Good afternoon families and welcome to our first newsletter of the Spring Term. Although it's been a shorter week, we've packed in lots and have ended with our fabulous Values Assemblies where we have celebrated children going over and above to demonstrate integrity. It's not just this week that is short- this half term is only 5 weeks long so every day counts... read on for an update with our drive to improve attendance!

As ever, we welcome feedback on all aspects of school life and one piece of feedback that I recently received was about our newsletters and how we can try and group the key information together (where families need to remember dates etc) and then group the wider information later in the newsletter. The idea is that you can quickly read all the 'important bits' and then, perhaps when you have a few more minutes to sit down and properly read, you can enjoy all the extra information at your leisure! Let me know if you think of any other improvements we can make with the newsletter.

On the subject of suggesting improvements, as mentioned to you before the start of term, we are getting our Parent Voice group up and running- please read on for more information.

In the spirit of not having too much 'waffle', I will let you read 'the important bits' which we've tried to put in to separate paragraphs towards the top of the newsletter, with wider information further down.

Values of The Week 

We really enjoyed hosting the Carol Services etc at the end of last term (thankyou for the many positive comments we received about the festivities!). At the start of each 'event' in school we ask families not to share any photographs or videos on social media sites. We include WhatsApp and class WhatsApp groups with this request. As I'm sure families appreciate, there are some children in our school who cannot have their photograph taken and shared publicly.

Unfortunately this happened at the end of term, causing distress to one of our families. Thank you for your care, understanding and support with this important safeguarding matter.

Please remember that we expect all children with long hair to have it tied up for school please. Thankyou for your support.

Although the minimum age for Whatsapp is 16, some of our children are accessing this form of social media. Please refer to the article below to help assist you in understanding how to keep your child safe online. 

After a wonderfully musical end to last term, we’ve certainly started the Spring Term with a bang! Today our children in Years 1 and 2 have taken part in a hybrid concert delivered by a member of the CBSO. ‘Dino Disco’ involved the children going on a musical hunt for the lost dinosaur’s. During this journey the children watched via screen members of the CBSO orchestra playing a wide range of famous pieces. The children’s thoughts about this experience will be shared next week. 

Our association with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra will continue over the next two week’s when Years 5 and 6 will take part in the  CBSO’s ‘Escape Room’ hybrid concert and Reception will be visited by a musician from the CBSO for their Musical Story Times. Finally our school orchestra have been invited to watch the CBSO perform in the Symphony Hall and to meet some of the musicians.  Not to be outdone, our Year 5 and 6 choir members will be singing at the World Resorts Arena as part of Young Voices. All in all a fantastic start to 2024!

Our Year 4,5 and 6 school choir will start back on Monday 15th January. For the next 2 weeks we will be concentrating on music for Young Voices. New starters are welcome to join after this.

Young Voices - 26th January

We will be handing out T shirts and tickets on Monday 15th January and also a final letter about the day itself.

Please do encourage your child to look at the YV resources on their music room. The link to sign up can be found below:

https://yvmusicroom.com/parentRegisterReferral?code=Mjg1My8xNzAwODIwMDg0

Our school orchestra will start back on Tuesday 16th January and will be working towards their performance at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire on Thursday 21st March. More details about this concert will be sent out when we have them.

Orchestra Trip to CBSO - Tuesday February 6th

A letter with details of this trip will be sent home next Tuesday. We aim to be back at school for 4.30pm.

Parents and carers are invited to come and watch our annual guitar and ukulele concert  (Years 3-6) on Friday 8th March. The concert will be held in George Hall in the afternoon. We will advise of the start time, as soon as we know. 

As many of you will recall, this Friday (11^th January 2024) was set to be our 100% attendance day. However, our lovely Attendance Ambassador Katie Walker-Bailey is not in school at the moment and our ‘Attendance Armadillos’ are still making their way over from the sunny continent of South America. So, we are postponing we have Katie and the Armadillos in school. In the meantime, we would love to get some ideas for names for the three armadillos on their way to us. Please let us know if your children have any ideas!

* Keeping up attendance - strive for 100% attendance and for your child to arrive to school on time every day. This will prevent your child missing key information and falling behind with their education. 

* Teaching study skills at home - introduce study skills at home to help children develop good learning habits to take through their education. Try working with your child to put together a revision timetable and ensure they have the right revision material. 

* Nutritious breakfast - make sure your child has a healthy breakfast every day to help their attention span, concentration levels and memory, all of which are significant for aiding learning in school. 

