Rushy Meadow Primary Academy

April News

Tue 02 May 2023 Mr Needham

We have had a lovely start to the Summer Term, which has already seen Year 5 attend a London Philharmonic Concert, Year 1 enjoy a trip to the seaside at West Wittering and the whole school take part in National Skipping Week.

Deaf Awareness Week

This week, we are celebrating Deaf Awareness Week at Rushy Meadow. This is an opportunity to raise awareness of some of the challenges d/Deaf people may face in the community and ensure everyone in our school and wider community feels included, whilst promoting the amazing aspects of living with deafness. Pupils have been invited to create a poster promoting deaf awareness and, in assembly, our Teacher of the Deaf, Miss Gelly, shared strategies with pupils on how we can become more deaf aware. These included speaking clearly and making sure we have the person’s attention before we begin speaking.

King’s Coronation
A reminder that we have a dress-up day to celebrate the King’s coronation on Friday 5^th May. Children can dress as a King, Queen, Prince or Princess. We have our 50p cake sale taking place after school in both the KS1 and KS2 playgrounds. Remember, you can donate cakes to the sale by dropping them to the office before 2pm on Friday 5^th May.

Events taking place this Term

Come and Be Nosy – more information will follow; these are mornings when parents are invited into school to see a lesson taking place in their child’s class:
Tuesday 13^th and Wednesday June 14^th : Year 3 – 6. Time: 9am-9.30am (parents to attend one)

Thursday 15^th and Friday June 16^th : Reception. Time: 9am-9.30am (parents to attend one)
Wednesday 21^st and Thursday June 22^nd : Year 1 & 2. Time: 9am-9.30am (parents to attend one)

Sports Days – more information on organisation will follow; dates and times below:
Nursery and Reception: Thursday 29th June 2023 from 9am – 10am

Year 1 and Year 2: Thursday 29th June 2023 from 10.30am – 11.45am

Year 3 and Year 4: Friday 30th June 2023 from 9am – 10.30am

Year 5 and Year 6: Friday 30th June 2023 from 10.45am – 12.15pm

Journeying safely to school

Thank you for taking the time to feedback on your journey to and from Rushy. We have had almost 200 parent responses! I am putting together a small work party involving governors, parents and staff, who will be reading through your comments and suggestions. We will then share our next steps and I hope to update with further support from Sutton council.

For some of our pupils, this is their last term before Secondary school, whilst others are preparing to start full-time schooling in Reception. I am looking forward to celebrating many milestones with you and all our pupils in the Summer months.

Yours,

Mr Needham

March News

Wed 29 Mar 2023 Mr Needham

As we approach the Easter holidays, I would like to start by thanking all of our pupils, parents and staff for their hard work and contributions to school life this term.

The biggest thing that has stood out for me in March is reading. What a PHENOMENAL achievement for our school community to have raised nearly £5,000 during our sponsored read. Reading is one of my favourite things to do, and in fact, one of the first things I did as Headteacher was to set up a shelf in my office for books that have helped my understanding of education, schools and leadership. I am incredibly proud that it is a passion shared by our families at Rushy Meadow. Our team have been busily discussing their book wishlists with Miss Knight and I cannot wait until we are able to fill our school with new Usborne books!

BSL Week

During the w.c. 13^th March, we celebrated British Sign Language (BSL) Week. There are 7,000 spoken languages across the world, but did you know there are also 300 different sign languages? As we have a base for deaf pupils at Rushy, we constantly talk to our children about deaf awareness and are trying to raise the profile of BSL within school. We have introduced a weekly sign of the week and during BSL week, we took part in the UK’s largest ever online BSL lesson. This online event involved over 223,000 pupils from 1,350 schools. We also challenged children to learn to fingerspell their name. If you would like to try this at home, you can find fingerspelling alphabets here:
https://www.british-sign.co.uk/fingerspelling-alphabet-charts/

Two areas we have been working with our families on are attendance and punctuality. I am pleased to share that we are seeing improvements in both of these areas. As the table below shows, overall school attendance and the number of pupils achieving 100% attendance has improved in the Spring Term. Meanwhile, the number of pupils arriving late has fallen.

