Thursday 16^th March 2017

Dear Parents,

Rehearsals for ‘What a Knight!’ are now in full swing as we approach the dates of our performances. The school has been full of dazzling dancing, superb singing and amazing acting over the past few weeks! Thank you to all of you who have worked with the children to help them learn their lines and prepare for the production, which I am sure you are aware will take place on the 30^th & 31^st March at Number 8. The children have been working extremely hard on their parts and I know as always at Cropthorne they will enjoy the wonderful support from all of our families.

We look forward to what I believe is our first ‘Mother’s Day’ Service next Thursday at St Michael’s Church in Cropthorne. The service will be led by Reverend Sarah Dangerfield starting at 9am on 23^rd March. Therefore we would be grateful if you would bring all children to the Church by 8.50am instead of coming directly to the school that day. Due to nature of the service we have decided to provide the option of pupils being able to sit with their families. As a result there will be three sections in the Church, divided into school, pupils and families, and the general public. If you wish your child to sit with us please make this clear to their class teacher when handing them over. If you wish to sit with your child, please take seats in the relevant section and hand your child over to their teacher at the end of the service so we can register them. If you wish to select this option please ensure your child remains closely supervised, as staff members will be unable to leave our allocated ‘school’ area. We request that all pupils be registered by us at the end of the service so we are able to walk back to school in our classes. Although this may sound complicated we hope it will actually be very straightforward and allow us to celebrate together as a school community in a slightly different and welcome way.

Comic Relief takes place on Friday 24^th March and our staff will be running a cake sale at playtime in support of this good cause. If pupils would like to purchase a cake, they can bring in a small donation to do so. Pupils may also wear Red Noses on this day if they wish to.

Following on from our previous consultation on after-school provision I am pleased to announce that, after the Easter break, we will be extending ‘Cropthorne Plus’ to after-school. We will now offer places until 4.15pm every day after school. Each session will cost £5 and this will include a small snack and drink. Mrs Freeman and Mrs Harrington will run the sessions and pupils can be collected from the front gate at the end of the session. Initially pupils will only be able to be collected at the end of the session unless under exceptional circumstances. Although I understand that some parents have indicated they would also prefer us to offer later provision, sadly the numbers when collated together were not high enough to offer sustainable provision at a reasonable enough cost to parents. If you are interested in booking a place, please see Mrs Evans in the school office. We hope these will be welcome changes which will run smoothly and conveniently but please do bear with us should there be any initial ‘teething’ problems.

Extra-curricular clubs will run as they normally do next term, but to avoid confusion we will ask that children either attend ‘Cropthorne Plus’ or an extra-curricular club after school on a particular evening. This should also ensure payment options are able to be made as clear as possible, as you will be aware that we run some clubs which are free to attend and others which require a set fee to attend the sequence of clubs. Extra-curricular clubs will continue to end at 4pm. Club options as always will be made available shortly after we return following the Easter break. We thank you for your continued support.

Yours sincerely,

 

Rob Bothma

Head teacher