Friday 28th January 2022

Dear parents and carers of Stepney Park Primary School,

Special Day

Today is one of our special days, as today is ‘Responsibility Day’. The children will be re-introduced to our Learning Behaviour Character ‘Ruby the Responsible Robin’ and they will be learning about ‘being responsible’.

They will learn how they can help each other be happy in the playground and will be learning to play responsible playground games.

They will also be learning about looking after pets and about volunteering. Please talk to your child about what ‘being responsible’ at home and at school means to them. 

Children will be invited to write a story for our ‘Ruby the Responsible Robin’ book. Winning entries will be published in our very own hardback story book, copies of which will be distributed in every class!

Website updates:

I will share a little segment of our updated and lovely website in this part of my letter each time. This week's focus is Personal Development: Values and Learning Behaviours. 

At Stepney Park Primary School, our Personal Development curriculum reflects the school’s vision and values.  Our six ‘learning behaviours’, support children on their journey to becoming life-long learners and positive members of society.   

Our values are: Respect, Resilience and Independence. 

Our Learning Behaviours are:

Empathy and Collaboration - linked to our value of Respect

Trying new things and Ambition - linked to our value of Resilience

Curiosity and Responsibility - linked to our value of Independence

To help children understand these learning behaviours and how they can show them, we have developed the following characters:

• Emad the empathetic elephant- he understands how others feel

• Colin the collaborative clownfish- he likes to work together with others

• Taibah the tiger- she likes to try new things

• Abby the ambitious ant- she wants to challenge herself

• Corey the curious chimpanzee- he likes to ask lots of questions and to find things out

• Ruby the responsible robin- she wants to help and support others 

Here are their pictures:

Continued Staff Absences and Covid

We are continuing to feel the impact of Covid related staff absences. This week we had an average of 25% of our staff being off work due to illness.  We will do our best to make sure that our children are not going to be affected by the absences and ask for your patience whilst we get through this challenging phase of the pandemic.

Although the Government has changed its guidance with regards to wearing face masks, we would like to encourage all parents and visitors to the school to continue to wear a face covering when they come inside the building.

Children who test positive for Covid can be retested with a LFT (Lateral Flow Test) from day 5 after their positive LFT test. (They still need to follow NHS Track and Trace advice if they have tested positive on a PRC test).  If children test negative on a LFT for two days in a row, they can return to school, provided they are well. 

However, many people are testing positive for longer than 5 or 6 days. If this is the case, they may return to work or school after 10 days. Our admin staff can go through this with you on the phone where needed.

We will continue to inform parents of positive cases in each class as they occur. There is no need for children under 18 to self isolate if they have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive. However, the recommendation is for you to please test your child with a LFT every day for 7 days if they are in a class where a child has been diagnosed with Covid. 

School uniform reminder

Please do not allow your child to wear tracksuit bottoms to school, not even on a PE day. Leggings must be worn under a skirt or dress, must be black and must be tight fitting.

Parent Survey

We invite you all to take part in our parent survey.  We will use your views to support our direction, developing our school responsively.  We look forward to your replies and value your opinions.  Click this link to take you to the survey.  If you would like support in completing the survey, please contact the school and someone from the PCT will be pleased to help you.

Thank you for reading this newsletter.

Kind regards,

Edith Philipsen

Headteacher- Stepney Park Primary School.