	Attendance	Late marks	Number of pupils with 100% attendance
Autumn 2022	91.22%	1103	64
Spring 2023	92.07%	728	77

In Assembly this week, we celebrated the many pupils who have attended school every day and also those pupils whose attendance has improved by 10% or more since the Autumn Term. I have set the children the target of having 100 pupils with 100% attendance in a term. Let’s see if we can achieve this in the Summer!

Parent Governor

We are looking for a new parent governor! As a parent governor, you will join our Local Committee. This is a group who offer support and challenge to the school. As a new Headteacher, I have found the Local Committee incredibly important to the ongoing success of our school. I am constantly learning about our pupils and our community. Governors - and in particular, parent governors - provide a voice that I am eager to hear from.

With this newsletter, we have attached a letter from Pauline Cook. Pauline is the Chair of our Local Governor Committee and has been working with Rushy Meadow since 2016. If you are interested in either applying for or nominating another parent for a governor position, please see the instructions in her letter.

Journeying safely to school

Those of you who have been following my newsletters closely will know that I am passionate about ensuring that our pupils’ journey to and from school is as safe and calm as possible. This term, I have been working with one of our parent governors to see what more can be put in place to support safe travel.

We have met with different members of Sutton’s Sustainable Transport and Commissioning Team to see what options we have available. We are aiming to improve signage and develop safe crossing points on both Fellowes Road and Rushy Meadow Lane.

An area that we are particular interested in is seeing how we can reduce the number of cars on these roads at drop-off and pick-up. We would like to work with you on this in order to come up with solutions that will support the needs of our families.

Please could I ask all parents to complete this online survey: https://forms.office.com/e/LMz3yn48v1

We will be using the results of this survey to inform our action plan going forwards.

In the meantime, please could I remind parents:

Aim to walk, cycle or scooter to school as much as possible
Park in designated bays
Turn off engines when parked outside school

Lost property

Please note that we have distributed any named lost property. Any non-named items will be on a table outside the Office on Thursday 30^th March at 1pm. There are a lot of jumpers/cardigans, coats and winter wear. Please come and take a look if your child is missing something!
*Please note that any unclaimed items will be donated to our second-hand uniform store or donated to charity.

End of Term reminders:

Thurs 30^th March : Parent Consultations
Rec-Year 6 pupils finish at 1pm.
Fri 31^st March: Last day of term
Nursery normal finish time
Rec-Year 2 pupils finish at 1.30pm
Year 3-6 pupils finish at 1.35pm
Monday 17^th April: all pupils return for normal school day

Finally, enjoy the Easter break and we will look forward to welcoming pupils back in the Summer Term.

Yours,

Mr Needham

February News

Tue 28 Feb 2023 Mr Needham

February seems to have flown by; though a shorter month, we packed a lot in! Our Year 2’s enjoyed a trip to the London Transport Museum, Year 3, 4, 5 and 6 children took part in a climbing festival, Year 3 visited the Natural History Museum, Year 6 went to the Imperial War Museum, Year 4 experienced what Easter is like at a Church and Year 1 took a trip to Deen City Farm. Meanwhile, the Early Years welcomed duck eggs last week. Since hatching, they have been making themselves at home in Reception!

I would like to thank the many parents who have volunteered for and joined us on trips. We really appreciate your support and couldn’t make the trips happen without you. Many of our trips this year have involved children travelling on public transport and I am really pleased to hear how sensibly our pupils have travelled on buses, tubes and trains. Not only are they acting as ambassadors for the school, they are also learning about travel and how to get to their destination safely.

In February, we celebrated children’s mental health week, which culminated in our dress to express day. This was a great week to talk to children about mental health and discuss things they do at school and home to promote their wellbeing.

I would like to thank you all again for your generosity, as we raised money for the relief efforts following the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. We raised £560.14.

