08.09.2010  Parents and Carers of Year 6 children

The Common Application Forms for transfer to secondary school in September 2011 have been sent out today.  There is a booklet enclosed which explains the options available to you and how to complete the form.

If you have any quesitons you can either call Admissions directly or in the school's Office.

Welcome back to school, to a new academic year and to some new faces. 

Welcome to Miss Smith the new Year 1 teacher, to Mrs Spedding the new Year 3 teacher and to Mrs Poplett the school's new Deputy head teacher.

Welcome to the new children and their families joining the school.

A few early housekeeping notices: -

Breakfast club is up and running already.  It is still free at the mom!  Please take advantage.

Clubs are unlikely to start before the week commencing 13th September, 2010.

More to follow......

Friday 23rd July

School has now finished for this academic year, 2009-10.  We begin again on Thursday 2nd September at 8.55am  (As is our usual practice the gates will be open at 8.45am.)

Breakfast Club, important news about Breakfast Club will be published during the holidays.  Any major changes to times and prices (currently, it is FREE) will be advised in plenty of time for the new year.

Parent-teacher meetings will be held next week on these two dates: -

Wednesday 14th July from 5.00pm until 7.30pm

Thursday 15th July from 3.30pm until 5.30pm.

Letters will be sent out with the children inviting you to school offering various times which you are kindly asked to return as soon as possible.  At the meeting you will be handed a copy of your child'a report and there will be time to discuss it.

In the school’s Newsletter 32 of 10^th June we wrote about the safety of children travelling to and from school to help to ensure children know how to stay safe and to minimise any potential dangers.  We did this because, as some of you might know and some of you raised at the time, in Croydon borough, there had been an incident concerning children’s safety all of which had been aired in the media.

On Sunday 20^th June there was a report of an incident in the Leesons Hill area where a man in a car approached a group of six boys.  However, to our knowledge and information there have been no similar incidents in the proximity of our school.

The school does sometimes receive reports of suspicious behaviour occurring in the whole borough, but the majority of these do not come from our neighbourhood and they predominantly involve secondary schools.

We regularly invite the local PCSOs and the Road Safety Officers into school to talk to the children about being safe and demonstrating safety: a policy we continue. 

In today’s Newsletter we have repeated the advice about safety when travelling to and from school and about being safe generally. 

Please be assured that if we receive information on any incident concerning child safety in our locality we will share it with you.

Here are the dates for 2010-11

Thursday 2 September - Friday 22 October

Half-term: 25-29 October

Tuesday 2 November - Friday 17 December

Wednesday 5 January - Friday 18 February

Half-term: 21-25 February

Monday 28 February - Friday 8 April

Wednesday 27 April - Friday 27 May (Public holiday 2 May)

Half-term: 30 May - 3 June

Tuesday 7 June - Friday 22 July.

INSET days: Wednesday 1 September, Monday 1 November, Tuesday 4 January, Tuesday 26 April, Monday 6 June.

There have been just a few outbreaks of this unfortunate illness in school, but below is the advice received from the Health Protection Agency.

The followingextract is taken from The Health Protection Agency’s publication School Health Matters.

http://www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAwebFile/HPAweb_C/1227774026456

NOROVIRUS SCHOOL HEALTH MATTERS

NOROVIRUS

Facts

Norovirus (also known as winter vomiting disease and Norwalk-like virus) is one of a group of viruses called Small Round Structured Viruses. Small round structured viruses spread easily and are the most common cause of outbreaks of gastro-enteritis in hospitals, schools, hotels, nursing homes and cruise ships.

• Spread Via the faecal oral route and by vomiting. Airborne virus particles from vomit can contaminate food, water, objects and surfaces, land directly on a person, or be inhaled or swallowed;

• Food and water can become contaminated if handled by an infected person

• Food may already be contaminated (e.g. shellfish). If this food is eaten raw or insufficiently cooked, it can cause disease;

• Water may already be contaminated if it is inadequately treated or contaminated post treatment. Swimming in contaminated water may also cause disease.

• Incubation period Ranges from 4-77 hours, but commonly 15 - 50 hours.

• Period of communicability Usually whilst symptomatic and for 48 hours after symptoms have resolved.

• Exclusion Affected children and staff members should be excluded for as long as they are unwell and for 48 hours after symptoms of diarrhoea and/or vomiting have resolved.

Symptoms

• Nausea and vomiting (often projectile)

• Diarrhoea

• Abdominal pain

• Headache

• Muscle pain

• Lethargy

• Fever

Norovirus usually causes a mild or moderate illness for about 12-60 hours, but can be severe in the very young, elderly or debilitated people.

Treatment

There is no specific treatment and with rest and plenty of fluids most people make a full recovery within one to two days.

Complications

Some people (usually the very young or elderly) may become dehydrated and unwell and require hospital treatment.

Advice and implications for contacts

Good hygiene is important in preventing others from becoming infected. This includes hand hygiene and environmental cleaning.  Contacts that do not have symptoms should not be excluded.

It is not advisable to have visitors to the school during an outbreak. If it is unavoidable, visitors should wash their hands thoroughly with soap and water both before and after visiting.

Natural immunity/Vaccination

• If immunity occurs after illness, it lasts only for a few months. There are many different types of norovirus (immunity to one type will not give immunity to another), so re-infection is possible.

• There is no vaccine available for norovirus.

Do

√ Ensure children and staff are excluded from school for 48 hours after symptoms of diarrhoea and/or vomiting have resolved.

√ Increase the frequency of cleaning in an outbreak situation

√ Clear up faeces and vomit promptly and disinfect area appropriately.

√ Notify the HPU as soon as possible.

√ Encourage thorough hand washing at all times, especially after using the toilet and before handling food.

Do Not

X Allow exposed food to be consumed.

25th February, 2010.

Some changes are taking place to Blenheim's Governing Body.  After the last meeting on 22nd February there will now be three sub-committees.  These are:

Resources which will cover all financial matters, including budget setting and analysis, staffing as well as building improvement and maintenance.  The current chair of this committee is Stephen Bradford.

Curriculum & Achievement which will help oversee the implementation of the National Curriculum in the school and it will also be there to monitor progress and achievement within the school.  The chair is Nancy Thompson.

Pupils, Parents and Community which is a new body establish to broaden the school's outreach into the community.  There are co-chairs here Sharon Oakes and Jenny Haines.

Further details on when these bodies meet, their discussions and their decisions will be posted to the website.

If you, as a parent or carer, would be interested in getting more involved please talk to Sharon Oakes.  Sharon is also taking on respoinsibility for the PTA and needs all the support she can get!

The school's updated Child Protection and Safeguarding policy is released today, 15th December, 2009.

It can be found (and downloaded) under the NEWSLETTER tab or by following this link http://www.blenheimprimary.net/downloads/newsletters/a1cbecd7-1bfe-447e-88e4-0daa4db27d71.pdf.

The guidance documents can be found also under the NEWSLETTER tab or by following this link http://www.blenheimprimary.net/downloads/newsletters/baae20bf-42a8-4628-8248-8ce978067b56.pdf.

Below is the text of the letter from the Health Protection Agency to all parents.  It is the latest guidance on swine flu.

Health Protection Agency South East London Health Protection Unit