Introduction
Autumn has well and truly arrived in Holme! The first half term of the academic year has seen a transition from sunny September days into very wet and windy autumnal days.
Our first half term at Holme was extremely successful, the children at Holme are just fantastic, there is a real buzz of genuine excitement in learning activities in school, visitors to school repeatedly comment on the excellent behaviour our children have in class and in assemblies.
The coming half term is always one of my favourite times of the year as we have plenty to be doing into the run up to Christmas! Read on to find out what we got up to during October and what we have to look forward to in November.
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Macmillan Coffee Afternoon
Or Macmillan Coffee Afternoon at the Fleece was a huge success! We would like to thank Shirley for allowing us to serve and take orders and we really enjoyed spending time with the wider community alongside developing our money and social skills. We raised around £600 to such a worthy cause. Thank you to all who joined and donated, and we already can't wait for next year!
Mental Health & Wellbeing Update
Firstly, please let me introduce myself, my name is Miss Keeling and I am the new Mental Health and Wellbeing Champion here at Holme. I am here to support everybody connected to the school, whether that be staff, parents and of course the children. I will be adding a termly section to our newsletters covering Mental Health and Wellbeing to update families on what we are up to in school, give advice on how you can support your children and also give ideas as to how you can support yourselves as parents, as you are important too!
Our first parental workshop with Dawn Kershaw from Northorpe Hall was a success and I know that the parents who attended found it really useful. To support with this work I am updating the Mental Health and Wellbeing elements on the school website, which can be found under Parental Information.
I am happy to have Miss Talbot onboard with the Care Crew for this academic year and she will be working with them to support our school and beyond, ensuring that wellbeing is at the forefront of everything that we do as a school.
If you have any questions or feel that I can support in any way, please contact the school office, leave your details and I will endeavour to contact you back in a timely manner.
Goodbye for now, Miss Keeling.
Anti-Bullying Week
This week is Anti-Bullying week and it's great to see so many children wearing odd socks for such a worthy cause! Miss Keeling will be giving an assembly tomorrow to the school and children will be taught around the theme 'Make A Noise About Bullying' during their PSHE lessons this week.
We have also created a poster for around school. We encourage children to speak out to an adult if they do feel they are being bullied.
Friends of Holme Autumn 1 Update
Hoodies
We are happy to donate the Year 6 hoodies that are becoming a tradition to the school to our current cohort. They will certainly keep them warm in this weather!
Hardeep Sahota - Bhangra Lexicon
Bhangra is an energetic form of dance and music originated in the Panjab by farming communities during the spring harvest festival of Vaisakhi. Sahota has explored, documented and catalogued over 300 dance movements and gestures from Bhangra and its sub-genres to create a unique record that gathers together a rich body of knowledge, ensuring its preservation for future generations. The children loved the experience learning about the arts from different cultures.
Bongo Bingo
Bongo Bingo was a huge success on Friday night. We raised approximately £1900!
Thank you to everyone involved from those of you who helped spread the word, donated prizes, helped set up, helped in the background and the outstanding team on the night! Washing up, clearing up, selling raffle tickets and dabbers and running the bar, what a team!
We’ll be doing it again so do get involved!
Many thanks!
Class 1 Lego Donation
We would like to thank Mr and Mrs Scholes from Marsh Garage for donating this Lego for our Year 1 and 2 children. We are very appreciative of the kind gesture and the children certainly can’t wait to start building some creations!
If you would like any mechanical work for your vehicle, please do not hesitate to contact Mr and Mrs Scholes on 01484 541012.
Junior Road Safety Officers
Without further ado, I would like to welcome our new Junior Road Safety Officers (JRSOs) for this academic year.
These children will be supporting the school over the year with our Parents' Parking Promise among other aspects of road safety, so please keep your eyes peeled for assemblies, events and competitions they will be holding.
Holme School Parents' Parking Promise
Congestion on the roads around school at drop off and pick up poses a risk to children and their families, as they travel to and from school.
It’s a parent’s responsibility to see their children safely to and from school but, in doing so, they should not create dangers to others. Walking, scooting, or cycling to school has endless benefits for you and you child/ren and is without doubt the best way to travel to and from school.
However, we recognise that there are circumstances when travelling to school via car is the only option. If this is the case, then we would ask you to please park with care and consideration.
