Newsletter 09/10/22

Dear Parents/Carers,

I hope this letter finds you well. I thought it would be good to update you on some of the things going on at school:

1. Harvest Collection

Thank you so much for the donations of food that we have received for the Sparkhill Foodbank. At a time when home budgets are so tight, your generosity has been amazing. The children have really enjoyed seeing the pile of food growing, and knowing that it will go towards helping people in our community.

1. Year 1’s Harvest Collective Worship

We were so proud of Year 1 on Thursday when they performed their Harvest assembly for their parents. It was so great to have parents in school for the performance, and the children were confident and clearly having so much fun. Thanks to the children and Y1 staff for such a great performance!

1. Year 4’s visit to Avoncroft Museum

Last Wednesday, Year 4 braved some Autumnal weather and enjoyed a day at Avoncroft Museum. Mrs Marakova went with them in her role as History Lead. She was really impressed with what the children knew about Saxons, and how this fitted with what they already knew about the Romans and Iron Age communities.

1. Our Special Educational Needs Provision

You might not be aware of this, but St John’s School is well-known across the city for its provision for children with complex special needs. We have worked very hard over the last eight years to develop our provision for children that might struggle in school for a variety of reasons including physical and mental ill-health, additional learning needs, trauma, and neurodiversity (eg autism and ADHD). We believe that God loves all children, and so we must do our best for all of them. We have a full time Nurture Assistant (Miss Perkins); we have a Children and Families Support Coordinator (Mrs O’Keefe); we have a dedicated team of staff working within our SEND team, including Miss Grewal, Miss Benton and Mrs Atkins who lead a team of SEND assistants; and we have a staff team who are all trained in Attachment and Trauma. We are working on embedding Restorative Practice across the school, and I will be sending out details about a Parents’ Information Session about this and our Behaviour Policy just after half term.

1. PE Uniform

Please don’t forget that our uniform on PE days is black or navy joggers or leggings, a light blue t-shirt and the St John’s hoodie. The trainers should be black or white, but it is fine if they have a little splash of a different colour!

1. Have your say!

Miss Benton who leads the school on PSHER (Personal, Social, Health, Economic and Relationships Education), would like to share the link below with you. It is your chance to give feedback to the City Council on Sparkhill Park.

https://www.birminghambeheard.org.uk/place/parks-survey-2022/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Orlo

1. Parent Governor Election coming soon!

One of our parent governors term runs out soon, and so we will need to run an election. The Governing Board is a diverse group of individuals who lead the school. Some of them are from an educational background, whilst others bring skills from other walks of life. If this is something you might want to be involved with, look out for more information next week.

1. A New Chair and Vice Chair of Governors

The Governing Board had their first meeting of the year recently, and appointed a new Chair of Governors: Mr Des Ricketts. Mr Ricketts actually started his teaching career at St John’s School about 15 years ago, and has been Headteacher of two other schools since then. A new Vice-Chair was also appointed: Mrs Shabnam Gulzar.

Best wishes,

Mrs Seymour