COVID 19: Handwashing & Hygiene

We would just like to keep everyone informed of the measures we are taking in school in the current situation with the issue of COVID 19.

We have daily updates from the Government regarding any changes to take place and many resources etc for school - but the message remains consistent that at this time we are to make handwashing and general hygiene a priority and ensure that even the youngest children clearly understand the priority of keeping ourselves, but especially our hands. clean.

We have also been in daily contact with our school nursing service for any further advice and indeed Mrs Lang, our school nurse, has been working in school for several weeks undertaking talks and practical sessions about handwashing and keeping clean. We have also had assemblies about this.

As we know, a decision has been made that there is currently no need for schools in England to close at this time. So we will continue as normal, but ensuring that all advice given is put in place within school.

See some links for information below:

The importance of hygiene

Personal hygiene is the most important way we can tackle COVID-19, especially washing hands more; and the catch it, bin it, kill it strategy for those with coughs and sneezes.

Wash your hands more often for 20 seconds with soap and hot water.

In addition to handwashing before eating and after sneezing, both children and staff should also wash hands after using toilets and after travelling on public transport.

Please help us in sharing simple and effective hand hygiene messages:

https://twitter.com/NHSuk/status/1235112744917049346

Public Health England has a dedicated webpage with a range of posters and digital materials at:

• https://campaignresources.phe.gov.uk/resources/campaigns/101-coronavirus-/resources

Sign up is quick, free and means you will be alerted as more resources are made available.

Educational resources

The e-Bug project is led by Public Health England and has a dedicated webpage for learning resources on hand washing and respiratory hygiene.

Resources are currently available for KS1, KS2 and KS3 and can be used in various settings including schools:

• https://campaignresources.phe.gov.uk/schools

Department for Education coronavirus helpline

The Department for Education coronavirus helpline is now available to answer questions about COVID-19 relating to education and children’s social care. Staff, parents and young people can contact this helpline as follows:

Phone: 0800 046 8687
Email: DfE.coronavirushelpline@education.gov.uk
Opening hours: 8am to 6pm (Monday to Friday)

Where to find the latest information

Updates on COVID-19:

https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus

Guidance for educational settings:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-to-educational-settings-about-covid-19

Travel advice for those travelling and living overseas:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/travel-advice-novel-coronavirus

Latest Department for Education information:

https://twitter.com/educationgovukhttps://www.facebook.com/educationgovuk/

This Lent we are growing to be... grateful and generous.

The great season of Lent is now upon us and our focus as a school is upon our gratefulness and generosity. All of us at Our Lady’s this Lenten Season are growing to be grateful for our own gifts, for the gift of other people, and for the blessings of each day; and the children are particularly thinking about how they can be more generous with their gifts, now and in the future.

Please take a look at this letter which gives details of a local dentist who are currently accepting new NHS patients.

As part of World Book Day celebrations Blackpool Catering Services have prepared a special menu for Thursday 5th March, for children who usually have a school dinner on this day - see attached menu.

Blackpool Catering Services have also updated their weekly menu which will take us up to the end of summer term 2. You can view their new menu here.

Also, please see the attached flyer with details of a 10% off sale for one day only - Saturday 7th March - at our uniform supplier shop in the town centre - 31 Clifton Street.

Performing Shakespeare's 'Taming of the Shrew'

As part of our work as a Lead Associate School with the Royal Shakespeare Company, our Shakespeare cast will be performing ‘Taming of the Shrew’ along with seven other schools on Tuesday 3rd of March at the Grand Theatre. We are extremely proud of how hard the children have been working on this for the last month and we wish them luck for their performance on Tuesday, “Break a leg!”

If you would like to come along and support the children from Years 3 to 6, tickets are available from the Grand Theatre Box office, Blackpool.

'Nothing can dim the light that shines from within'...

This term we have all been encouarging each other to ‘shine our light’ as we try to live out the virtues of being curious and active in our faith and indeed all we do!

The children of Our Lady of the Assumption never cease to amaze us with all the wonderful ways they shine with Christ’s Light in the things they do and say! This half-term has been no exception…

We have completed some fantastic work in our classes whilst also continuing our sports, arts activities, mentoring work, buddying, ambassadors and various leadership roles - and that’s just what we undertake in school time! We are so proud of the children and the enthusiastic way they love to be actively involved in all activities to support not only school, but each other and our whole community - from altar serving at church to leading assemblies and helping others in the office, dining hall and around school. You really are all ‘shining your lights’ and it is wonderful to see you being so active in your learning and in your caring for others!

Dates of events:

Parents, please do keep a look out for the dates coming up soon of various events in and around school. These are regularly posted on your child’s class blog pages & also on on the dates tab of our website. Some coming up soon are:

‘Safer Internet Day’ - February 11th, ‘Silly Sock Day’ - February 13th (£1 cost to wear some weird and wonderful sock creations that day!), Half Term break - February 14th - February 23rd, Ash Wednesday - February 26th, ‘Julia Donaldson evening’ for Rec and Yr 1 children - February 28th, ‘World Book Day’ - March 5th and many other events.

World Book Day 2020

We have really tried to encourage and celebrate the children’s reading this year, remebering the variety of books, print, stories, news and amazing and interesting things there are for us to read! Our Julia Donaldson Evening is a wonderful way to encourage our youngest children to read and have so much fun listening to rhyme and predictable stories as well as thinking about the journey’s of the characters in these stories.