We are asking parents and carers to complete and sign the parking promise, agreeing that, as a caring and responsible driver they:
- Will NOT park or stop on the ‘SCHOOL KEEP CLEAR’ markings during the hours stated (Currently awaiting Kirklees to redo them)
- Will NOT park on double yellow lines in and around the school and village with the exception of a displayed valid Blue Badge
- Will NOT park on single yellow lines during the hours stated in and around the school and the village with the exception of a displayed valid Blue Badge
- Will NOT block the school entrances
- Will NOT park on pavements in the village, making it difficult for prams and wheelchairs to get by
- Will NOT park on the school side of the road creating a bottleneck and hazards for children crossing
- Will make sure children get out of the car safely
- Will park some distance away from the school, walking a short journey, even in bad weather conditions. (We have made arrangements with The Fleece to utilise their carpark and walk the short distance to school or advise parking on the cobbles at the bottom of Meal Hill Road.)
- Will turn my engine off while waiting outside school, to avoid unnecessary air pollution
We are overwhelmed by the current support we have received. I am sure that you can agree that this is in the best interests of our school community, especially the children who are most at risk. We are currently exploring appointing two Junior Road Safety Officers (JRSO's) from either Year 4 and/or Year 5, who will lead on this initiative to ensure that everybody is aware of the dangers and road safe both as a driver and pedestrian.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR VALUED SUPPORT
School Council
The Year 4, 5 and 6 children from the School Council supported with our Remembrance Assembly and did a fantastic job, making everybody proud. Thank you to all those who joined us to remember those who have supported us to be who we can be today.
Miss Keeling can't wait to meet with the School Councillors this month to get their teeth into supporting Mr Bond in developing the school.
Halloween Disco
The Monster Mash, Time Warp, Addams Family, you name it we sang and danced the afternoon away! We had a fabulous Halloween Disco. Many thanks to Miss Talbot and Mrs Cieciala for purchasing decorations and decorating the hall. Also big thanks to Mrs Crowther who baked the biscuits for staff to decorate. A fabulous time was had by all!
School Website
As the year progresses, we will be updating our school website. This is the first port of call if you need any information about school. Some parents and carers have asked questions about where they can find information. I thought it would be useful to signpost the most common pages that might be helpful (and to possibly bookmark for the future):
- Calendar - Our calendar has been updated. It can be found here.
- Class Curriculum Information - Teachers update their Class pages at least once a term with important updates as to what children are learning and ways in which parents and carers can support at home. You can access the Class 1 and Class 2 pages.
- Curriculum Information - We are currently in the process of updating our school curriculum. You can find more information here. Please use the links at the side or the 'Curriculum' drop down menu to see specific pages.
- Policies - We are currently in the process of updating our school policies. If you see a little red page with the Adobe symbol in it, this means the policy has recently been updated. You can find our policies page here. These will continue to be updated.
- E-Safety - During our recent Safeguarding parent survey it was brought to our attention that we may not publicise e-safety sufficiently within school. We have created a dedicated page with information for parents and carers. It can be found here. We have also produced a page with questions and answers that parents and carers may find useful. This can be found here.
- Parent Information - Miss Talbot and Miss Devlin are currently updating our parent information pages. Please keep an eye here as updates will be coming over the Summer Term. Please use the links at the side of the 'Parent Information' drop down menu to see specific pages.
Shine Bright Values
Our shine bright values encompass what we believe our children should foster during their time with us to become well-rounded citizens in our community and the wider world. We cultivate our children to be independent, resilient, respectful, creative, adventurous and aspirational for their future. These will be featuring more regularly within school through our positive behaviour policy, being rewarded as part of Class Dojo and having a 'Shine Bright Values' award of the week. This will be one child in the entire school each week who has been recommended by all the staff in school, achieving one of our Shine Bright Values really well. We would like to encourage parents and our local community to support us with these values outside of school to ensure that the children understand the language and are able to show these life skills in order to thrive, not just now, but in the future. Here are our October award winners. Great work! We can't wait to see more children actively showing our Shine Bright Values.
Positive Behaviour Policy
We have updated our Positive Behaviour Policy to include our Shine Bright Values. We wanted to make parents and carers aware of what positive behaviours we would like to see on your child's journey throughout Holme School and also the awards and consequences children will receive dependent on the behaviours they display in-line with our code. We will be celebrating our Shine Bright Values daily in class and allow children to understand what these mean to them and also how they support in their whole Holme School journey to leave as well rounded citizens.
