Dear parents/carers and families,

A huge thank you to our Year 4 pupils for leading our Harvest worship with such confidence and enthusiasm — you truly captured the spirit of gratitude and community. We were once again overwhelmed by the generosity of our families, whose donations will make a real difference to those in need.

Excitingly, work is now nearly complete to develop and enhance our outdoor playground equipment. The children are eagerly watching the progress, and we can’t wait to see them enjoying the new space once it’s complete. They are estimating final touches to be complete next week - cue the excitement!

Year One have been enjoying their class trips to Nature in Art, providing some memorable experiences and inspiration for their current natural Art topic and artist study - Andy Goldsworthy.  This will be followed by visits to The Cheltenham Literature Festival, an ISingPop concert and PGL adventures for Year Six, to wrap up a wonderful first half term. 

Thank you for your continued support in helping our school thrive.

Mrs Hanson

Acting Headteacher Inclusion and Early Intervention

Kingsholm C of E Primary School and Nursery

At Kingsholm, we recognise the importance of regular attendance. All pupils should attend school for every session that is available to them, unless the reason for their absence is one that meets the school’s criteria for authorising absences, e.g. illness, non-routine medical/dental appointments, religious observance.

Please ensure your children are in school every day, on time and ready to start learning.
We thank our Kingsholm family for all of your support and understanding of the importance of good, regular and punctual attendance.  

To help to improve attendance, here are some important key facts and reminders of how we can work together to be our best:

What is ‘regular’ attendance and why is it important?

• Being in school every day gives your child the best chance possible to achieve their potential.
• It is the local and national expectation that children attend school 100% of the time. However, it is important to note that we understand exceptional circumstances and that illness happens. 
• Children should attend school unless they are genuinely too ill to attend, or have the absence authorised by the Headteacher. 
• Parents and carers should only ask for a leave of absence from school in exceptional circumstances. These are defined as those that are rare, significant, unavoidable and short.

Authorised absence

You have informed the school that your child will not be in and the reason you have provided is acceptable. 

Unauthorised absence

Your child does not attend school and you have not informed us of the reason why, or the reason provided is not acceptable. 

Lateness

Pupils who are late for school miss vital learning time and disrupt the start of the day for others in the class and teachers. All pupils should be at school before the gate closes at 8:50am.

• The morning register is taken in the classroom at 8.50am. Any pupil arriving after 8.50am will be registered as late (L code) and the minutes of lateness will be recorded in the register.
• Any pupil who arrives later than 9.20am, without a legitimate reason, will be coded with a U code which is unauthorised. Regular unauthorised lateness can lead to a fixed penalty notice being issued.

What parents / carers can do to help promote good attendance:

• Make sure your child arrives at school on time every day.
• Follow the school’s procedures for notifying absence, and always let the school know of any days that your child is unable to attend.
• Take an interest in your child’s education.
• Ask them about their day and praise and encourage their achievements at school.
• If your child is missing school or is seemingly unhappy, you should discuss your concerns with your child.
• Make sure your child understands that you do not approve of them missing school, but be on the alert for any particular reasons for non-attendance, such as any problems with school work.
• Contact the school as soon as possible when a concern is identified so that we can work together to resolve any difficulties.
• Be willing to engage with any support offered by the school.

Legal Duty as a Parent / Carer

Once a child is registered at a school, the parent / carer has a legal duty to secure the regular attendance of that child. Failure to secure the regular attendance at school of a registered pupil is a criminal offence which can lead to a fixed penalty notice being issued or prosecution of the parents/carers in a magistrates’ court.

What should I do if I am struggling to get my child to school?

Please let us know. Your child’s health and wellbeing are important to us. We will work with you to offer appropriate support.

However, if you do not engage with the support the school has put in place and your child continues to have unauthorised absences you are at risk of a fixed penalty notice being issued by the Local Authority.

Thank you for your support and understanding.

How to contact the school office: Telephone 01452 530777 or email virtualoffice@kingsholm.gloucs.sch.uk

Hello families,

What a lovely 2 weeks at Forest School, one super rainy day but mostly really feeling Autumn in the air and seeing all the wonderfully colourful leaves falling all around.  They have been a fantastic resource for all our sessions.  We have been practicing safe tool use; cutting Elder beads and other bits of wood.  We have made some fantastic structures including slides and dens with windows.  The Elder beads have been made into bracelets, decorations and key charms with some string and lots of concentration to make the knots.  We started Forest Families afterschool club on Monday.  It was such a happy time for the children to show off their Forest school site to their grownups and share some of the things they do.  The grown ups learned the Forest School rules very well!

with warm wishes

Kate Shepherd  (Forest School Leader)

Forest School Plea -  We are in need of volunteers to help with our Forest school sessions.... If you could spare a few hours ( morning sessions - 9am - 11:45) ( afternoon sessions - 1:30pm - 2:55pm) we'd love to hear from you, please contact the school office.

• All day Tuesday
• Wednesday Morning
• Thursday morning
• Friday All day

Thank you to everyone who voted for us. We hope to make our school a lovely place for the children and know that it's going to be a really exciting year.  We cannot wait to share with you all the things that Isabelle and I get involved in.

Hope you really enjoy this school year.

Dhruv (Prime Minister) and Isabelle (Deputy)

In our first week we had a talk with the children asking if they felt included in decision making and listened to. We also asked them if they knew what our school vision and values were. We thought through what we were going to do and will ask the same questions at the end of the year.

The second week we had a chat with school councillors about our environment and climate challenges. Watch this space for more information.

Thank you for listening, have a lovely evening.

Kayla-Grace, Callum & Dhruv

• A reminder we have the flu immunisation team coming in on Wednesday 15th and Thursday16th. If you have not yet completed the online form - please do so. Even if you do not give consent, please complete the form. 

  Below is a link to the online consent form and the Unique Reference Number (URN) specifically for your school. Please ensure you add the unique code for your child’s school, then click ‘submit’. To ease submission please ensure that you manually enter your unique school code and not copy and paste from the attached letter. You will receive an email confirming receipt.

  Flu Vaccination Consent Form     Please type in School Code: GC115607

  Should you have any further questions or concerns then please contact the team on 0300 421 8140 or email FluImmunisation@ghc.nhs.uk

• iSingPOP concert on Thursday 16th October at 2pm at St Catharine's - Year 4 performing - parents and carers are invited. Please be at the Church by 1:45.  The children will then walk back to school where they can be collected at normal time.

• Family Support. We appreciate for many these can be tricky times. Do get in touch if you have any worries about food, finances or housing and we will try and help. Please get in touch with the Virtual Office - virtualoffice@kingsholm.gloucs.sch.uk

• Reminder - We wanted to share with you a brilliant app that has be brought to our attention Olio - Your Local Sharing App  It's been designed to help with saving money and it's eco friendly!  Beat waste with Olio: the app for finding what you need and sharing what you don’t with local people.