For Next School Letter

1st Sunday of Advent – Mark 33:37 – 44 – Be Ready! Advent is a time for preparation for the celebration of the birth of Jesus. It is a time to reflect and to pray. During Advent we listen to the words of Isaiah and John the Baptist, who use the words and phrases, Emmanuel, God is with us, prepare the way. Advent has many customs and traditions and we will be sharing the tradition of the Advent wreath with the children.

30th November 2017

Dear Parents

Class Masses & Assembly – Year 3 have their class assembly on Friday 1st December at 2:45pm. We will be having a whole school Mass to celebrate the start of Advent on Tuesday 5th December at 9:15am and a whole school Mass for the end of term on Wednesday 20th December at 9:15am everybody welcome.

Nativity Story Bag - this is a bag which contains resources to help parents and children share in advent reflections at home. The bag is then returned to school the next day and passed on to the next family. If you would like to take the bag home and share as a family then please return the completed slip which was sent home yesterday.

Advent Reconciliation – Year 4, 5 and 6 will have opportunity to attend reconciliation with Fr Philip on Monday 18th December.

Christmas Fair - thank you to all our families who supported the Christmas Fair; it was a lovely occasion and wonderful to see so many children – past and present.

Dinner Monies / Nursery Snack Fund –please would you bring any outstanding payments up-to-date. Alternatively you can pay for school meals on-line using the link at www.tameside.gov.uk and click on the link school meals. We will not be able to issue a school dinner to any child where there is a debt of more than £20.00. In such cases parents will be expected to provide their child with a packed lunch. Please would you ensure that all advance payments and arrears are received by Monday 11th December due to the Christmas holidays, any late payments received will not be processed until January. School fund next term will be £7.00 per family for the term payable to St. Peter’s Catholic Primary School. Nursery snack fund for the term will be £21.00 payable to St Peter’s Catholic Primary School; alternatively you can use the School Money on-line system www.schoolmoney.co.uk

New menus – this 3 week menu can be found on our school website > School Meals > Menus

Christmas Productions –tickets for infant production will be sent home today and juniors on Thursday 7th December.

Year 5 and Year 6 Residential Trips – the next instalments are due throughout November. Robinwood £36 and Kingswood £26.00. Payments can be made by cash/cheque or the online payment system www.schoolmoney.co.uk

Inset day – the third and final INSET day of the year has now been arranged. School will be closed on Monday 29 th January 2017.

1 Admission to school September 2018 – letters have been posted out. If your child is registered at our school and you haven’t received a copy of the application process then contact the school office. Closing date for online applications is Monday 15th January 2018. Please note that school requires a copy of birth and baptism certificates, along with two proofs of residency. More detailed information is available on the school website under the Admissions section.

Nursery Admissions – we will be having a January intake offering 15 hours a week morning session only. Places are still available; please enquire at the school office about registering for a place.

School events Hockey team final and Girls’ indoor football – Thank you to the parents and children who supported this event. Our Hockey team made it through to the semi-finals and were only beaten on goal difference.

Online Safety – Tameside Police want to raise awareness of a trend which is affecting the safety of children. Social media, in particular Facebook, is being used to ask children to take a“24 hour Challenge”. The challenge involves them going missing from home for 24 hours, taking no mobile phone or food with them. They are then further challenged to be involved in risk taking behaviour such as climbing onto roofs of buildings. Children as young as 11 have taken up the challenge.

Emergency Evacuation and Lockdown procedure – we have an emergency evacuation procedure for incidents other than fire, which has been drilled with the children last term. We now have a ‘Lockdown’ procedure which will be used under instruction from emergency services.

A lockdown is similar to a fire alarm or drill; however staff, children and visitors stay inside the building. This is used when school is alerted to an external threat which means that everybody should stay inside.

Procedures should aim to minimise disruption to the learning environment whilst ensuring the safety of all pupils and staff. Lockdown procedures may be activated in response to any number of situations, but some of the more typical might be: · A reported incident / civil disturbance in the local community (with the potential to pose a risk to staff and pupils in the school). · An intruder on the school site (with the potential to pose a risk to staff and pupils). · A warning being received regarding a risk locally, of air pollution (smoke plume, gas cloud etc.). · The close proximity of a dangerous dog roaming loose.

Lock down does not necessarily mean everybody hiding under desks and in cupboards. It will more than likely be the need to secure all external doors and windows and have no communication outside of school. School would continue to work normally.

Parents trying to make contact with school could be difficult to manage hence the necessity to shut down all communication until directed otherwise as staff’s focus must be the children.

We intend to drill a short ‘lockdown’ with staff and children next term and due to the requirement to have no communication we will notify parents in advance of this in case parents tried to contact school but were unable to get through. Any appointments during this time would also need to be managed.

Parish and Community events Children’s Liturgy for the start of Advent – Sunday 3rd December 11:00 am. Christmas Brass Band Concert - The Glossop Old Band will be performing an evening of carols and Christmas music in church, on Friday 15th December 2017 at 7.30pm. Tickets cost £5 for adults (including mulled wine and mince pies) and £3 for children. Tickets can be bought from Pat Fleming on 07784135812. Circus Starr Circus Starr Goes to Hollywood at the George Lawton Hall, Mossley, OL5 0HR Friday 19th January 2018 performances 4:45pm and 7pm – tickets are free, available from the school office with no limit. Circus Starr is an independent charitable organisation that supports disadvantaged and disabled children across the UK.

2 Message from Mr Damian Cunningham, Director of Schools, Shrewsbury Diocese

Last year the Government promised to lift the 50% cap on faith admissions for new religious schools. This policy had proved to be an effective ban on any new Catholic schools as our Bishops ruled that opening a Catholic school that turned away Catholics for being Catholic was against Canon Law.

The 50% cap was a policy that specifically targeted Catholics as Catholic schools are popular with parents of all faiths and none. Last September the Government acknowledged the cap was unfair to the Catholic community and pledged to scrap it. The Conservatives even included a commitment to remove it in their manifesto.

Unfortunately, the feedback we are getting is that the Secretary of State for Education is thinking about U- turning on this and breaking the Government’s promise to Catholics.

The Catholic community now needs to make its collective voice heard and tell the Secretary of State that this level of discrimination against Catholic schools, parents and children will not be tolerated.

As such we are urging Catholics to write to the Secretary of State and their MP expressing their concern that this promise to our community could be broken. These letters can be easily sent by following this link, (www.catholiceducation.org.uk) inserting your postcode and clicking ‘send’.

Parental questionnaire –thank you to all the parents who helped to complete the questionnaire, the results are on the reverse of the newsletter.

Diary Dates Tuesday 5th December 9:15 am – whole school mass for Advent. Thursday 7th December 9:20am & 2:40pm – Infant production – Nursery children the morning performance only, which will be filmed. Filming by parents is not allowed. Thursday 14th December 2:30pm & 5:45pm - Junior production - The afternoon performance will be filmed. Filming by parents is not allowed. Monday 18th December – Jack & the Beanstalk Pantomime in school. Tuesday 19th December – Christmas dinner and party day. Wednesday 20th December 9:15 am – Whole school mass for end of term, school closes at 2:30pm. Monday 29th January 2018 – school will be closed on this day for staff training

Kind regards

Mrs E. Summersgill Headteacher