29th November 2021

Dear Parents and Carers,

It has been a busy term with a number of exciting activities and happy events taking place. The Strive for Five week was very successful. So far we have raised over £6000 towards the new outdoor area. We thank you all for your very generous contributions. We have had a number of visits from companies specialising in special needs outdoor areas and are will keep you updated about the progress we are making with this.

There have been some exciting curriculum projects taking place in school. Yellow class have been involved in the Croydon Inter-Faith Week Zoom event last week. They report that the children enjoyed taking part in the event and they will be receiving a Certificate of Participation. A recording of the event will become available on the Inter-Faith page and we will pass on details of how this can be accessed to Yellow class parents.

Hawking and Christy class have been involved in the Croydon Voices Youth Consultation project. This is a project organised by Croydon Music and Arts that aims to support young people in Croydon to explore their vision for Croydon as a Borough of Culture. Croydon’s Poet Laureate, Shaniqua Benjamin will be working to gather pupils’ views on the arts and culture in Croydon and capture their ideas in two poems.

Work on further developing phonics for our classes following a formal or semi-formal curriculum has continued. Many of you will have received a letter this term with reading support suggestions for your child. Training sessions for staff have successfully taken place and regular phonics groups are being run for targeted pupils. The school thanks Fiona Bovingdon, English subject Leader, for her hard work on this.

Sadly, we have had to postpone again the face to face Makaton Taster session due to Covid restrictions. Tara Dale, Makaton Lead, and Beverley Hayllar, Governor, are planning to run this in the Spring Term.

Our staff have been involved in some exciting outreach and school improvement initiatives this term. Once again Lynne Castle and several of our teachers have been offering outreach through Hirstwood Training Consultants. Their Sensory Supermarket activities have been very warmly welcomed and staff have benefitted from being able to attend the event ourselves. Staff have also taken part in subject leader network meetings with the Specialist Learning Partnership, a large group of South London Special Schools.

We are happy to say that we now have six children regularly attending the St Giles Nursery and we are currently working with children and families to support the transition of five more children next term. We are looking forward to formally opening the Nursery building in the summer term. In Middle School, class teams are practising and filming the Christmas performance which will be streamed out to parents to watch at home.

Other Christmas events planned for school include a Christmas jumper day on Friday 10th December and Christmas dinner on Wednesday the 15th December followed by class parties. The last day of term is Friday 17th December and term starts again on Tuesday 4th January.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support during this difficult time and the care you are taking when classes are affected by a Covid case to get your child tested. We really appreciate this and continue to work hard to minimise any disruption to your child’s education. Please let us know if you have a child in year 7 and above and would like to use asymptomatic tests at home. The new kits are much easier to administer and use nasal swabs only.

Wishing you and your families all the best,