I would like to thank the parents who attended the parents' forum hosted by Miss Simmons this week. This is a really good opportunity to discuss issues that matter to you and has resulted in some really good partnership work resulting in changes to the newsletter, increased accessibility to Bikeability and the return to World Book Day dressing up to name but a few!  Children thrive best when school and home work together.

As a direct result of feedback from our parent forum meeting, we are holding a meeting for Year 5 parents to share information about Grafham (you will find more information on this further down).

We hosted a SEND/Pastoral afternoon tea earlier in the term but unlike previous events, the turnout was extremely low. Again, this is the chance for parents to come and talk about all things SEND and pastoral and the team are there to talk to. We had planned another coffee morning after drop off after half term but would like to know from parents if these chances to meet with the team are useful and wanted to ask what the barriers are to attending. Please comment below to let us know if you would like to discuss SEND and pastoral and what the barriers are to coming to the planned events. If we know what they are, we can try and work around them. The form will close on Thursday 6th June.

I would also like to thank our parent volunteers that are regularly coming in now. It is great to see this slowly increase again after Covid and we are really pleased to have the help! If you have a few hours that you think you could offer to come and help in school, we would be most grateful. Please let us know via the admin email address - admin@almondhill.herts.sch.uk

I am sure children have been telling you all about the wonderful new books that have landed in our class libraries over the last couple of weeks. Our Year 6 HTAs have been working very hard getting these labelled and distributed. We still have some books left to arrive which will be delivered after half term. This week in assembly, children were presented with their certificates of participation and our winners were announced…

Lower School Winner – Idris in Year 3

Upper School Winner –Ahyan in Year 5

Both winners selected a book of their choice as a prize. Happy reading!

Unfortunately, we had lots of no shows this week at our upper school singing assembly – more than half of parents who had booked did not attend. This is a real shame and disappointing for the parents who wanted to come but were unable to due to lack of spaces. The office team have received lots of emails and queries about the sing-a-longs and I would like to remind parents that this has been advertised and spoken about on the newsletter weekly since 19^th April. We have also had lots of last minute emails to change/swap/cancel/check bookings. Some of which are not sent until the morning of the assembly. As I am sure you can appreciate, in the morning, the office team are busy ensuring all children have arrived and checking on dinners and may miss last minute emails. Please check your payment history on School Gateway to check if you have a space booked. If you do and you can no longer come, please let us know. If you do not have a space booked but would like to come, you may come along on the morning of the assembly and we will of course let you in if there are ‘no shows’ (we really don’t want any empty seats!) but we cannot guarantee this will be the case.

A parent has mentioned that it is often difficult to safely manoeuvre around the Year 3 classrooms during drop off and collection due to parents congregating on the steps. Please can I ask parents to not wait on the steps for children and keep this clear for families coming in/leaving site.

On Wednesday 5^th June, our photographers will be in school taking class photos. Please send children into school in full uniform (including red school jumper) in the morning. If children are due to have PE, they will need to bring their PE kit to change into for their lesson.

We are looking forward to welcoming parents to our sports days after half term. This year’s sports days will take place in the morning from 9.00am-11.00am.  Parents should make their way to the school field after drop off.

School will be selling light refreshments and baseball caps so please bring cash with you. There will also be the opportunity to purchase pre-loved books and school uniform. These will be available at the end of sports day too so please take the time to look around and grab a bargain!

Mrs Burgess, our Pastoral Lead, will be running workshops for parents on Therapeutic Thinking. This is an opportunity for parents to gain an insight into the school's behaviour management approach and how we consider what a child's behaviour might be trying to tell us.  She will be hosting 2 sessions. The first will take place in the hall at 2.00pm and will last approximately 1 hour. The second will take place online (via Microsoft Teams) at 6.00pm. We hope to see as many parents there as possible.

Join the meeting now

Meeting ID: 329 620 471 472

Passcode: BSwoGb

Parents may remember the wonderful ‘Parenting in the Digital World’ workshop we offered in February. The feedback from the parents who were able to attend was overwhelmingly positive. I too found the session invaluable which is why I am really pleased to tell you that Richard will be visiting our school on Wednesday 19th June to work with the children. He will be delivering 2 sessions (one for the lower school and one for the upper school) on this day. If you would like more information on the Stay Safe Initiative and what they do, please visit their website below:

https://thestaysafeinitiative.org.uk/our-work/online-safety/

Parent view from our parent forum meetings suggest that Year 5 parents would like more information about Grafham before starting Year 6. With this in mind, Miss Simmons will be holding a Grafham information meeting for Year 5 parents on Wednesday 3^rd July at 6pm. Here you will have the opportunity to find out more about the trip and ask any questions you may have. Year 5 children are welcome to attend with parents/carers.

To gather an idea on numbers, please let us know if you will be coming by submitting the form below:

The year 6 team are busy organising the graduation events for July. Tickets will be given to children after half term. Please remember, we can only allow 3 guests per child. This brings us to our limit in the hall for fire safety.

A reminder of the dates:

Monday 15th July - 6S  
Tuesday 16th July – 6B  
Wednesday 17th July - 6C

2.00-4.00pm in the school hall. 

The summer term finishes on Monday 22^nd July. Please note, as always, there will be a cold option only for lunch on this day.  We understand that Letchmore do not finish until Tuesday 23^rd July. Where we can, Letchmore and Almond Hill have the same term dates and INSET days but we are separate schools with different commitments so sometimes, differences can’t be avoided. However, I do not want to put unnecessary pressure on families with children in both schools so we will finish early as planned on Monday (12.30pm) but for those parents who really need it, school will remain open until 3.15pm. Children will be invited to watch a film in the hall and will be supervised by support staff. This will be the last day of junior school for Year 6 and their early finish is a rite of passage that we do not want to take away.