Dear Parents and Carers,

First of all, if I have not managed to see you in the morning or after school, I hope that you had an enjoyable Christmas break - hopefully without too much disruption and plenty of good health too. We shall resume our weekly newsletter next week and Celebration Assemblies so this is a short catch up on the week so far for any important information going forwards.

Covid-19 Update

I know from speaking to many of you that lots of our families have had experience of the Omicron Covid variant. The current guidance is that if someone in your household test positive on a lateral flow, that this should be taken as a positive test. Therefore a period of isolation for 7 days should be followed. If you have a child in your family attending school and they are a close contact of a family member who has tested positive, they are able to attend school as long as they do not have any symptoms - including high temperature/fever type symptoms. Advice from the government is in these cases for close contacts over the age of 5, to have a daily lateral flow check for 7 days. We understand that this is a challenging time for all of our families and thank you for your continued support. At Olton, we are continuing with our enhanced cleaning regimes, handwashing/use of sanitiser and good ventilation throughout the buildings. Please continue to advise us of cases of Covid affecting our children so that we can monitor the situation closely.

Attendance and Punctuality at Olton Primary

At Olton we are aiming for our attendance to be in excess of 96% for all pupils.  Since moving onto one site in November we have noticed a slight improvement in punctuality for some of our children and we understand that the convenience of all being on one site is appreciated by us all. Last term we had 250 children who arrived late in the morning for lessons and this has an impact, not only upon learning but also can be upsetting for our children arriving late into the classroom.  Being late for school can affect your child's overall percentage and this is monitored closely. Alongside this email, please find attached a letter from CSAWS who support us with punctuality and good attendance. Now we are settled back into the new year, I am hoping to see an improvement in this particular area. If you have any issues relating to punctuality or attendance, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Please view the attached letter in relation to attendance and punctuality from CSAWS (Central School Attendance and Welfare Service).  We have also attached a Flyer to confirm the School’s start and finish times.

Healthy Eating/Water Bottles

Just a reminder that we are a healthy school. At playtimes we encourage all of our children to drink fresh water to keep their brains well hydrated. Children should not be bringing in crisps or chocolate snacks at breaktime and for those children following the rules, it is not fair to them. Please could I ask that you reinforce this message with your child. Next week’s menu is attached for reference.

Pantomime - 27^th January

We are delighted that our booking for all of our children to watch a live theatre pantomime performance is going ahead later on in the month. The large majority of this cost has been funded from the profit made by the Cauliflower Christmas cards and gifts, organised by Miss Williams this year. A request for a voluntary contribution of £1 has been added to parentpay which will help us cover the shortfall. The performance has been changed to Cinderella and we are sure that all of our children will really enjoy the theatre and magic of the occasion.

Building Updates

Those of you who have visited school this term will have noticed a few more building developments. We are delighted that within our new block, the blinds have arrived for the windows and in a few weeks the formal landscaping of the new areas will start. We are also very excited that our PTA have part funded the new adventure play areas for KS1 and also KS2 and these are scheduled to be installed during the February half term.  Those of you collecting from KS1, Reception or Nursery will also notice that the building work to develop the MUGA (Multi Use Games Area) at the rear of the school field will be starting soon and will provide an amazing additional sports facility for our children to use and enhance their physical activity at Olton. We are hoping for this phase to be completed by Easter and when works commence we shall add photographs to the newsletter!

Parking and Lyndon Road Congestion

Thank you for your ongoing support with this. We are anticipating that by February half term, additional markings restricting parking will be added to the front of school. Very kindly, the Lyndon Pub (Barn Lane) allow Olton parents to park on their site before and after school to walk to Olton and we would really like to see as many of our parents use this facility - especially as many of us are all setting new years' goals to be fitter, healthier and we can do our bit for the environment and our neighbours on Lyndon Road. Our ‘Walking Bus’, before and after school continues to be popular - please contact the school office for availability of spaces.

And finally...

We are really keen to start re-developing our wildlife areas at Olton and with the onset of spring (I am always optimistic!), we want to start by encouraging birds to the school site. If anyone has any bird feeders, bird tables or anything that you think might be suitable for us to develop our site with, please contact either myself or Mrs Brady.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing you all on Monday.

Best wishes,

Mr Chamberlain and the Team at Olton

Olton Primary School

(n.b. Accompanying letters can be found under 'Letters Home'  under the 'News and Events' menu option)