Friday 12th May 2023

Dear parents and carers of Stepney Park Primary School,

Finally, it seems summer is on its way...! The summer term is also well under way with many exciting events planned for this term. 

The children are making great progress, it is great to see how many of our children are catching up with their learning post Covid. The impact of Covid lockdowns on attainment has been vast, but our children are making great strides; a number of year groups are not far off where they would have been before the pandemic, thanks to all the hard work that has been put in. Thank you to all the staff who have worked so incredibly hard. 

Eid

Our Eid celebrations this year were wonderful! The children loved the Eid decorations in the halls, their special Eid meal and their Eid parties. Thank you to all parent volunteers who helped us and to the families who have kindly donated food.  Also, a very special thank you to 'Cake and Custard Company’, 'Dhaka Biryani' and 'Rahim Brothers' for their generous food donations.  We raised £565.00 for Islamic Relief, which is a great achievement. 

SATs

Year 6 children have been taking part in their SATs this week. They have worked very hard to get ready for the tests and they all deserve a great outcome. They have all come such a long way since their start at primary school, and in particular since the end of the Covid lockdowns, so we are proud of them all already!

Year 2 children are also taking part in SATs in the next few weeks. Alongside teacher assessments the SATs assessments will be used to give parents and schools an end of KS1 outcome. This will be the last year for KS1 SATs, as next year they will no longer take place. 

Tea Parties

I was delighted to host the first two tea parties last week.  Children who were awarded all six of the Learning Behaviour cards were invited to a special tea party and enjoyed some ‘tea’ and cakes. The children talked to me about what they had done to deserve the cards and they were very excited and proud to be there. The next tea party will be just before the half-term.

Relationships and Sex Education

All parents should receive a letter in the next couple of weeks, outlining RSE lesson contents. The letter will also contain information about your right to withdraw from some lessons in Yr 6, and will explain how parents can view the content and materials of the lessons before they are taught, should they wish to do so. RSE lessons will take place in the second half of the summer term.

Minor illnesses 

We have a significant number of children whose attendance has fallen below 90%; this is classified as ‘Persistently Absent’. Children who fall into this category are often kept at home with minor illnesses, such as a cough or a cold. Sometimes parents do not provide us with a strong reason, for example they merely say that their child is ‘ill’ or ‘unwell’.  All schools are obliged to do everything they can to ensure attendance is as high as it can be, so we will always ask for a specific and valid reason in order to authorise the absence. 

School uniform

Thank you for your efforts to ensure that most of our children come into school in the correct uniform. I would like to remind parents to ensure that their children do not wear tracksuit bottoms to school, even on PE days. 

In addition, I would like to request that children do not wear trousers under dresses or skirts; instead they should wear leggings or tights.  Children are allowed to wear trousers if worn without a skirt or dress.  (Uniform)

School Photography.

A school photographer will be coming into school in June; they are able to take individual and family photos when they are here. 

In order to avoid disruption to learning and to save work for the admin team, we will ask parents who wish to have individual photographs taken to complete a GoogleForm in advance; these will be sent to parents soon. If we do not receive this GoogleForm from parents, we will assume that their child will not need an individual photo to be taken.  

In addition, we are arranging for family group photos to be taken after school. This may mean that parents will need to queue up with their children if they would like a family group portrait to be taken. We thank you for your understanding.

Special events this term

We have some very special events coming up, some of which will involve parents in particular. Please note the following for your diaries, so that you can take off work in advance, if required:

• Whole school Family Trip: we will go ahead with the organisation of a whole school family trip, which will take place on Jun 30th. We will organise lots of family activities in Victoria Park and will meet families there. Families can stay the whole day or leave early if they wish to do so. We will arrange for children whose parents can’t make it to be taken there by members of staff instead, but of course it would not be a family trip without our parents there, so we hope that this will only be needed for a very small group of children.

• Sports days: Sports days at Mile End Stadium will be on July 4th and 6th this year. We will let you know which year groups will be going on which days nearer to the time. Parents will be welcome to both sports days, for the whole day instead of just the afternoon. There will also be a sports event for EYFS, the date of this has not yet been finalised

• Competitions: we will have a Spelling Bee and a Talent Show competition. The finals will be filmed and shared with parents. Please encourage your child to take part in both, they are great fun and really help with the confidence and resilience. 

Thank you for reading this newsletter 

Kind regards,

Edith Philipsen

Headteacher- Stepney Park Primary School