We hope you all had a restful period over the Christmas holidays, and we wish everyone Happy New Year.

Welcoming everyone back last week was a delight as always.  Teachers have planned an exciting term of learning. Years 1 and 2 have already had a great trip to the Birmingham Rep to see a beautiful production of 'The Snowman', this has been a delightful way to begin the 'Up, Up and Away' topic.  Class 4 have started their Arthog adventures this week as part of their 'Thrills and Spills' topic.  Groups of pupils are experiencing canoeing with the Arthog team.  While some of the children are a little apprehensive about the experience beforehand, they are showing great resilience in giving it a go.  Everyone is returning to school smiling, having had a great time and feeling really positive about their achievements, the trips are undoubtedly supporting the emotional health and well being of our pupils (and staff), while providing exciting experiences to talk and write about. The team work and friendship bonds that are evident is inspiring.

Teachers will continue to share the work classes are doing on their class pages on the website so please take a moment to check them and chat to your child about their learning as the term moves on. 

The calendar on the website also has key dates on.  As a quick reminder we do have 2 PD days planned following the early bank holiday in May (3rd and 4th of May) so the children will not be in school on those days.  We have also planned the additional Jubilee day for Monday June 6th, so pupils will return to school on Tuesday 7th June after the summer half term break.

We are welcoming new members to our staff team this term.  Ms Cale is now teaching Class 19 on a Monday and Tuesday, as Mrs Roberts has moved to Class 4 to take over from Mr Peckham, who has moved on to a new role in the Local Authority. Mrs Gull joined us part way through last term to cover Mrs Loakes who has now started her maternity leave.  Mrs Taplin is also joining our team in Year 2 later this term.  As well as bidding Mr Peckham farewell, we also said goodbye to Steve Clarke last term, who had been the site manager for the last nine years.  Mr Saunders has now taken up this position, so you are bound to see him out and about around school.

As you will know from the news, schools are still facing significant challenges as a result of the pandemic. Short Wood is no exception.  We are really grateful to the efforts of the whole team who, despite the challenging circumstances, are working to ensure we are keeping the day to day routines as normal as possible for the children and we appreciate the ongoing support of our community in trying to keep everyone safe.  We want as few disruptions as possible to the children's learning, however on occasions we are having to change things at quite short notice.  Thank you in advance for your understanding. Maintaining a broad and exciting, face to face learning experience is our priority.

We wrote to everyone earlier in the week explaining the new rules about LFD tests replacing the need for a confirmatory PCR test when people are not showing any symptoms.  All results of LFD tests should be registered on the government website.  Only positive results need to be reported to school. As always, if your child does display any symptoms please do not send them to school, please seek a PCR test and await a negative result before sending them back to school. We will inform you of positive cases in your child's class, the advice then is to do daily LFD tests.  Please advise school of any positive results using the office@shortwoodprimaryschool.com email address.

As always, our team here at school are always ready to offer help and support if you need it.  Teachers can be contacted via Dojo, they will endeavour to reply efficiently, and where possible within the working day.  Please be aware we do not expect staff to be working late into the evening so if you do send messages outside of the working day responses may not arrive the same day. If you do require an immediate response please contact the school office who will be happy to help.  Mrs Harris, Mrs Butele, Jane and other members of the management team are around and about the site at the start and end of most days so you can always catch someone to chat to. If you require a longer or more private discussion please contact the office and the team will make you an appointment with the appropriate member of staff.

We look forward to an exciting term ahead.