We have lots to look forward to in March. Some of these you will have received letters about already, communication will follow for others:

World Book Day Sponsored Read (27^th Feb – 6^th March)
World Book Day (Thurs 2^nd March)
Pyjamas/Book character Dress up Day (Fri 3^rd March)
British Science Week and British Sign Language Week (both Mon 13^th – Fri 17^th March)
SEN Parent Consultations (Tues 21^st March)
Parent Consultations (Thurs 30^th March)

Finally, please continue to send children in with coats and hats/scarves/gloves to keep them warm. Fingers crossed that Spring, with its warmer weather, is just around the corner!

Caterlink Parent Survey
Our Catering company, Caterlink, have asked if parents can complete this survey: Click here for parent survey.

Yours,

Mr Needham

January News

Tue 31 Jan 2023 Mr Needham

We have had a busy January at Rushy!

This month has been filled with exciting trips and workshops as children begin their new learning journeys for Spring. This has included Year 1 and 2 pupils enjoying taster Yoga sessions, Year 4 experiencing a Roman workshop, Year 6 visiting the Horniman Museum, Year 1 heading to Hampton Court and the Choir representing Rushy in the Young Voices concert at the O2! We also had a number of staff take part in an Art Therapy session run by Miss Lim, who works with children at Rushy and other local schools.

I am delighted to share that over the last academic year, we have been awarded a number of school accreditations. These provide external validation of the hard work going on at Rushy and celebrate the achievements of our pupils and staff in certain curricular and school areas. Recently, we have been awarded a School Mental Health Bronze Award and the STARS TFL Community Project Bronze Award. Look out for these awards in our school entrance foyer and at the bottom of our official letterhead.

Next week is Children’s Mental Health Week (6^th – 12^th February). We will begin the week with an Assembly for pupils around this year’s theme, ‘Let's connect’, which is about making meaningful connections. There are some videos and ideas of how parents can connect with their children available here: https://www.childrensmentalhealthweek.org.uk/families/ and I have also attached a tips sheet from Place2Be with this letter. I have shared a quote below that I often remind myself to bear in mind:

Children don’t say, “I had a hard day, can we talk?” They say, “Will you play with me?”

Coming up next week, we have Safer Internet Day on Tuesday 7^th February. This year’s theme is, ‘Want to talk about it? Making space for conversations about life online’. The goal is to promote the safe, responsible and positive use of digital technology for children and young people. Children are growing up in a world with a lot more access to and reliance on technology than we experienced ourselves. I know that this can sometimes seem like a minefield to navigate. Below I have shared tips that will help to keep your child safe, you might already have some of these in place:

Talk about device use and how much you all think is fair – what would you like to make other time for? Is there anything that must be done before devices can be used? When is the cut off time to stop using devices in the evening?
Put phones/iPads in a shared charging space overnight– this can be for adults’ and kids’ devices and will encourage everyone not to stay up late using these.
Ask children to explain the games they play to you and why they like them - this will give you a better understanding of the game and will also make your child more likely to share with you if the game goes wrong or something has upset them.
Have a look at the parents’ section of the thinkuknow website to find out more - https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/parents/

Finally, I would like to thank you for your efforts to get children in on time. As I mentioned in my last letter, lateness has been something I am very keen to reduce. I am pleased to share that compared to the same period in January 2022, lateness has reduced by 9.3% in January 2023. We will continue to work with parents and children to make punctuality a priority!

Yours,

Mr Needham

Start of Spring Term 2023

Fri 06 Jan 2023 Mr Needham

Wishing you all a Happy New Year!

We are delighted to see the children back at school this week and have enjoyed hearing tales of their Christmas holiday adventures. I would like to extend a warm welcome to pupils who have joined Rushy this term and in particular to our January nursery starters, who are just beginning their learning journey with us.

The start of the year is typically a time for making resolutions. For those of you who have set yourself a goal for 2023, you will be pleased to hear that statistically people are more successful at achieving targets set as New Years’ resolutions than set at another time in the year.

