busy week in school this week, celebrating Anti-Bullying Week! On Monday the children wore odd socks to raise awareness that we are an Anti-Bullying school and in whole school prayers on Monday the Year 4 Prayer Council led a prayer and response which was very moving. They said “I am unique because….” and told something about themselves. The other children responded, “You are loved by God.” This helped all of our children to know themselves “uniquely created and loved by God” as it says in our school mission statement.
Parent Association
KS1 and KS2 children took part in Anti-bullying workshops funded by the Parent Association so thank you to all of you who have supported the PA with your time and resources this year! You will be aware that the current Chair and Vice Chair of the PA have completed their term and will step down at the end of this academic year. We are looking for enthusiastic parent volunteers in Reception or KS1 to take on this role from September 2022 – please consider it! The PA Committee already includes a Treasurer and Co-opted Finance Rep, as well as the Secretary, so it is a real team effort; Class Reps from each year group co-ordinate the individual events. Chair and Vice Chair tend to be the drivers of the overall school picture and also liaise closely with school to agree appropriate dates and events. If you would like to know more about the roles, please speak to myself or to Sian and Lydia who will be happy to give more details.
The Parent Association is really important at Cardinal Newman, especially for building our school community; annual events such as the New Parents Evening drinks, the Summer Fair and Christmas Carols round the Christmas Tree have traditionally helped to give our school families an opportunity to socialise together and meet new people. Fundraising has also been very important: the Parent Association annually fund the school minibus costs, the Christmas panto and Book Week workshops, as well as other exciting activities for the children. Big one off items funded by the PA in recent years have included the minibus (jointly funded with Governors), the tiered seating (jointly funded with Governors), the IT suite equipment and renewal of Interactive Whiteboards. Forthcoming projects with the Parent Association include renewing our reading books and purchasing a set of IPads for the children’s use. If you think you could support the Parent Association as Chair or Vice Chair, or if you can give your time and skills in another way, do please get in touch!
Governors Fund: Bricks
The “Sponsored Brick” scheme for the hall extension proved very popular and the Governors Fund have released a limited number of further “bricks” in the new hall display. These are on sale for a minimum donation of £50 and can be engraved with your child’s / family’s details. Please click here for details of how to Buy a Brick! Thank you for your support for the hall extension project – we are looking forward to planning the next venture!
Community Christmas: Gift List
Thank you for your wonderful donations to the Foodbank last week – you may have seen from our shout out on the Foodbank Facebook page that our donations were really appreciated by them! As you know, we worked hard this time last year to support those in our community who felt isolated or who couldn’t afford to celebrate Christmas. This year, we would like to continue the dual focus, on some vulnerable children and families locally who might need a little extra support with gifts and on the elderly and housebound of our parishes and local community who might like a little token to know someone is thinking of them on Christmas Day. The gift list to support our local community can be accessed here: https://www.thingstogetme.com/296832a164ac
Gifts can be “claimed” online and then purchased, wrapped, labelled and brought into school between Friday 3rd December and Monday 6th December. Our school community were really generous last year and our gifts were greatly appreciated, including by Sherwood House residents, Whitely Village residents, local families, parishioners of both parishes and further afield. Thank you again for your generosity to those in need.
Winter PE Kits
Our PE Team have asked me to highlight that the days are now getting colder as we approach December and some children only have shorts and T-shirts in their PE bag. Our children usually do PE outdoors all year round and for that reason a school sweatshirt and navy joggers are really useful to keep the children warm. If your child hasn’t remembered to bring their winter PE kit in yet, please could you send it in this coming week. Any families who are having difficulty affording the winter PE kit at the moment are asked to get in touch with their class teacher or the school office and we will help out where we can.
Covid
And finally… You may be aware that we have a number of staff out with Covid this week, including the Y5 and Y6 teams. The staff team are pulling together to keep the school open for the children and the Y6 families have been very supportive, taking their children for PCR tests which has helped to pick up unknown cases and to limit the spread in school. Thank you to everyone for your co-operation in our “outbreak management” measures.
At the present time, there is no additional spread among children from YR to Y5 and the school continues to operate normally for them. Year 6 are isolated within school and not mixing with the other children for the coming week – we will review the contingency measures at the end of the week. At present we still plan to go ahead with our Christmas programme, but we have postponed the Amethyst Class Mission Week (and assembly) for the coming week and all future plans remain possible rather than definite at this stage. We are doing all we can to ensure we can go ahead.
Thank you for all you are doing to help us to limit transmission within our community:
- If you are using lateral flow tests as a family, please continue to test regularly – these tests are good at picking up asymptomatic cases and limiting the spread in school.
- Children who have even mild symptoms of cough or fever (or headache in young children) should be taken for a PCR test before coming back into school please.
- Please continue to follow social distancing guidelines and sanitise hands regularly, including when you come into the school building as a visitor or volunteer.
Wishing all of you a very happy weekend and all the best for the coming week!
Catherine Burnham
Headteacher
Travelling Crib – Year 2 - Thankfully, we are able to resume our tradition of the Travelling Crib this year. Each day during advent, a child in Year 2 will be given an Advent Crib set, along with candles, readings and prayers to share at home with their families. We ask that you upload a photo and / or a few thoughts to our Padlet, about having the Crib in your home for the night. 
Please find the new school menu for Autumn/Winter 
ACS International School Cobham
Please notify the school office every day your child is absent from school before 9 am so we can adjust dinner figures etc. Please either ring the school office and leave a voicemail or email absence@cardinalnewmanschool.co.uk. Thank you
Thursday 25th November Mufti Day. Donation to Christmas Hamper Raffle. More information 
