Welcome back everyone to the second half of our Spring Term! We had a very busy first half term of 2023 with so many fantastic events and opportunities for our children as well as the fabulous learning that takes place in lessons every day. We have seen children attend the Maths Championship for the first time in Years 3 & 4 and 5 & 6. There have been many sporting events that different groups of children have taken part in such as Dodgeball, Cross Country, Netball, Football and Multi-Skills. We were also so proud of the children who attended Young Voices in Birmingham and sang with 6000 children to a packed audience in the Resorts World Arena!

The curriculum has also come alive; with Reception learning about the gingerbread man and making biscuits to remember his story, Year 4 testing for air pollution in their Science experiments and Year 3 writing sets of instructions after making their very own chocolate bars. Year 1 can tell you who Neil Armstrong is, Year 2 have visited Kenya and learnt about the tribes, while Year 5 and 6 are working so hard on developing their musical talent by playing the flute this term.

And there is much more to come for everyone, as we try our best to get every class out on a trip before the end of this year.

Thank you to everyone for your support at home. It is invaluable when the children are reading regularly at home as well as practising times tables and their phonics. We look forward to seeing you all on the 6th March for Parents Evening and the book look, so that you can see the progress your child is making in their books.

This week we will be enjoying World Book Day dressed as our favourite character on Thursday 2nd March. We also have a group of children who are busy preparing for the Dudley Book Quiz by reading the key texts and practicing questions, hoping for victory and to be named reading champions! Good luck!

Well done to all of our super talented Maidensbridge dancing stars who took part in the Helen's School of Dance annual dance show at the Grand Theatre in Wolverhampton on Sunday 19th February. I was very proud to see so many of our children on that stage from Reception to Year 6. Well done everyone!

As you can see we have an enormous amount of uniform that has been left at school and this is all the uniform we have collected since September of this academic year! It is such a shame that we cannot return any of this to the rightful owners because it is not labelled. Can I please ask that you write your child's name in the label of all of their uniform, so that we can return it to them when it gets left in the hall, playground, corridors etc.

We do not want to keep wasting all of this uniform by throwing it away so we will be selling items on the school shop, as many of these items are brand new and have barely been worn! So if you need a jumper or hoody, please look at what we have on the school shop before purchasing a new one and let's try to reduce this waste by putting names in everything.

On Tuesday 31st January some of our Governors attended school for the day so that they could spend time talking to parents, being in classrooms as well as talking to children and staff about a typical Maidensbridge day. The governors were very pleased with what they saw, especially our children's behaviour and willingness to talk to adults about what they love about our school. They saw the work we have done on our working walls to support the children in their learning, they also saw the use of the purple pen as children re-draft their work and make improvements from an adult's feedback. They saw that our special needs children are fully integrated in to our curriculum and that they feel they have everything they need to be successful. Safeguarding was also fully audited by our Safeguarding governor, Mrs Deb Green.

Thank you to the governors for taking the time to be in school and find out from the children, what Maidensbridge is all about.

This term all the school joined in an interactive Anti-Bullying assembly by Reach Out Arts.
The children were really engaged in the activities during the assembly and learnt lots about what bullying is and developed strategies to help prevent incidents of conflict. Year 4 & 5 followed the assembly with class workshops where they played games which reinforced these important messages.

The children in Year 6 have approached me and asked if we could have a Tuck Shop for Key Stage 2 children, selling healthy snacks at their mid-morning breaktime. I thought this was a good idea and they have been visiting the classrooms trying to find out what would be popular choices and what we could offer as healthy snacks. The children selected:

* Toast - 20p

* Cereal Bars - 25p

* Fruit - 20p

* Crumpets- 25p

The children will be selling these items at breaktime for years 3, 4 , 5 and 6 starting next week, so if your child would like to bring some change with them to school, they can purchase a snack at breaktime. This is going to run as a trial until Easter to see how popular it is and whether this is an opportunity that can continue in to the summer term.

Attendance and punctuality is very important to us as a school because it makes sure children are in an established routine and that they do not miss too much of their learning which can cause them some anxiety. Unfortunately, it is our percentage of children who are receiving Lates in the morning that is hugely impacting on their day and is very high compared to other schools and nationally. If a child is late, then they come in to a classroom that is already settled and in some cases has already starting learning. This can be daunting and can cause anxiety, they may also have missed some crucial information about the day. The drop-off time now allows for children to be in school from 8.35am and parents can go quickly and start their day. A child is not late until after the 8.45am bell, this allows now 10 minutes of drop-off time. We expect all children to be in their classroom before the 8.45am bell.

Thank you for your support with this and for the 80% of parents who are dropping your children to school on-time. We know that life happens and there are occasions when lateness cannot be helped but we have a list of children who are late regularly and they are not starting their day in the best way possible. If we can help in any way and can talk through options with you, please contact Mrs Starkey for a conversation.

Thank you everyone for your support for Numbers Day last week. Some of the children had amazingly creative costumes and brilliant handmade t-shirts, we were very impressed!

Well done parents! We raised £158 for this worthy cause. We also raised awareness of maths and gave the children some ideas about what jobs they could do in the future involving numbers.

Can I please remind parents that we need to make sure that we keep all children as safe as possible when they are arriving and leaving school. These safety measures include pedestrians walking on the pathways provided not down the driveway which is for vehicles, no dogs on site and careful parking in our surrounding streets. Thank you for your support and helping us to avoid accidents.

06.3.23 Face to Face Parents evening and all welcome to look at books in classrooms

13.3.23 Virtual Parents evening on Teams

13.3.23 Science Week

17.3.23 Comic Relief Mufti Day

20.3.23 Year 6 SATs and Residential Information Evening at 5.30pm in school

21.3.23 Downs Syndrome Awareness Day

24.3.23 HSA Easter Disco

28.3.23 Years 3 and 4 Easter Assembly (Parents welcome)

30.3.23 Easter Parade

31.3.23 End of Term and Autism Awareness Day (3.15pm finish)

Please call: 0300 555 0050

If you are concerned about a child’s welfare please speak to a DSL in school, or call Children’s Social Care on the number above.