This year, I am keen to ensure that our children at Rushy maximise all that school has to offer. For me, this starts with ensuring every child has access to as much schooling as possible by establishing good habits for attendance and punctuality.

With this in mind, I would like to remind parents of the following:

Attendance

All pupils are expected to attend school each day. Consistent, daily attendance supports children’s academic, social and emotional development.

If your child is unwell, please contact the school office by leaving a voicemail on the morning of the absence. Please state the child’s name, class and reason for absence. If your child is going to be absent for more than one school day, please ring again on the second morning of absence.

Punctuality

All pupils are expected to arrive at their classroom between 8.35 and 8.45am. Any pupil arriving after this time receives a late mark.

We contact parents to share concerns when lateness has led a pupil to lose a significant amount of learning time or where pupils are persistently late. Our aim is to work with parents to ensure children arrive to school on time each day.

Medical and changes to pick-up

We must be notified of any medical appointments at least 24 hours in advance. Please note that unless evidence of medical appointments is provided to the school office, these will be marked as ‘unauthorised’. In exceptional circumstances, permission for emergency medical appointments may be granted.

Please phone the office by 2.45pm if you are running late for pick-up or would like to inform us that a different adult will be collecting your child. This allows time for messages to be passed onto class teachers.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

In December, we were delighted to celebrate 62 pupils who finished the year with a 100% attendance record. We hope to have many pupils celebrating a similar achievement at the end of March.

I look forward to seeing our children shine during the Spring Term.

Yours,

Mr Needham

End of Term

Thu 15 Dec 2022 Mr Needham

What a fantastic end to the term we have had!

There has been so much to enjoy and celebrate that it is hard to know where to begin!

I had the pleasure of joining our Year 6’s for some of their residential trip to Hindleap Warren. They all proved themselves to be much braver than me and launched themselves into every activity with huge smiles. These included a forest adventure (think wet, cold and muddy!) fire making, team challenges, obstacle courses, archery, rock climbing and abseiling!

This year’s performances have been a huge hit! Thank you to the hundreds of parents who made the time to come and join us for our Wriggly Nativity and Christmas Concerts. We loved seeing parents singing along to songs that have clearly been filling rooms at home as well as school! Thank you for all of your donations to the honesty boxes at the performances, which will go directly towards buying resources for the classrooms. Finally, a huge thank you from me to all of the staff at Rushy, and in particular Mrs Jennings (Music Lead), who prepared the children and orchestrated the performances.

On Monday this week, the school PTA helped us all get into the festive mood by hosting a Christmas Social in the Hall. This included a bake sale, Christmas ornament craft, cookie decorating kits, present lucky dips, mulled wine, the incredibly popular Bailey’s hot chocolates and a performance from our school choir! Thank you to the PTA and friends for organising and running this event. Please do get in touch with us if you would like to be involved in future PTA events.

Announcements

There is certainly something special in the water at Rushy Meadow, as I am delighted to announce that we have three members of staff who are expecting and will each begin their maternity leave in January/February 2023. I am sure you will join me in offering our congratulations to Mrs Taylor (Year 5, Maple Class teacher), Miss Baterip (Year 3, specialist teaching assistant) and Miss Hazelgrove (Family Support Worker).

This term, we are saying goodbye to two members of staff, Miss Sloly (Year 4 teaching assistant) and Miss Lunn (midday supervisor). Both have developed excellent rapport with pupils and are going onto new positions nearer to home. We would like to thank Miss Sloly and Miss Lunn for all of their hard work and wish them the best of luck.

We are delighted to welcome two new staff members: Miss Cox (midday supervisor) and Mrs Panagoda (teaching assistant).

Finally, a huge well done to the 62 Rushy Meadow pupils who have achieved 100% attendance for the Autumn Term.

Wishing you all a very relaxing Christmas Break,

Yours,

Mr Needham

November News

Fri 25 Nov 2022 Mr Needham

As we approach December, I wanted to take this opportunity to celebrate some of the events that have taken place this half-term and look ahead to what we have planned for the final weeks.

