Dear Parents,

Happy Half Term! I hope you have a lovely week with your children.

Here is some of what's been happening at St John's in the few weeks:

1. Parents' Evening

It was great to see so many of you last night. I hope you enjoyed the food samples in the hall. We had lots of great feedback, and Richard has taken it all away to read over the holidays. 70% of parents had very positive comments to make about the healthy menu, and we always take on board the things you think we can improve, so watch this space!

2. Children's Health

As you know, we are trying to encourage healthy lifestyles at St John's School. Children are running (or walking) the Daily Mile every day, and we have changed our school lunch menu to include less salt, sugar and fat.

Every year, Public Health England weighs and measures all children in Reception and Year 6 across England. They use this to provide public health information to the National Health Service.

This information is always given to schools as an average over the last three years (2015/16, 2016/17 and 2017/18). This is not the data for our current Reception or Year 6 children. It is the last three years combined.

The average for the last three years combined shows that:

In Reception:

7% of our children are obese

11% of our children are overweight.

In Year 6:

29% of our children are obese

18% of our children are overweight.

Over the last three years, 47% of our children are obese or overweight when they are in Year 6. The National average is 34%. In any population of children of all ages, it would be expected that 10% would be overweight and a further 5% would be obese.

Obesity is a leading cause of ill-health, and I hope these figures show you why we are reducing fatty foods at lunchtimes and encouraging more physical activity throughout the day. I know that many of the children love pizza, chips and sweet desserts. However, we have got to offer a healthy alternative to this.We will continue with pizza Fridays, because being healthy is all about balance. However, we will continue to encourage children to try new, healthier alternatives throughout the week.

3. SEND coffee morning

Mrs Ringham organised a coffee morning for parents to meet our Communication and Autism Team worker this week. Thanks to all of you who came along to meet other parents and get information about Autism.

4. Reception Phonics Workshop.

It was great to see so many parents coming in to school to learn about phonics this week. We received very positive feedback and Miss Bailey is planning some more workshops soon. If there is anything you would particularly like advice on, please let her know.

5. Black History Day.

We had a brilliant day on Friday 18th October which started with an amazing Collective Worship by Year 2! There was lots of singing, dancing and performing and the children were incredible. All the children had an opportunity throughout the day to think about their own identity and celebrate being themselves.

Thank you so much to the parents that came in to help us make a St John's quilt. This will be displayed in the hall. Thanks also to everybody that came to perform some music in the afternoon. We heard drums, flute and piano performances from parents and children, and had a whole school Bhangra dance. It was incredible. Then all the children listened to a story read in a different language. It was awesome. Thanks to all the volunteer readers who led these story sessions.

6. Mental Health and Well-being.

After half term, we will be working with Place2Be. This will mean that we will be able to provide a counselling service in school, run by Clinical Psychologists. I will introduce you to our School Project Manager after half term. I'm really excited to be able to offer this at St John's.

7. Sporting Success.

This half term, lots of our children have participated in sports competitions.

We have had children in action in the School Games Competitions in Basketball and Girls' and Boys' Football, and we have had two firsts and a third place already. We're very proud of all of the children who have already competed this term, whether they won a medal or not.

Keep you eye on our Twitter feed to keep up with all of our sports competitions and other exciting news!

https://twitter.com/stjohnschoolb11

8. How to support your child at home this week:

- Read to your child. Research shows this is the most effective thing any parent can do to help their child achieve at school.

- Go to the library and choose some books. Make sure your child reads every day. Get them to make a list of words which they don't understand and then find out the meaning together.

- Learn times tables. Get your child on TTRockstars. It REALLY works!

- Get your child off video games and take them outside.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Best wishes,

Mrs Seymour