02 Sep Headteacher’s Update
Dear Parents, Carers and Guardians,
Welcome back after the summer break! I hope you all had a lovely, relaxing time and enjoyed the family time together. I also welcome new families to Yerbury, and look forward to getting to know you better.
There has been a lot going on over the summer break here at school, in particular in relation to building work, so I wanted to give you an update before school starts.
Before that, a quick, last-minute message: the school phone is unlikely to be working tomorrow. Apologies for this – we have been assured they will be working by Friday. Please email the office with any questions or wait until Friday. Thank you.
Building works update:
The new office space (in the old marmalade room) should be completed in the next 3-4 weeks. The actual entrance leading onto the main road is part of a different phase of the works, as we need to work with the council on planning permission etc. However, the office will be functioning from that room on the ground floor before the external entrance is completed, hopefully before the end of September.
In the meantime, some information and requests from the office staff to help things over the next couple of weeks:
· The office will be temporarily based in the library – next to Cassie’s office on the 1st floor, just to the left of the ‘old’ office. We hope to move into the new office & reception space by the end of September.
· Since the library is somewhat cramped, we would really appreciate it if you could email us rather than pop in to the office whenever possible during this time. Of course, please come in to speak to a member of staff if you need to.
· We will only have one working phone line until we relocate, so we appreciate your patience if it takes more time than usual for your call to be answered. Please send an email rather than call, if possible.
· The office will be staffed from 8am-5pm as usual.
· Please continue to report absences by leaving a voicemail with your child’s full name, class & reason for absence – messages are always checked before registers are closed.
We will also be temporarily closing the green staircase (the one which used to lead directly to the office) so we ask you to use the blue (back) staircase to access the school office if necessary. This will mean walking through the middle hall. We do ask that you refrain from entering the school as much as possible at the beginning and end of the day to help us with congestion. The first floor children (Y1,2,3) will be dismissed 5 minutes earlier at the end of the day to manage this better, and children on the right side of the building will go through the halls to access their classrooms. Reception R parents, you’ll need to enter using the other door on the far end. We envisage this being the case for the first two weeks, and appreciate your cooperation.
As you may have seen from the models Peter Morris exhibited at the Summer Fair, the old office space on the first floor has been merged into the staffroom to give staff dedicated dining area. The high room space has been used to build in a mezzanine to create an additional learning space for the children to do group work in. The small cloakroom space and photocopier room have been redesigned to fit in an additional toilet. This work is due to finish in the second week of term. In the meantime, staff will be using the Parents’ Room as their staffroom, so this will not be in use for parents until the staffroom is finished.
Furthermore, all the top floor classrooms have been carpeted to improve the acoustics in both the classrooms on the top floor as well as those beneath them. This should impact on the quality of teaching and learning for all Key Stage 1 and 2 children. We are planning to do this for other classrooms in the future.
The Q-room is nearly complete – we just need to have the floor done which should be finished in the next couple of weeks. It is going to be an incredible space, and we look forward to having an ‘open day’ where you can come in and see what your fundraising has achieved and how it will impact on the children. There have been three parents in particular without whom this project would have not been completed this summer/ year. I know they do not want their names mentioned, but I do feel the need to publically acknowledge what they have done for the school and the children. It’s an incredible space and resource, and looks fantastic! A huge thank you – you know who you are!
We have also been continuing with the usual, somewhat challenging, maintenance work that a beautiful Victorian building like this presents us with. We believe we have resolved the smell in the Reception cloakroom, and have also finally worked out how to resolve the leaks near the Parents’ Room which will be fixed imminently. We have unfortunately been let down by the company who was supposed to be fixing the exterior render so that we could finally remove those ugly metal barriers in the playground; this should hopefully be completed in the next couple of weeks.
Everyone, and in particular Nicola (our School Business Manager), has been working tirelessly over the summer. She has been managing the project brilliantly, and these numerous projects and improvements could not have happened without her. We are excited about the renovations and are looking forward to it all being completed soon.
We do have further plans for the future which include, amongst other things, redecorating the whole ground floor and ensuring the entire school environment is of a high standard.
Other notices:
New Website:
Address: www.yerbury.islington.sch.uk
Our new website has just gone live even though it is not completely finished. The backbone of the website is ready with some pages being complete, others partially, and others yet to be started. We will be adding new information to the calendar and website as we go, and felt this was preferable rather than working from the old website for a couple of weeks and then switching over. I could never have anticipated how much work is involved in building a new website from scratch, but we are really pleased with the design and functions. We hope it will be fully completed by the end of September. If there are any teething issues after then, which no doubt there will be, do drop us an email and let us know. May I also take this opportunity to thank Jane Hilton, one of our parents, who kindly came in to take some of the photographs for the website – greatly appreciated!
End of day arrangements:
At the end of the day, teachers will be dismissing classes from their usual places in the playground. If you’re not sure where that is for your child’s new year, look out for signs being held up by teachers. As a rough guideline: Year 1&2 children are in the front playground, Year 4,5,6 are in the back playground, with Year 3 in between.
Year group meeting dates:
Meet your year group teachers and find out what lies ahead for your child and other useful information. These are held in one of the year-group classrooms, start at 8.45am and last for about 20 minutes.
Tuesday 8th September – Year 1 and Year 2
Wednesday 9th September – Year 5
Thursday 10th September – Year 3
Friday 11th September – Year 4
Monday 14th September – Year 6
We have another academic year ahead of us, and staff are looking forward to welcoming back the children tomorrow. I appreciate your cooperation and patience over the coming weeks, and look forward to seeing you all on the gate tomorrow! Here’s to 2015-16!
Best,
Cassie
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