Welcome to your newsletter for week ending September 6th

Welcome back families (and if you are a brand new family to BVP, welcome to your very first newsletter!) It’s been so wonderful seeing our school full of children once again; the weather has been very kind to use today and we’ve made the most of all outdoor spaces.

The last three days have focused on staff getting to know their new classes (and vice versa), reminding children of routines and setting out our minimum behaviour expectations. It’s important that families know these as well as children and we’ll add them in next week's newsletter for you.

Our youngest members of our school joined this week for ‘part time’ sessions across the 3 days. It has been wonderful to see them after the transition days last term and they seem to have had a wonderful time in their classes.

What's Coming Up

Children across the school have started the year looking super smart- thankyou for all your efforts with this. However already(!) we have some jumpers and cardigans in lost property boxes without names. Please add names to everything – but especially jumpers, cardigans, fleeces and coats. Thank you.

Children in Key Stage 2 have been given their Planners (and they have hopefully brought them home for you to see!) Please have a good look in these- there are spaces to record reading, a timetable for each week and some additional pages to help with key facts in maths and English. Planners need to be in school every day and children are expected to have them out on their desks during lessons. Children in Reception and KS1 will receive their Reading Diaries shortly.

Class Pages on the Website

We will ensure class pages are updated as soon as possible- this will include your teachers’ email addresses.

As mentioned in an email to you over the Summer break, we have now populated our website calendar here with almost all of the significant dates and ‘additional’ events across the year where families can be involved. Please do look at this so you can plan ahead.

Our ‘Welcome Back Meetings’ for Years 1-6 start WB 16^th September. In addition to what we covered in these last year, all teachers will be attending, so you will have chance to meet and chat to them during the evening. There’s no need to book and if you’ve got more than one child here, unless you want to meet individual teachers, you only need to come to one meeting (you are more than welcome to come to as many as you want to though!)

Hopefully your children will come home telling you all about the upcoming Talent Show later this month. This has been the idea of two tremendous girls who are now in Year 6. Almost a year ago, they presented the idea to Mrs Cooper (and have pestered her weekly ever since!) and now it’s actually happening! Please see the poster for key information. You will notice that the venue is TBC. It will either be in the George Hall (at school) or at the Theatre in the Cadbury Factory Grounds. Families are welcome to attend. We will give out detailed guidance on the event in a separate email on Monday but please note there will be a limited number of ‘acts’ that we can accommodate (2-3 per class) and acts will need to last no longer than 3 minutes. Acts can be solo or groups.

We’re also really excited to announce that we are signed up sponsor and decorate one of the ‘Bulls in the City’. The initiative across Birmingham will be raising money for Birmingham Hospice. In order to take part, we need to raise a £1000. (If you have an employer who might be able to contribute to this, please let us know!)

This month we are also supporting The Children's Cancer and Leukaemia Group (CCLG) and this year their theme is ‘go gold’!

So… we are going to roll all these into one very special day! On September 23^rd, we are asking each child to contribute £2. This will be split between the two charities (and of course, any additional money raised will be donated too). In return, children can come to school wearing gold (or yellow!). It could be one yellow sock… or top to toe sparkly gold. All children will be watching their friends and classmates in one of the two talent shows …and we may even see a staff member or two revealing a few hidden talents!

As the weather is rather changeable at the moment, please ensure your child comes to school with a named waterproof coat- thankyou

Huge thanks to all who responded to the Parent/ Carer Survey that was sent out in July. We had a fantastic number of responses and your comments have been really useful in planning elements of or School Improvement Plan for this year. We will try to include these in the ‘You Said… We did… sections of the newsletter and will also give you a summary of responses in the next couple weeks. We’ve included the link again here , just in case new families to us would like to respond.

Bracelet Charity Sale

At the end of last summer term we had a couple of fabulous jewellery/ accessories stands organised by our very own pupils. One of these stands was ran by A, L & R who raised and impressive £72 from their bracelet sale. Amazing Job girls!

The girls have split their well deserved earnings to Cancer Research & the Rainbow clinic at the Women’s Hospital.

My Happy Mind

We are now a myHappymind school!  As a whole school programme grounded in science and dedicated to building positive mental wellbeing, myHappymind helps children understand how their brains work and creates a culture that helps to build children's resilience, confidence, and self-esteem. myHappymind also teaches the children how to self-regulate and manage their emotions in stressful times, allowing them to be their very best selves! 

