Dear Parents and Carers,

Fluffy Friday has been an excellent way to end this first half of the spring term! The variety of different activities on offer has been phenomenal (thanks to our wonderfully creative staff team!), and the enthusiasm of the children, staff and parent helpers has been fantastic. Everyone seemed to be learning something: perhaps mastering a new skill, perhaps making new friends, and some overcoming nerves and pushing themselves to face a challenge, even if that’s not being with their friends for an activity. We talked to the children about the importance of learning from Fluffy – it’s not just a fun day. It sometimes provides an opportunity to build resilience, especially if the activity you were assigned, wasn’t the one at the top of your list. Facing disappointment and overcoming hurdles as a child can be part of realising that struggle and difficulty isn’t always to be avoided. It might mean that future setbacks in life won’t be quite so catastrophic or traumatic. Thank you so much for remembering to send in £1, or making a payment on ParentPay. It’s proving a real challenge to stretch our funds in school and we’re so aware that every donation makes a real difference and secures future Fluffy days.

I know that many of you have been saddened by the tragic news of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria. With several of our school families coming from this part of the world, I wanted to send my condolences and sympathy. As a school community, people are already encouraging one another to be generous with cake sales taking place this afternoon in both playgrounds. We talked to the children in assembly this week about sharing, learning from Jesus who had compassion for a large crowd. Sometimes it’s hard to feel that we can make a difference, but have a listen to Rev. Richard Coles on the Radio 4 appeal (www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001jh5d) – he reminds us that even small donations can bring hope and make an impact on that one individual or family who receives our aid. The link to the DEC fund is here: www.dec.org.uk/appeal/turkey-syria-earthquake-appeal

We marked safer internet day earlier this week teaching the children about the importance of keeping safe online, and were concerned to hear about how many children had seen images or content online that had upset them. We were even more alarmed by the number of children who use devices without enough adult supervision, and were very worried about children who make contact online with people that they don’t know. Tom Everard, our online safety lead, likened it to dropping a young child off in the middle of a big, potentially scary city, and not walking alongside them to keep them safe, but just saying, “Have a great time!”. If you’d like support in understanding the risks of unsupervised internet use, do get in touch with us (either through the office or tome@htpd.surrey.sch.uk ), or you could take a look at this helpful information: saferinternet.org.uk/guide-and-resource/parents-and-carers, https://www.childnet.com/safer-internet-day/

It was great to enjoy “bedtime stories” at Pewley on Wednesday. The children seemed to love snuggling up in their pyjamas and hearing their teacher read by the light of a (virtual!) fire. It reminded all of us that stories are the best thing to share at the end of a day, and thanks to FOPS for organising the hot chocolate! Thank you as well to everyone for engaging in the conversation about how best to support reading at home. Do get in touch with your child’s teacher if you need any more top tips about this.

With the half term break ahead of us, I do hope that you have a restful and happy week at home or on holiday. We always encourage the children to be careful to stay safe, thinking about doing other things away from time looking at a screen. It’s good to be looking ahead to warmer times; perhaps like me, you’ll get out and about and start looking for signs of spring…snowdrops flowering, birds starting to build nests and lighter skies.

Thank you for your continued support and partnership over the past couple of months; see you all on Monday 20th February. Happy half term!

With love,

Clare

Thought of the week: The Magic of Sharing. Are you greedy or grateful? Jesus’ miracle: The feeding of the 5000. “Give us today our daily bread.”