* Good night’s sleep – ensuring your child gets 10-12 hours sleep a night will help with their emotional and physical growth, plus they will be alert and ready to process new information at school. This helps improve concentration and avoids disruption in class due to irritability or hyperactiveness.  

* Encourage after school activities – research across the country has found that pupils who attend after school clubs are more likely to have improved academic performance and social skills by the end of the school year than those who do not attend. You can find out more information about BVPs clubs on our website.

One of the things we wanted to get set up in 2023 was a ‘Parent Voice’ Group. The idea of this would be to hold half termly meetings (open to any family members of children at BVP) where we could discuss policies and practice in school. It would be separate to our marvellous PTA and would not be a forum for airing personal concerns, but instead would be a chance for families to hear about the inner workings of school, understand the rationale behind decisions and also, importantly, to be able to positively influence the way we work towards providing our children with the very best educational experience possible (like an open and ongoing consultation process).

We didn’t manage to set up the group last year, so it’s now a priority for 2024! Please us the link below to complete an ‘expression of interest’ form. Ideally we would have regular ‘members’ that would be a good representation of all year groups in school, but we also understand if folk can only make the odd meeting due to other commitments. If you have any questions about this, please ask via [email protected]

Expression of Interest Form

As you will see below, the PTA AGM is next Friday straight after school in the George Hall. The PTA make fun things happen around school. The AGM is a great opportunity to meet some of the team and even start to think about getting closer to the events team, and even taking the Chair, Treasurer and Secretary role in the future as the team evolves and changes all the time.

We hope you have all had a fantastic start to the New Year.  I know we have had a lovely week welcoming your children back into school and catching up on all of their holiday news.  

As you know, our Pastoral Team will look a little different this year, and we are very excited to be welcoming Mr Purcell onto the team.  We are committed to supporting all of our children and their families, and we are looking forward to working in partnership with you and welcoming you into school over the year.   We will be sharing news and information that we hope  will offer support and advice each week, but we  would love to hear your ideas on what information would be useful to you and what you would like to see more of pastorally.

Our door is always open and we be contacted by telephone, popping into the office (if we are unavailable you can leave a message and we will contact you as soon as we can) or email- [email protected]. 

As it is the start of a new year it is a great time to begin healthy new habits to support our mental health and wellbeing.   We know that January can be a difficult time of  year and you may remember us reminding you of the 5 Ways to Wellbeing some time ago.   

With this in mind, we would like to offer you a challenge focusing on…Take Notice! Taking time to stop and pay attention to what is happening in the moment and appreciating the world around us can significantly boost our feelings of wellbeing.

The Challenge..

Using your five senses- sight, smell, hearing, touch and taste – wherever you are take a few minutes noticing:

5 things you can see

5 things you can touch

3 things you can hear

2 things you can smell

1 thing you can taste

We would love for you to share them with us over the week, you could do this by drawing, writing or coming to speak to us. We can’t wait to see you. Have fun!

Our Anti-Bullying Ambassadors have met this week and have started thinking about their next initiative to wipe out bullying behaviour at BVP. They have been adding videos to their website page and are working on some new posters to have up and around school. Look out for regular Ant-Bullying' features in newsletters from now on. If you'd like to look at the website page- go to 'Our School', then 'Ant-Bullying' or click here.

BCC consultation – Non-statutory budget consultation 2024/25:

This consultation will run until 17 January 2024. Chief Executive, Deborah Cadman, explains: “Our approach to engagement will help shape the delivery of services to Birmingham citizens, therefore it is essential that as many citizens and staff members as possible consider the consultation and respond within the time period.” Please complete the survey with your views and please discuss with senior leaders how you can share the details of the consultation with your school community, encouraging as many citizens as possible to complete it. Thank you.

In case you aren’t already aware, the Children’s Commissioner for England has launched a national survey, ‘The Big Ambition’. This is to hear from all children and young people in England between 6 and 18 years old. The closing date for this is next Friday - 19^th January.

So far, they have had an overwhelming 300,000 responses from children, young people, and parents across the country - making it one of the largest surveys of its kind. But the Commissioner wants to give even more people a chance to have their say. So, if you have not yet taken part, please consider doing so before the 19^th!  Adults can answer on behalf of a child or young person.

Your views collected from the survey will be shared with policy makers ahead of the general election to make sure the children and young people of West Midlands are fairly represented in the results.

You or your child/ren can complete the survey here:  www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/thebigambition

This weeks quote has been chosen in honour of Martin Luther King day this Monday 15th January 2024. 

