Update February 2013

Pupil Premium funding has now been increased to £623 per pupil. This funding applies to Free School Meals (FSM) pupils and Looked After Children (LAC) and children of service personnel Service Children from Reception to Y4. It does not include children in Nursery.  12.4% of the children at SELEfirst are eligible for this funding. The total funding in this financial year is £32,396.  This money has been used to fund the following:

Training and resources for staff to teach support programmes including ELSA, (Emotional Literacy Support Activities) Read Write Inc and LEXIA support for children at risk of Dyslexia or those with difficulties with acquiring basic skills in reading or spelling, Talk Boost and an individual spelling provision called Stareway to spelling.

As usual, there is a lot of work going on at the school and I thought it was about time you had an update.

By now, you will all be familiar with the new Den that has arrived in the school playground. This was the culmination of a lot of hard work by Y1 pupils and it has been great to bring the creation to life for the children to enjoy. You will be aware from the signs that unfortunately we have needed to stop the children climbing on the Den. However, we are looking at some further investments in low level play equipment specifically designed to develop the children's climbing skills. This will mean the children can enjoy climbing as well as having a great Den for socialising and imaginative play.  We will keep you up to date on developments.

The other work we will be taking forward is fencing at the back of the school. After much thought, we have concluded that we have to improve security at the back of the school and that fencing will help protect the new garden area and generally improve security for children, buildings (and indeed....chickens.) Fortunately, the aesthetic impact will be minimal as the fence is located at the back of the school and will be screened by the buildings and existing trees and greenery. We will also make sure that planting further softens the impact of the fence in the garden area.

Finally, I am proud to say that the school has once more achieved the Basic Skills Quality Mark, recognising the standard of teaching in literacy and numeracy. This is great news.  Our recent Governor's visit in school during November also looked at how Maths is taught in school. I will post an update to let you know what we learnt and how we got on.

Chris Little

Chair of Governors

Letter From Chris Little, Chair of Governors - Academies