Friday 1st October 2021

Dear parents and carers of Stepney Park Primary School,

Here are this week’s messages:

Breakfast club:

Remember to contact the office if you’d like to access our free breakfast club, which starts next week. The breakfast club is mainly aimed at Yr 1 to Yr 6, but in some circumstances we can also admit Reception children. Sadly we are not able to take children from Nursery, due to the staff ratio that would be required.  

Trips:

We are beginning to plan some enriching trips for our children, so in the next few weeks you may get a letter from your child’s teacher to inform you that the class is going on a trip.  Our policy states that we will inform you if there is a local trip (around Stepney Green/ Whitechapel) and that we will ask you for permission if we go further afield and if we are using (public) transport. We may ask parents for a voluntary contribution towards the cost of the trip. This cost will rarely be more than £5.00, we will never make any profits on the trip and the school will contribute towards the cost as well.  A child of a parent who is unable to pay for the trip will never be excluded from the trip, if the trip is part of the normal curriculum and during school hours. However, in order for us to be able to afford to go on exciting trips, parental contributions are very much appreciated 

Rainy days:

Now autumn has started, the days are getting colder and wetter. Please make sure that your child has a warm coat every day and a waterproof jacket/ poncho for rainy days.  We are able to sell parents a yellow poncho at cost, please ask the office if you’d like to buy one 

Head Lice:

We have had a few cases of head lice in school. If there is a case in your child’s class, we will send a letter home to inform you. Please let us know if you need any advice with the treatment of head lice

Communication by email and phone:

We know that some parents have reported a few issues with emails not having been responded to timely, my apologies for this.  If you email the office during school working hours, you should expect an email back from the admin team during that same working day to say that the email has been passed on to a named person, who should normally get back to you within a day.  Urgent messages can be phoned through to the office too.  All staff, including new staff, have been reminded of our protocol, so I would expect there to be no further issues with this. However, if there are issues please let me know.  I can usually be found in the playground at the end of the school day by the alleyway gate. 

Covid:

Sadly, Covid has not yet gone away. Children who have any of the main Covid symptoms (cough, fever or loss of smell/taste) should still stay at home and self- isolate for 10 days, unless they have a negative PCR test. Siblings do not need to stay at home during this time, unless they also have symptoms. Please let us know if your child is able to take part in remote learning, so we can set them work to do at home. 

We will text parents of children who are in a class where another child has tested positive. The Government is recommending for all children in the relevant class to be tested with a PCR test. 

Kind regards,

Edith Philipsen

Headteacher- Stepney Park Primary School.