Martin Luther King, Jr., is a civil rights legend. In the mid-1950s, King led the movement to end segregation and counter prejudice in the United States through the means of peaceful protest. His speeches—some of the most iconic of the 20th century—had a profound effect on the national consciousness. 

Happy new year everyone! I’m sure lots of you spent the Christmas break exchanging presents or going for long chilly walks, but did any of you spend it by watching the captivating Darts World Championship? Not only was it an amazing spectacle, but it also included so much maths!

The players need to have a steady hand and good aim, but also rapid mathematical recall to know which numbers they need to hit in order to check-out and win the game. The maths skills include double, trebling, addition and subtraction from 501 (the starting number) to be the first player to reach 0.

If you have a dart board at home (or a child-friendly Velcro one!) you could maybe have a game or two over the weekend and put your maths skills to the test. The PDC have also launched a fantastic website, aimed at KS2 children, that contains a range of darts-themed maths activities, including an interactive scoring game, worksheets and videos from professional darts players explaining how they use maths, and showing their calculation skills to be able to hit some high scores. You can check out the website here: https://www.pdc.tv/maths

Isaac Newton born January 4^th was inspired to form his theory of gravity when he saw an apple fall from a tree on his family farm. He wondered why it fell down and not up or across.

Make a straw rocket to explore gravity for yourself! 

You will need:

• Straw
• Paper
• Tape

Cut a small strip of paper, fold in half and seal the top and long side opposite the fold with tape. Place over the straw and blow, it should shoot into the air! (Decorate if desired)

• Try pointing the straw at different angles and blowing harder/less hard to see how the flight changes.
• What happens if you point it straight up? How far does it fly? Does it fly differently if you point it horizontally
• Add some weight to your rocket and see if that affects how far it travels.

Have fun!

Next week will be Menu- Week 2

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

Dinners in arrears 

A little reminder that if you have been charged for a dinner when you have provided your child with a packed lunch, this is likely due to children putting the wrong mark on their class dinner sheet. We would like to make parents aware that each pupil from KS2 fills in their own mark on the dinner register. So, please could you reiterate to your child/ren that if they have been given a lunch from home, they should not be marking themselves as a dinner,  as mum or dad will be charged for this.

Do you have 20 minutes to spare at morning drop off? If so, would you like to spend registration in class hearing a Yr1 or Yr2 child read? Ideally we are looking for volunteers that could come into school every morning, but any time you can give would be immensely helpful and appreciated. 

If this is something you are interested in, please contact the office via email by Thursday 18^th Jan and we can send you a simple form to complete. It is as simple as that! 

Miss Casey will run a short training session on Friday 19^th Jan at 8.40am for those interested.

We look forward to hearing from you. 

Hope everyone had a great Christmas break and many happy returns for 2024!

After such a busy term in the run up to Christmas we are taking January and February to reflect, review and plan for a great 2024.

As such, its the PTA AGM next Friday 19^th January straight after school in the George Hall. We would love to see as many of you and your kids as possible to hear the review of 2023, find out the total surplus we can make available to the School to continue enhancing the school and creating shared memories, set out some objectives for 2024 and gather together the team that is going to make the fun things happen!

We do have important (but swift) tasks at the meeting also to hear nominations for, and decide on elections of, the Chair, Treasurer and Secretary posts as formal positions needed by the Charities Commission. Mrs Cooper will continue to be a Trustee of the Charity in her role as Headteacher of the School. We have posted some information here for you to find out more if you are interested in stepping up into these roles and keep the good work of the PTA going https://bournvillehsa.wordpress.com/2024/01/08/bvps-pta-agm-and-nominations-for-formal-officer-roles-3/ 

We will write more in a couple of weeks time to bring everyone up to speed, but its always nice to see as many of you as possible to mark the end of the year and the start of the new year for the PTA. (If we are wondering why we have it in January - it is because Sept- Dec is so important to the PTA calendar that it'll be unfair for a new Committee to start in Sept straight into such a busy term. So, by moving it to January we give them a fighting chance to get their feet under the table)

So, for now, all the best for January! Only 4 weeks until half term!

Best,

David, Veronica and the rest of the PTA Core Team.

Although the term has only just begun, today marks the end of the BVP journey for one of our Reception Teaching Assistants. Miss Fisher, although only with us for a short while, has been an asset to the Early Years team and to our school as a whole. Jodie, we wish you all the best with your new and exciting adventure- we are very proud of you.

Thankyou for a great first week back folks- enjoy the weekend and we look forward to seeing all of our children back with us on Monday morning, ready for week two!

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 our 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.