Many of you may also be aware that the church has designated this year as ‘The Year of The Word’, encouraging us to really read and think about the bible and the richness of scripture contained within it. Father Jim has already set us the challenge of designing a new cover for the church Book of The Gospels (Which Fr reads from each Sunday)

On World Book Day itself (Thursday 5th March) we are inviting the children to dress up as a character if they want to - but, for those who do not wish to dress up, you can have the challenge of simply designing/making a prop to bring in on World Book Day from a chosen book, which is a clue to the book itself. (ie a pocket watch - the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, a pair of red shoes - Dorothy, etc etc - the more unusual the better to keep everyone guessing) or how about just coming in dressed as a word from a book - or covered in words from a book… everyone then has to ‘read you’ to find out the book!

On the day we will have Dan Worsley - our local author and this year’s Patron of Reading for our school who will be coming in to deliver an assembly for the school and then will be working with Year 5 and Year 6 throughout the morning. We will also have some Quiz Competitions about books and authors going on throughout the day. If any parents would like to join us to be ‘guest storytellers’ that day - please let us know.

This Advent we are 'Faith-Filled' and 'Hopeful' as we await the newborn Saviour!

“At this Christmas when Christ comes, will He find a warm heart? Mark the season of Advent by loving and serving the others with God's own love and concern.” -

Mother Theresa

The season of Advent has well and truly begun! We are underway with preparations for our concerts and nativities and now hear the beautiful sounds of the children rehearsing their carols and songs.

On Monday we had a visit from Daisy, a gaplain at St Mary’s who works on behalf of CAFOD (The Catholic Agency for Overseas Developments) She told us about ways we could think about those who may really struggle at Christmas - both at home and overseas. Our amazing children came up with some wonderful ways that we could put the needs of others before ourselves and try to raise a little money this Advent to purchase something needed by families in other countries, such as chickens, grain, or school supplies.

We have agreed that we will not send individual Christmas cards to our whole class, but instead bring in £1 (which is much less that we would have spent on 30 cards) and donate that to our school CAFOD appeal. Also we will hold a whole school ‘Christmas Jumper Day’ on Thursday 19th December when everyone who wants to wear their Christmas Jumper on that day, can also bring in £1 as a donation for CAFOD.

Last night a group of our children took part in a beautiful Advent Service together with children from schools across Blackpool. It was a beautiful event and really put us in the Christmas Spirit. At this event there was also a collection for CAFOD which raised an astounding £169.36!

I was so proud of the children - as was Father Jim who also came along to the service! - A wonderful evening!

ADVENT MORNING MASSES

Just to remind everyone that we are beginning our Advent masses this Friday.

We would be delighted if you could join us for these 3  special Advent Masses which will take place each Friday morning at 8.10am 

These are for all children (& family) who can come along for 20 mins to join us in celebrating the end of each week of  Advent in a wonderful way  — by celebrating the  Eucharist   together!

We need children to read, to altar serve and also bring offertory gifts….

We then have a drink and toast (or even mince pies) together in our dining hall  before returning to class by 8.55am

The first mass is this Friday—6th  December & will be held in church

Friday 13th December and Friday 20th December mass will be held in the school hall.

PLEASE COME ALONG

&  JOIN US IN OUR ADVENT

CELEBRATIONS!



"The happiest people are those who lose themselves in the service of others."

We are so proud of our amazing children here at Our Lady’s.

During the past 2 months we have been on a ‘Mission’. That mission was to help others less fortunate than ourselves - following Pope Francis’ Extraordinary Month of Mission which began in October. The children decided that they wanted to collect foodstuffs for local families by donating towards Foodbanks. Our parishioners have already taken all the things which were collected and are distributing them to families across our town as we speak!

Our Key Stage 2 children collected items to make Christmas Shoeboxes - to send gifts to children across the world. They have done a wonderful job and we made 30 boxes which will be taken to our local delivery centre this week.

We want to say a huge thank you to families for supporting us in this.

However, it’s always the most unexpected things which can sometimes mean so much. It has been the actions of some of our Year 6 children which have really made such an impact over the past 2 weeks. Due to their entrepreneurial skills (making bookmarks and loom bands to sell) they enabled school to raise enough money to cover the postage and packing to send our boxes to countries abroad - raising an amazing £126.37!!!!

Mrs Ormerod took 2 of the pupils to deliver the boxes today and another child will finish the delivery tomorrow.

Because of all the donations we have been asking recently, school has decided not to fundraise for Children in Need tomorrow. Our wonderful children are already thinking of the next ideas they would like to lead in order to raise further money at Christmas time. Therefore we are not dressing up or collecting our usual pennies for Pudsey.

Again - a huge thank you to everyone for all your help and support for our special ‘Mission’ - WELL DONE!

Safeguarding Survey

We are always looking for ways that we can improve what we do here at Our Lady’s to ensure the very best for the children and families of our community.

We are therefore looking at any ways we may be able to make improvements to our communication around issues of safeguarding and have asked the Local Authority to help us review our current systems. We therefore have a short survey for parents as we would like to here your views about any areas you feel we undertake well/could improve upon or simply that you would like to know more about.

The link is here to take the short survey: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/NHFC3KX

But we will also send it as a text message.

Thank you for your support and please ask if there is anything you would like to know more about.

'MATHS DAY' - Thursday 31st October!

A reminder that Our Lady’s is holding our annual ‘Maths Day’ on Thursday of the first week back after half-term.

This is a wonderful day when we can celebrate our wonderful maths learning and focus on what makes maths fun! We ask that all children try to dress up as a calculator, dice, ruler, a famous mathematician - or just a number!

Please see letter below.

Maths Day letter