Dagnall Church of England School
Main Road South
Dagnall
Berkhamsted
Herts HP4 1QX
Tel. 01442 842473
Fax. 01442 842473
email office@dagnall.bucks.sch.
www.dagnall.bucks.sch.uk
uk
Headteacher
Mrs R Heath B.A. (Hons) PGCE NPQH
22nd January 2016
Dear Parents
The new term in the New Year has gone ahead at full speed. It has been great to have Mrs
Rackham and Mrs Tearle on board and the Robins and Red Kites are settled and learning well. Miss
Faye is doing a great job with the Chaffinch Class when I cannot be in there and Mrs Munn is
keeping an eye on all that is happening over a cup of tea with me ready for her return. She is
looking forward to coming back as soon as the Doctor gives his approval! Mrs Sears is working at
full speed to declutter and reorganise the school as well as make our displays look good and Mrs
Bovington is managing the paperwork side of things with absolute calm as always! Miss Manton
and Mr Hayler are showing great patience as they help us out with some of the more tedious jobs
which keep our school clean and tidy. Mr and Mrs Field continue to help us to keep everything
working the way it should in school, Mrs Hockley, Mr Dilks, Mrs Way and Mrs Bratt continue their
volunteer roles which supports the teachers enormously. What a great team! Thank you for
braving the weather and dark days to keep school a bright and cheerful place to learn.
The children have helped us to agree the first five Values for the school and this term we shall be
looking at LOVE (their choice). They have already helped us to consider how we can make the
school better…. More outside lessons (when the weather improves I think), more trips, and more
space when writing at the table. Solving the noise at dinner time is a little more challenging but we
shall work on it. It is great to see the Red Kites help with the table laying and placing the knives
and forks correctly. We are now trying to plan how to make a real library area for everyone.
I have attached the rationale for our new logo. Thank you to everyone who contributed last year
with ideas and this includes the children. Sadly we cannot please everyone but we hope you feel
the artistic interpretation of the red kite and the D shape represent our community and our aim to
support children to be high flying!
Topics this term are: Robins and Red Kites = Our Wonderful World and Chaffinches = The Story
Makers. Thank you to everyone who has responded and returned the questionnaires. The thorny
issue of home learning features on several responses. We want home learning to be fun and we
hope it provides a link for your child to share what they are doing, or about to do, in school. We
keep the tasks open ended so that it can be done in such a way to suit your child’s learning
preferences (even when travelling in a car). Please do speak to Mrs Tearle or myself if you would
like some more ideas with this or are finding difficulty in completing the tasks.
Any consolidation of work really helps children to feel confident when reading and writing etc and
knowing number bonds by heart speeds up practical maths lessons for the children. The responses
indicate you can see your children are making progress with Reading and Writing in particular but
there is a gap in your awareness of Topic work which we need to address. The regular opportunity
to look at your children’s work in the Next Steps sessions is clearly welcomed although we
appreciate not everyone can make it. We will have to look at ways round this.
Despite the grim sickness bug which affected 15 children (65%) we managed to maintain a 96%
attendance overall for the school with just a few children under the 95% expectation. Thank you to
everyone for keeping us informed of sickness and the rare requirement for holiday absence. We
can authorise sickness absence but it has to be an exceptional circumstance to authorise holiday
absence. Policy available on request.
In the event of adverse weather conditions the school may need to close. As we are a small school
we will send you all an email and then make phone contact with as many of you as possible. In
Sept 15 we sent contact detail sheets home to you all for checking, if any of your details have
changed since this time, please make Mrs Bovington aware. If the playground is icy please keep
your child near you (you may need to explore some frost with them), as your child is your
responsibility before and after school. In icy conditions this is even more important.
We had hoped to be able to direct you to our website if we have a snow day so that some home
learning can be provided. However, since yesterday we have no website as the company that hosts
it InternetKit have gone into liquidation. We (and many other schools) are currently trying to
remedy this situation and we will have a temporary website by the end of the weekend and then
we will improve it from there. If you have any queries do come and ask directly in school.
Our very best wishes for a Happy 2016 to you all
From Mrs Heath and all the staff at Dagnall Church of England School.