Celebration Assembly
It's been great to see our children continue to be awarded for Honour of Holme, Shine Bright Value award, Remarkable Writer, Regal Reader and Maths Mogul. We've also added an all new Lunchtime Award and Super Speller! Our lunchtime award winner is chosen weekly by Mrs Crowther. This lucky person will be able to have their trophy and Munch eating with them for the week. She's keeping a close eye for those with good manners, eat their yummy lunch and are respectful at all times during their time in the dining hall. As spelling is a school focus, we have also introduced our Super Speller, where one child throughout school is chosen each week. Here are some of our award winners for October.
Please remember to keep those pictures of what your child is up to outside of school coming in for our Shine Bright Board. It doesn't have to be a sport, it can be anything they're proud of achieving. We do ask that you send these to shinebright@holmejischool.co.uk. If pictures are sent to Mr Bond or the Office e-mail, there is no guarantee they will make it to the board. When we receive them, they will be printed and placed onto our board, being celebrated in the next Celebration Assembly.
FOHS (Friends of Holme School) usually supply refreshments each week and we kindly ask that you make a donation as all funds go back to the children. This will start again when the colder months approach. All of our community are welcome to attend the assemblies outlined on the Key Dates section at the end of each newsletter.
Family Learning
A reminder that Family Learning will be taking place on the following dates:
- Tuesday 14th November - English - 9:00am to 10:00am
- Wednesday 17th January - Maths - 9:00am to 10:00am
- Thursday 18th April - Forest Schools/Science - 2:10pm to 3:10pm
Places have now been allocated, so please check your Weduc inbox if you made a request and which slot you have been allocated. If you are unsure, please do not hesitate to contact the school office.
We look forward to welcoming parents and carers to see the Holme experience our children receive.
School Strategy
During our INSET Day on 27th October, all staff and governors spent the morning working with the Executive Headteacher of the Heights Federation, Mrs Claire Kenworthy, in supporting us build our three year strategic plan for the school utilising her many years experience of small schools. We took onboard parental comments from our most recent survey and re-created our shared vision for the school and areas of focus.
We will shortly be placing our school development priorities on the school website for this academic year and areas of focus over the next three years to keep parents in the loop as to the direction we are moving as a school to be the best that we can be!
Maths Mastery
As part of our Maths curriculum, we have embarked on the Readiness for Maths Mastery programme led by our in school Maths Leader, Mrs Broughton. Over the year Mrs Broughton will be working with other Maths Leaders across Kirklees, being supported by Maths specialists in order to ensure that our bespoke Maths provision can be the best it can following the White Rose Maths Hub foundations. As Miss Wood did last year, we hope to run a Maths workshop later in the year in order to share our practice and how you can help your child at home. If you have any questions about Maths, please do not hesitate to contact Mrs Broughton in the first instance.
PE Update
Mrs Broughton is now leading on PE throughout school and is working closely with colleagues from Pennine Sports Partnership, Project Sport and KAL to ensure our physical education offer is that of quality ensuring our children progress their knowledge and skills as they work their way through school.
We are committing to attending more out of school sporting events this academic year and Miss Talbot will be leading on organising these. Please look out for communications from the office.
Attendance Matters
At Holme Junior & Infant School, we fully recognise the impact of good attendance and punctuality on the success and development of young people both socially and academically.
Research has proved that any young person with attendance under 95% is at risk of achieving a grade lower in every subject by the time they leave school. We expect all children to attend school regularly.
We do understand that children become ill and there are guidelines around how long a child should be absent for. We do take these guidelines onboard. We do ask that parents consider the period of absence beyond the guidelines as this may have a negative impact on the child missing further learning.
We take attendance seriously at Holme and follow our school procedure in-line with our policy that has been ratified by the governing body and also follows national guidelines. You can take a look at our policy here for further information and clarification. If you are ever unsure, please contact the school office in the first instance who will happily support and advise.
September Attendance Figures
Whole School Attendance: 97.9%
- Class 1: 97.1%
- Class 2: 98.9%
October Attendance Figures
Whole School Attendance: 96.7%
- Class 1: 96.9%
- Class 2: 96.4%
Our target as a whole school is 97% and we were extremely close. Well done to both classes in September and we were nearly there in October. Can we reach our target in November?
Miss Talbot's Reminders
- Please can after-school payments for Scraptastic club be made as soon as possible please. Going forward we will need to ask families to pay for the paid clubs ahead of them starting. This is so we have the available funds to pay our club leaders.
- We remind parents and carers that the schools office telephone is only manned until 3.30pm, therefore any messages that are left may not be picked up until the following day.
