27th September 2019

Dear parents/ carers,

As we come to the end of another busy week, I would like to congratulate the children in years 5 and 6 for their superb attitude and behaviour during a highly successful visit to Kentwell Hall.
It was a very long day for all involved and the children represented Henham brilliantly. A huge thankyou to all the staff and parent helpers involved in making this a truly memorable experience for the children.

As we think ahead to next week and our Harvest Festival service on Tuesday 1st October at Henham Church, I can confirm that we are collecting items for the Uttlesford Food Bank.
At the moment they are short of long life juice and squash, toilet rolls, puddings, such as microwave puddings, jellies, custard, packets of flavoured rice and small packets of rice in general as well as coffee and jam.
They have advised us they are currently overrun with pasta soup and baked beans!
If you would like to support the food bank by donating some of the much needed items for families in the Uttlesford area, we will be collecting next week and items can be brought into the reception area of the school. For more information please see the following link: https://uttlesford.foodbank.org.uk/ Thank you in advance.

A reminder that for the Harvest Service on Tuesday, the children from Reception to year 6 need to be taken straight to the church in the morning, where they will be registered at 9am. At the end of the service, we will walk the children back to school. If you are able to help the staff with this, we would really appreciate the extra help!
If you are unable to drop your child/ren at the church, just let me or Mrs Hipperson in the office know. I look forward to seeing you there.

Congratulations to the following children for receiving my Headteachers awards this week:

EYFS/ Key Stage 1 Key Stage 2
Positive Attitude Millie (year R) Finley (year 4)
Effort Isaac (year 1) Louis (year 3)
Manners Harry W (year 2) Luke (year 5)

PSA – Last week’s PSA Jumble Sale was a fantastic success, raising £653! The PSA would like to thank all those involved in making the event happen, including helpers, stall manners, bakers of cakes, donators of Jumble, and those who came along to spend their hard earned cash.

Following the Jumble, the PSA are organising a Bags2School collection, a charity run scheme, where donations of clothing are placed in provided collection bags, with a donation given to the school per kg collected. The bags will be available to collect from outside the school gates next week, so please support us by picking up a bag, filling it with any old clothes that escaped the Jumble collection, and bringing into school on the morning of Wednesday 16th October for collection (collection due to take place between 9am – 1pm).

Additionally, as you may remember, we are members of the Giving Machine, which is an App available on phones and computers, once clicked on, it diverts you to your chosen registered retailer, and whichever amount you spend, a percentage of the total is donated to the school, at no cost to you!
Last year we raised £150 and it would be fantastic to improve on this amount! For more information please see: https://www.thegivingmachine.co.uk/

Aldi sports kit for schools – thank you so much for the stickers received so far. Please keep them coming in!

Coffee morning – Thank you so much for those that attended our SEND coffee morning. It was lovely to see so many of you there. We are very fortunate at Henham to have Mrs Cowell as part of the team, and she will be in contact again soon to organise another coffee morning to support families at the school. If you have any ideas for future sessions, please do contact us.

Snacks – A polite reminder that as a healthy school, we ask that children bring in healthy snacks to eat at break times. Additionally, as we have staff and children with severe nut allergies, we are a ‘no nut’ school. This includes spreads such as Nutella. Thank you for your support with this.

Parking – I mentioned parking in my newsletter two weeks ago but sadly there are still some parents/ carers ‘fighting’ for spaces in Pimblett Row and School Lane. This is not only causing a nuisance to our neighbours, but worryingly, a danger to our children. Could you please avoid coming down School Lane and Pimblett Row during the morning drop off and afternoon pick up. I shall be monitoring the parking next week to ensure that this access for pedestrians is kept clear. I appreciate that it gets busy in Mill Road and it is a little walk into school, however, I am sure you agree that the safety of our children is paramount. Thank you for your support.
Finally, if you are feeling like you need to shake the cobwebs away, The saffron Striders Running Club are holding its annual races on the morning of Sunday 13th October at Carver Barracks, Wimbish, with both children’s and adults races. More details can be found at www.activetrainingworld.co.uk

Coming up next week…

Tuesday 1st October, 9am Harvest Festival Service at Henham Church (meet at the church, from Year R to Year 6, Nursery as normal in school)

Thursday 3rd October, Census day – Every child that has school dinners on this day counts towards our overall funding for the year, you can support by ordering a school lunch on this day – thank you!

Thursday 3rd October, 4pm – Football match at Elsenham

Friday 4th October, 9am – Macmillan Coffee morning, School hall – Please bring in cake donations from next week. If you are able to help set up, please do let me know. I look forward to seeing you there.

Have a lovely weekend, with best wishes,

Kim Hall
Headteacher