Independent Roman Catholic School for Boys and Girls

‘Striving for Excellence’

Weekly Newsletter

13th March 2020

Class Assemblies A big thank you to Year 4 for their very informative and interesting assembly on ‘Sound’ this morning. Thank you to the family and friends who came to join us.

The next class assembly will be Year 5 and will take place on Friday 20th March at 9:10am in the hall. Year 5 parents and friends are invited to attend. Ursuline’s Got Talent On Friday 13th March, the children in Year 1 through to Year 6 took part in our annual school talent show. After making it to the final round by auditioning in their classes, 12 acts made it to perform in front of the whole school! Congratulations to Kayla O Y4 who took first place! Jeremiah Y5 and Alicia Y1 came joint second place and Sunita and

Aarna who took third place. The Staff Band, the Dancing Queens and Mr Harding also performed. A big well done to all who took part in the final and in the initial rounds. Ursuline certainly does have talent! A special thanks to our guest judges, Mrs Enrile, Mrs Quail and Mr Hill.

Diana Award On Friday 6th March, six children went to the ‘Diana Award’ Anti-Bullying Ambassadors Programme in Brentwood. The Diana Award Leaders have trained over 24,000 young people in over 3,000 schools/youth organisations, to be Diana Award Anti-Bullying Ambassadors. Our children went through an extensive training programme. They are now confident in leading on tackling bullying in our school. The Ambassadors participated in workshops on how to develop a range of preventative measures to keep their peers safe. These included delivering online safety techniques to parents, rewriting their school's anti-bullying policy, behaviour management campaigns such as Smile and Compliment days, drop in support sessions and anti-bullying patrols around their schools. Congratulations to the six children who are now trained Anti-Bullying Ambassadors (ABA) Leaders.

Bancroft Science Fair On Monday 9th March a group of children from Years 5 and 6 went to a Science Fair at Bancroft School. The theme this year was, ‘Our Diverse Plant.’ It was a fantastic opportunity for the children to find out more about science beyond the primary curriculum. The children participated in a range of activities for example, looking at different student exhibitions, observing exciting and explosive chemistry demonstrations and creating rockets and launching them.

Coronavirus (COVID-19): latest information and advice Yesterday the Prime Minister announced that the UK had moved in to the ‘delay’ phase of their plan to fight Coronavirus.

As you’d expect, we have been very closely monitoring the situation and following advice from Public Health England and the NHS as well as working with our

Independent School Associations and other local schools, essential in this highly dynamic situation. We remain focused on heightening our own hygiene measures in school and regularly remind students on the guidance to help prevent the spread of all germs and we would appreciate your support in reinforcing this at home also.

Guidance released yesterday evening now states that should anyone develop symptoms of a ‘new persistent’ cough and/or a temperature above 38.5°C they should self-isolate for seven days. In this case, please call the school to inform us but do not attend school until the isolation period is complete. In this situation the government are asking that you do not call 111, as the system is under strain, but can find information using 111 online or the NHS website.

In addition to this guidance, all remaining school trips planned this term using public transport will be postponed until the Summer Term. As large gatherings have not yet been banned, we will still continue to hold our class assemblies as planned but will follow further guidance as and when it is released.

We would like to thank you for your support in helping us to safeguard the good health of our students and all the members of our school community.

Regularly updated further information is available here -

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/

PTFA

The next meetings of the PTFA, to which everyone is welcome, will be held on: -

Wednesday 18th March - 5pm – please note that this has been cancelled Thursday 30th April - 4pm

Easter Egg Raffle Tickets for our annual Easter Egg raffle will go on sale next week. The draw will take place at our final assembly on Friday 3rd April. School Council members will be selling the tickets, priced at 50p a strip, with the money going to the PTFA.

Admissions If your child has any siblings eligible to join our nursery either in the Summer term (3 years old by 31st March 2020) or Autumn term (3 years old by 31st August 2020) please submit your registration form as soon as possible as the spaces are fast being filled. Equally the same applies if they have a sibling of an age to join our Reception class in September (4 years old by 31st August 2020) as together with our existing nursery children and registrations from other children we are fast reaching our limit.

Attendance Congratulations to Year 2, Year 3, Year 4 and Year 5 for Perfect Punctuality this week. Unfortunately, there were no classes with Perfect Attendance this week. Hopefully, next week we have even more classes with no absences and no lates. Star of the Week

Year 6 Michael For an extra effort in literacy

Year 5 Alexandra For trying her best and making progress in maths

Year 4 Ami For an excellent week of fighting and defeating decimals

Year 3 Charisse For always using her initiative and therefore being very supportive to other children

Year 2 Moyo For a great attempt at editing his work in English

Easter Egg

Raffle

50p per strip

Prizes to be drawn

at final assembly

on the last day of

term.

Only 1 prize per

child.

All proceeds to go

to the PTFA

Year 1 Alicia For huge improvement with using her imagination

Reception Aryan For great work in maths using his number bonds to 10

PE Aiden For an excellent attitude to learning and improving new skills in football

Playground Aarna For always having good manners

Lines Year 3

PE kit Year 3

House Points St Vincent de Paul 112 St Ursula 176 St Cecilia 133 St Francis 152 Dates for Your Diary

Tuesday 17th March Speech and Drama

Wednesday 18th March Ballet

Thursday 19th March Irish Dancing

11+ & Curriculum information meeting Tuesday 24th March LAMDA examinations Thursday 26th March Tug of war Friday 27th March Last day of clubs Tuesday 31st March Easter Service - 1.45pm Friday 3rd April End of term 12pm finish Monday 6th April - Friday

17th April

Holiday club

Monday 20th April School Term starts

Thursday 23rd April Year 5 Life cycles meeting

Monday 27th April Clubs start

Friday 1st May Interim reports issued

Summer concert @6.30pm in Ursuline Academy Hall

Friday 8th May VE Day Bank Holiday

Monday 11th to Thursday

14th May

Year 6 SATs week

Friday 15th May May Crowning of Our Lady

Friday 22nd May Break up for half term

Monday 1st June Staff training day NO SCHOOL FOR PUPILS

Wednesday 3rd June Secondary transfer meeting for Year 4&5 parents

W/C 8th June End of year assessments for Years 1-5

PEP week

Friday 12th June Sports Day

Monday 15th to Friday 19th

June

Kingswood trip for Year 6 to Overstrand, Norfolk

Thursday 25th June Year 6 production, 7pm

Monday 29th June First Holy Communion Mass 2pm

Friday 3rd July Last day of clubs

Monday 6th July Transition morning; children to new classes

Thursday 9th July Reports to parents

Friday 10th July Summer Fair

Monday 13th July Prize Giving, Ursuline Academy Hall 6.30pm

Tuesday 14th July Leaver’s Mass 2pm

Last day for Year 6

Wednesday 15th July Last day of term 12pm finish

Contact Details Please can you inform the office if you have any change in your contact details (email address, phone, address, etc.). Twitter The Ursuline Preparatory School Ilford is now on Twitter! You can follow us on Twitter at @URSPSI or follow the link on our website.