- Should anyone have missed our Flu nasal spray Locala offered last term and would still like their child to have it, please contact me in the office if you have not yet heard from Locala directly.
- Please can we ask that the office is given as much notice as possible for any medical appointments during school hours. Where possible we ask that routine medical appointments are made outside of school hours.
- Can all Acceptable Usage Policy agreements be signed and sent back via Weduc forms as soon as possible please. Update -I have received most back via Weduc but I have given some paper copies out this week for those I have not received a reply.
- We will be starting a uniform exchange soon and ask that if you have any unwanted uniform (including tights) then we would welcome them here and be very grateful. Also if you have any dress up costumes or Christmas jumpers you no longer need, we are also looking at building a box so that we always have something available should someone need something. These can be just handed in to the office.
- Lastly, thank you all for your continued support.
As you will have noticed the celebration of our school through Facebook shows just how committed we are at Holme to show the rounded education our children experience. Teachers will be updating our community at least once per week as to what is going on in their class and we will celebrate achievements from our week celebration assembly. I will also be updating Facebook with any further posts that I feel will support our school community. Give us a follow and a like and share with your friends far and wide!
Outdoor Learning
Miss Wood has made a fantastic start to Forest School this year and the children have been really enjoying the sessions. Dates for Forest School sessions are available in the Weduc calendar, so parents and carers are aware of when sessions occur for each class on a Thursday afternoon. Dates are always subject to change, but we are aiming to have a three weekly session this half term for each class with Miss Keeling. Here are the proposed dates:
- Class 1 - 23rd November, 14th December
- Class 2 - 30th November, 21st December
Please ensure that the children come well prepared for their session on these dates, especially as we start to move towards winter months!
Parental Engagement
We wanted to remind parents of two key dates this half term in order for parents to understand and get to know more about what their child(ren) are up to in school.
- 13th November - Open Book Evening - 3:20pm to 4:30pm
- 20th November - Parents' Evening - 3:30pm to 7:00pm. Please check your child's slip for your allocated time slot(s)
Robinwood Residential
Wow, what an amazing time we had at Robinwood! The time flew by and we gave everything a good go and definitely showed our Shine Bright Value or Resilience! Our instructor, Joe, was extremely proud of us, as was Mr Bond and Mrs Guest. There are far too many pictures to show here, so please head across to Facebook just to see how much fun we had! We know that the children that will get to experience this in 2025 will have an amazing time!
Children in Need
On Friday 17th November we will be celebrating Children in Need and asking for donations towards this worthy cause. For £1 children can wear something colourful or something spotty. They will be given a Pudsey Bear template today to design a new outfit and there will be a winning prize for the best one that is brought back to the office by Friday. We look forward to seeing all your colours and spots!
Cost of Living Crisis
As we are living through these very difficult times with the cost of everything rising at an alarming rate, if you need any support either financially or practically, please do speak to a member of staff, as there are many agencies and charities that have a range of offers to support families through these times and we can confidently signpost you to the most appropriate.
Dates for the Diary
As always, if you wish to speak to us about your child, please do not hesitate to talk to Miss Wood in Class 1 and Miss Dunkerley, Mrs Guest or Mrs Broughton in Class 2 in the first instance. We will endeavour to help in any way we can.
Safeguarding
Holme Junior & Infant School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expects all staff, volunteers and parents to share this commitment.
We have safeguarding policies and procedures in place that contribute to our safeguarding commitment, including our child protection and safeguarding policy which can be viewed in the policies section of our school website. Our safeguarding policies and procedures seek to ensure that every child, regardless of their age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation, has a right to equal protection from harm.
Sometimes we may need to share information and work in partnership with other agencies when there are concerns about a child’s welfare. We will ensure that our concerns about a pupil are discussed with the child’s parents/carers first, unless we have reason to believe that such a move would be contrary to the child’s welfare.
We actively support the Government’s Prevent Agenda: to challenge ideology that supports terrorism and those who promote it, protect vulnerable individuals from being drawn into terrorism, and raise awareness of radicalisation risk.
Further information around safeguarding can be found on our website, which has recently been updated. We ask that parents explore these pages if they are unsure of any procedures.
Our Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) is Mr D Bond (Headteacher).
Our Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead (DDSL) is Miss B Wood (Acting Assistant Headteacher).
Our Safeguarding Governor is Mrs M Thomas.
If you have any safeguarding concerns at all, please do not hesitate to get in touch with either Mr Bond or Miss Wood.
Our school website also has further information around safeguarding and e-safety, which will be updated at regular intervals.