More parents, grandparents and carers are needed to Ellingham children, who have not yet mastered essential reading skills and need regular practice to improve fluency and understanding.

If maths is more your thing, please volunteer to support children to become more fluent in their number facts.

If you have a regular spare half an hour at the beginning or end of the day or a spare hour during the day, one day a week or even more, please think about helping. Please email the school office@elp.rbksch.org to express an interest. Thank you so much to those who have already offered their time- your support makes a huge difference.

Interested in 2-Year-Old Nursery Places? Complete Our Survey

From April 2024, the government is extending free childcare for working parents to include 2 -year-olds. If your child is 2 years old, you may be able to get 15 hours free childcare per week for 38 weeks of the year (during school term time).

More information is available on this link https://www.gov.uk/apply-free-childcare-if-youre-working, which includes how to apply for a code to enable you to get free childcare. You can apply from when your child is 1 year and 36 weeks old.

We are currently looking at our Nursery offer and would be very interested to know if you would like a place for your 2-year-old at the school so that we can review and plan for it. Please complete the survey below.

Survey

Parent and Carer Consultations - February

Parent and Carer Consultations will be held on Tuesday 20th and Wednesday 21st February in school.

SEN Reviews will be held separately and you will be contacted directly for a meeting with Mrs Sephton.

Alleyway to Garrison Lane Closed

We have contacted the council and anticipate a repair to make the fencing safe sometime next week. We will let you know and open it up as soon as we have firm details.

Exciting Opportunity to Help Ellingham AIM HIGH: Parent Governor Vacancy

The Governing body have a vacancy for a parent governor and are seeking nominations for an enthusiastic and committed parents or carers to join the governing board. It is your opportunity to help Ellingham achieve its strategic vision to AIM HIGH for every child.

The core functions of the governing board are to:

Ensure clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction
Hold senior leaders to account for the educational performance of the organisation, its pupils, and the performance management of staff
Oversee the financial performance of the organisation and making sure its money is well spent.

The term of office for all governors is four years. Governors need to attend an average of two committee meetings per term (before or after school) and have the opportunity to visit the school to understand a specific element of the school's practice. Many companies allow time out of work for governor commitments.

Please see letter here from the Chair of Governors for more information and a form to complete for nominations. Closing date extended to Monday 22nd at noon.

Kingston-Wide Wrap-Around Care

Achieving for Children, Kingston's Educational Services team are hoping to capture parents' likely requirements for wraparound care to support their planning for September 2024. Please complete the survey on this link.

Thank You for Your Feedback

Thank you to the parents who responded to our survey in the autumn term. It is now closed; we left it open until the end of term to ensure as many people could feed back as possible. Our aim is to action any areas of development that are quick to remedy and follow-up other suggestions that may require further input with some parent forums. Watch this space!

LEARNING TOGETHER

New Year's Resolution - To have an Excellent Ellingham 2024!

It has been lovely to have the children back. They have made the start to 2024 and the new school term fantastic with their happy and calm attitude. Our first week's value was Excellence and the children thought about how they could make their New Year school resolutions link to the value. Today we awarded certificates to children who had really taken to heart how to aim high and achieve better than before. Every small step of learning and progress deserves to be celebrated.

New Year Group Curriculum Pages

We have exciting new web pages for each year group. Click on the buttons to read all about your child's year group, including photos, an overview of learning and resources to support your child and home.

Reception

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

Year 5

Year 6

Sounds Write App to Support Your Child At Home

At Ellingham, we introduce the Sound-Write phonics programme in Reception to teach children to read and spell. If your have access to an iPad at home, you can download and try a sample of the Sounds-Write App for free! Follow the link for more details: https://sounds-write.co.uk/ipad-app/

Year 2 Mathematicians

Year 2 made number staircases in Maths this week to explore consecutive numbers. The children were investigating to find out if consecutive whole numbers always have a difference of one and found out that yes they do!

Reception - An afternoon of investigation

Is it magnetic? How many times do I need to press forward on the Beebot to make it move along 3 spaces along the number line ? Which shape do I need to finish my picture?

Just some of the questions the Reception children tried to answer in their investigations!

The Big Ambition

The Children's Commissioner for England has announced the launch of an exciting survey to make sure that every child in England has an opportunity to share their views with policy makers ahead of the General Election. You can find the link to 'The Big Ambition' below.

https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/the_big_ambition/

SAFEGUARDING, HEALTH AND SUPPORT

Helping children with Screen time (1).pdf

This is the full safeguarding team in school. They are all trained to Level 3 and everyone in the school received the annual update of Safeguarding Level 2 training at INSET.

Contact details: 020 8397 3864 or email: office@elp.rbksch.org to request a safeguarding call back. For pupil support, contact 020 8397 3864 or email: pupilsupport@elp.rbksch.org