The myHappymind curriculum: 

• Meet Your Brain: Understanding how your brain works and how to ensure we look after it so that we can manage our emotions and be at our best. Growth mindset is a key part of this too.  

• Celebrate: Understanding your unique Character Strengths and learning to celebrate them. This is a fantastic module for building self-esteem.  

• Appreciate: Understanding why gratitude matters and how you can develop gratitude as a habit. Gratitude is key to well-being and resilience and we're all about making it a lifelong strategy! 

• Relate: Understanding why positive relationships matter and how to build them. We're focussed on the building blocks of good relationships and friendships.  

• Engage: Understanding how to set meaningful goals that matter and how to stay resilient in times of challenge. This module is all about building self-esteem and resilience too 

All children from Reception through to Year 6 will begin the first module this half term: Meet Your Brain. 

You can find out what the children have been learning and further support the development of these good mental health habits at home through the My Happy Mind parent app.  The app includes lots of free resources including videos so that you can follow along with the children's learning as well as breathing exercises, stories and fun activities that you can do together at home.   

To access these materials just go to https://myhappymind.org/parent-resources to create your free account. You will need to enter your name, email and authentication code. 

Your authentication code is 103445.    

Once you have created your account, you will receive an email with the next steps on downloading the app.   If you have any technical questions about accessing the resources, please contact [email protected] 

We really encourage you to make use of this free content so that you can support your child in getting the best out of the curriculum. 

We will be sharing more details with you during the Welcome Back Meetings (see the website calendar  here for dates and timings.) For any Parents/Carers who are unable to attend we will be offering an afternoon session on Friday 20th September 2.30pm.  If you would like to attend the Friday session please email [email protected].  

If you have any questions about myHappymind, please contact our Pastoral Lead, Steph Kovacs via [email protected], or alternatively telephoning the main school office. 

We can be contacted through the main office or directly by email at- [email protected]

Fresh seasonal salad bar and fresh bread available daily, as well as a daily selection of fresh fruit and fruit yoghurts.

And finally...

Apologies for so much info in this week’s newsletter! As ever, any thoughts or worries, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us via [email protected]

Have a good weekend folks.

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is the responsibility of everyone in our school and at all times we consider what is in our children’s best interests. We work to ensure our children are safe and cared for and by doing this we are protecting their health and development and preventing them from harm. If we are worried, we will raise concerns, share information, and take prompt action with the aim of ensuring families receive the right help at the right time.

Going On In Your Area

St Francis Food bank 

St Francis Church are collecting food for the B30 and South Birmingham Foodbank at all of their Harvest services this year.

Families are able to contribute something when you come to the any of our Harvest services at St Francis Church. "We’d be really grateful especially because we know at the moment donations are down and demand is going up!"

The Foodbank website normally has up to date details of what you need/don’t need: https://b30.foodbank.org.uk/

Finally, just to add no fresh produce please.

Friends Of Bournville

The last newsletter mentioned the ongoing refurbishment of the tennis courts. They now look very good. There is still no word on the likely access arrangements. One week of the events was devoted to tennis coaching (Cliff Allum, Mary Glasby, Matthew Glasby). The numbers were fabulous.

The main event was the Community Picnic in the Park. The weather might have been kinder but in the end was OK. The duck race was amazing with over eighty ducks 'swimming' along part of the brook. We didn’t manage to clear the Balsam for the race but the Bourn was high enough for the it to work. The Balsam has now been cleared, thanks to the City Parks Department.

CPR Training (Parental permission given)

Visits from the emergency services were very popular, with lots of children and adults learning how to do CPR from WMAS Paramedic Mike Gregory. In the picture below you can see Cora and Otis being shown what to do. Thank you so much to Mike who gave up his day off to come to the Park. He's really keen to come back and run a session for adults. Please can you let us know if this is something you would be interested in attending.

We are also grateful to White Watch from Kings Norton Fire Station who fitted in a visit to the Park around attending 999 calls. They were super popular while they were there.

Windswept Workshops went very well. They had a steady stream of children who really got into their writing and painting. It was great to see the children's involvement and creativity.

The silent disco was arranged with Bournville Village Primary School, to whom thanks. We also thank the Trustees who organized all of this: great work. We are always happy to have your comments on the activities in the Park.

We are keen to hear from potential volunteers and the Membership Secretary wants to set up a list of members who might like to volunteer for events. Please contact us for more information via email: [email protected]