This half-term, children at Rushy have certainly caught the skipping bug. Following the success of a Skipping Festival for Years 5 and 6 at the beginning of November, we have equipped our playgrounds with additional individual and longer ropes. Children now enjoy playing the sorts of jumping games we would remember from our own childhoods!

We have hosted two parent workshops put on by the NHS, one sharing strategies for Managing Your Child’s Emotions and the second aimed at improving children’s Dental Health. Meanwhile, our Year 2 and Year 6 Teams have led SATs workshops. Thank you to the many parents who were able to attend these events.

Last week, we had an enormously successful Book Fair! Our families spent a total of £1,400 at the Book Fair. The deal we have with the Scholastic Travelling Books company means that we receive a £1 reward for every £2 spent. Therefore, our community earned us £700 in rewards to spend on new books for the classrooms and library! I would like to thank Miss Knight for organising this, and a huge thank you to parents for your support and generosity. I hope the children are enjoying their new books!

We have lots to look forward to in the coming weeks:

w.c. 5th December: Year 6 residential trip to Hindleap Warren
Thurs 8th December a.m.: EYFS Nativity
Fri 9th December a.m.: EYFS Nativity
Monday 12th December: PTA Christmas Market at School, 3.30-6.30pm
Weds 14th December: Christmas Lunch and Christmas Jumper Day

Weds 14th December a.m.: Year 1,2,3 Christmas Performance
Weds 14th December p.m.: Year 4,5,6 Christmas performance
Thurs 15th December a.m.: Year 4,5,6 Christmas performance
Thurs 15th December p.m.: Year 1,2,3 Christmas Performance
Friday 16th December: Final Day of Term – early finish (see below)
Nursery Pick-up Time: 11.35am
Rec, Year 1 and 2 Pick-up Time: 1.30pm
Year 3, 4, 5 and 6 Pick-up Time: 1.35pm

I am looking forward to celebrating these events with you!

Yours,

Mr Needham

October News

Fri 21 Oct 2022 Mr Needham

We have had a fantastic first half-term at Rushy Meadow!

The children have really settled well into their new year groups, and this can be seen in the strong behaviours for learning seen across the school. Classrooms are calm and productive, the children are eager to participate and enjoy talking about their learning, and there is a clear sense of mutual respect being built between children and adults. Several times this half-term, external visitors have commented on how polite and engaged our students are.

Today’s PTA Mufti Day has been an excellent way to end the half-term. Thank you to the Parent Teacher Association for organising this and thank you for all of the effort that has gone into the children’s outfits! I am really keen to work closely with our parents and the PTA provides an excellent platform for this. If you would like to become more involved in school life, I would highly recommend contacting them: christinefleming29@gmail.com.

We really appreciate parents accommodating our early finish on Thursday 20^th October for parents evening. Hopefully, you found these a useful update on your child’s enjoyment and progress within their school journey.

Throughout this half-term, pupils have enjoyed taking part in a number of workshops, active events and topic-themed days. We were delighted to finish the half-term by inviting the team from 3 Discovery into school to host technology workshops for our Reception to Year 6 classes. These gave children the opportunity to explore working in creative ways to produce posters, books, adverts and short newsreels! The children loved the sessions and were inspired by the range of iPad apps they engaged with, including: PicCollage, Book creator, Apple Clips, Stop Motion and iMovie.

For Community Updates and Reminders, please see the letter to parents sent on 21.10.22.

I would like to thank you for making me feel welcome this term and for your ongoing support of the school. I hope you all enjoy a restful half-term break.

Yours,

Mr Needham

September Reflections

Fri 30 Sep 2022 Mr Needham

The first month of the new school year has flown by!

It has been a pleasure spending time getting to know the children and thank you to the many parents who continue to catch me to say hello, and introduce yourselves.

