School photographs will take place on Tuesday 3rd November 2020. There will be some changes to keep the staff and children safe. 

• The proofs will be sent home by school and all orders and payments will be done online..
• The children will be standing, rather than sitting. 
• Siblings will have their picture taken but only if they are pupils in school, we won’t be able to accept siblings from different schools as we have done in the past. 

Thank you 

Mr Woodward

I can’t thank you all enough for your donations today, it was overwhelming. All donations will be distributed locally, through the Grace kitchen and will support local families. 

Good afternoon, 

I can’t believe we are in the middle of October already and we have one more week until half term. This has been a great half term and I am really proud of all of our school community for way everyone has approached our new way of living and learning. The atmosphere in school has been really positive and the pupils, our families and staff have shown a huge amount of resilience. 

However, we are all aware that locally and nationally, cases are of Covid 19 are rising. This week was a sobering reminder of how widespread this virus is as we had our first cases of parents contracting the virus. All procedures have been followed and no children or staff have been symptomatic or have tested positive. The tier system doesn’t have an impact for schools, we are in a tier 2 (high risk area) area and we need follow all the guidelines carefully. It has made clear to us all that we must keep following all of the procedures to ensure we reduce the risk of class bubble or school closures.  We have been preparing and creating work for those pupils self isolating and in the event of class closures. Thank you to everyone who has filled in the online learning survey, it will make providing work and support much easier. 

Staffing Update

• It is a great pleasure to announce that we recruited a very experienced and skilled year 6 teacher and Key Stage 2 leader. Miss Warburton will be joining us after Christmas and will be an amazing asset to our team. 
• Mrs Mackey will be having a planned operation on Tuesday and will be off for 2 – 6 months. Mrs Mackey wasn’t expecting to get a date for the operation until the new year and I am sure you will all join me in wishing Mrs Mackey a speedy recovery. I am very pleased to welcome Mrs Madigan to our team, who is very experienced and will be a great addition to our school. 

Harvest Donations

I can’t thank you all enough for your donations today, it was overwhelming. All donations will be distributed locally, through the Grace kitchen and will support local families. 

Swimming

Year 3 and 4 pupils normally go swimming but this will not be possible this term. It will be under constant review and as soon as it is safe, we will start going again. 

Parents Evening

It is really important for you as parents to find out how your children are doing in school. It will not be possible for parents to come into school and I will give more information next week on how we will communicate with parents. Please continue to contact the class teachers using the class emails. 

Thank you all again for your continued support and I hope you all have a fantastic weekend. 

Mr Woodward

Good morning, 

I hope you are all well in these interesting times. 

I believe there have been some issues with some parents not getting text messages. The messages I have checked have shown they have been delivered but if there are any issues, please contact school and we will update numbers and investigate problems. 

We became aware that some parents were not getting texts by accident, please contact school if you are having issues or have concerns. Social media is not monitored by school and issues can only be solved if school is notified of any issues. 

Have a great afternoon.

Mr Woodward

Grace kitchen donation request

It is that time of year again, please see the leaflet below for St Phillip Howard’s virtual open evening.

Although, we very much hope that there will not be any class or whole school closures, we are making plans should it be necessary.

Work will be set using the website, Purple Mash and we are developing our use of Google Classrooms. If you you don’t have internet access or cannot print at home, we will provide paper copies.

Please answer the survey below so we can plan accordingly.

Online Learning Survey

Continue reading

The opportunity to learn a brass instrument is once again available in school with Mr. Lodge. Please see the information below and Mr Lodge’s video  this video https://youtu.be/ngqEbuorSG0.

Brass lessons at St. James’