This week began with a special assembly to celebrate the hard work of Mrs Butler. This month she celebrated her 30th year working at Rushy! Many, if not all, of you will recognise Mrs Butler as the first person you see in the office. It was lovely to speak with the children about what an incredible achievement this is. We reflected on the number of pupils, parents and staff that Mrs Butler has had a positive impact on. We calculated that if we gathered everyone from Rushy together who Mrs Butler had done a kindness for over the years, we could fill a stadium! She definitely exemplifies the types of quality we would love our children to grow up with: kindness, warmth, consideration, compassion, attentiveness.

Thank you to those parents who were able to attend the Head’s coffee morning for KS2 parents this week. I look forward to welcoming KS1 parents from 8.45-9.30am on Wednesday next week (5th).

I wanted to share some of the things that I have either spoken to parents about in person or received emails around, and what has been done as a result:

Rubbish gathering near pathways/cobwebs by doorframes etc – our premises team surveys the outside of the building each morning before school to check that external areas are clean and inviting for children when they arrive.
Litter bins overflowing outside classrooms – we have increased the frequency with which these are being emptied and are in the process of replacing the open bins with close-lidded, child friendly ones.
Parents smoking/vaping outside school gates – thank you to parents for being mindful of our request not to smoke/vape outside school at drop-off/pick-up times. Something I appreciate is that parents do not have a pleasant space near school to socialise and catch-up with each other. I have noted a longer term goal to see if we can address this.

Journeying safely to School

The majority of the communications I have received this month concern the safety of children on Rushy Meadow Lane and Fellowes Road.

A number of parents and local residents have raised concerns that congestion to these roads and cars parked outside of designated spaces are preventing children from safely arriving to or leaving school. I recognise that parents may be finding it difficult to find adequate parking outside school or are in a rush to get to/from work and other commitments, so need to find parking as close as possible to the school. We would like to find ways to improve this situation.

We may as well be honest, drop-offs and pick-ups are stressful.

At one end of the day, we are trying to get children in who ten minutes earlier may have refused to put their uniform on or threw their breakfast on the floor. And at the other end, we are rushing to keep up with their calendar of clubs and activities (that are no doubt busier than our own social lives!).

It is clear that we need solutions that will promote safe (and calm!) travel.

This week I have met with members of our Parent Teacher Association (PTA), local residents and The Wrythe Safer Neighbourhoods Team to see where and how we can improve.

My promise to you is that I will investigate a number of possible solutions and work with parents to trial ways we can be safer. In return, I ask that as a community we work together to promote calm and safe travel.

Year 6 Secondary Transfer

I remind Year 6 parents that the deadline for submitting application forms for entrance to Year 7 in September 2023 is coming up soon, 31st October 2022. Please flag to myself or Miss Dowding, if you need support completing your online form.

Our school week ended with fire and lockdown drills. The fire drill ensures we all know how to safely and quickly leave the school building in the event of a fire. Meanwhile, the lockdown drill ensures we all know how to keep ourselves safe in the building if we are unable to leave school site. This could be due to a risk outside the building, such as an escaped animal. I was incredibly impressed by the children’s sensible and mature approaches to these drills.

In a few weeks, we will have our parent consultation meetings. We look forward to discussing how children have settled into their new year groups.

Yours,

Mr Needham

Head's Welcome 2022

Fri 02 Sep 2022 Mr Needham

I am delighted to be starting as the new Head of School and cannot wait to meet the children on Monday morning.

Throughout this week, you will find me on various gates welcoming children as they return to school. I will also be aiming to be around at the end of the day, when I hope to have a little more time to speak with parents and begin to get to know you all better. Please do come and say hello!

I am sure yourselves and the children have mixed feelings about returning to school. I must confide that I have these feelings too! These include a mixture of nervousness and excitement.

Something that has helped put my mind at ease is meeting and working with the staff at Rushy during the inset days last week. Adults have been busily preparing for the new term to ensure the school is a welcoming, vibrant and inspiring learning environment.

In creating my first assembly to share with children this week, I stumbled upon the below quote from Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie:

The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it

I think this is the perfect thought to begin our new school year with. I am looking forward to working with you on our journey towards supporting the children to reach their full potential.

Yours,

Mr Needham