Principal’s message to families – 15th May 2026
Its FAMILY FUN DAY time!!!!
We look forward to seeing you all tomorrow- tickets available on the door if you decide to join us or invite more people on the day! Inflatable fun is one of the activity highlights, with opportunity to go on the Sensory Bus and join Paul in join Forest Schools. There will be several stalls, music and glitter tattoos!
I will just take this opportunity to remind you to bring a picnic! We have coffee and cakes and hopefully some filled tacos on sale but our burger van has unfortunately let us down so food available on site will be minimal.
The Makaton Choir will finish the day from 1.30, something not to be missed!
Remember to bring your pocket money for the stalls – This is a CASH ONLY event.
On Saturday evening myself and Karen Lindley, our School Business and Finance manager, were invited to a black tie dinner at Rainworth Village Hall, by the Mansfield Hospitals Theatre Troupe, a local group of people of all ages who come together each year to perform pantomimes for the community. For more than 45 years, they have been raising money for local charities, and over that time are rightly proud to have donated more than £180,000.
This year’s production of Rapunzel raised an incredible £10,600, all of which was donated to local charities across the Mansfield area. Thanks to the support of everyone who came to watch the show, we were able to support five different charities, including Dawn House School.
Dawn House School was chosen in recognition of our outstanding work supporting children with speech and language challenges. They donated £2,000 towards our minibus appeal. This minibus will give children the opportunity to take part in educational and enjoyable trips that will help develop their speech, language, and social skills.
They are already looking forward to their next performance, which will be announced in June. So, they remind us there is only one thing left to say: “We’ll have to do it again then, won’t we?” Oh yes they will!!!
Our children and staff also enjoyed attending Rapunzel, so will make sure we book our tickets early next year- we’ll keep you posted, so you can support them too!!
Huge thanks to the troupe!
Juniors trip to Sherwood Pines last week.
Mr Annia and the team took the group to Sherwood Pines, exploring the glories of Sherwood Forest, as a farewell to Mr Annia who has another role in school. There was quite a lot of time spent of the playgrounds 🙂 but they also interacted with the public and learnt about Trenches being used during World War 1. They made links to Robin Hood and his life and then used maths skills to budget for a meal at McDonalds! The groups communication skills were praised highly by Bec, the shift manager, as we all ordered our meals independently. What a day! Sunshine, not too hot, but pleasant. We truly enjoyed ourselves from start to finish.
Mr Annia would like to ‘take this opportunity to thank the Juniors class and their families for all of their support, not to mention the TA’s and therapists who have been essential daily cogs in our lives: Miss Barker, Mrs Leivers, Mrs Jones, Miss Hook. Miss Shurmer, Mrs Bevan….I could go on for ages! It’s been a pleasure; and you haven’t got rid of me fully – see you for Culture on Monday, Juniors!
This week KS3JC went on a trip to Ingoldmells Beach
They explored how people use the coast and learned more about the beach environment. There was plenty of time for fun too, including playing on the beach, paddling in the sea, visiting the amusements at Fantasy Island, and even enjoying a ride. Students also enjoyed a traditional fish and chip lunch as part of a memorable day out.
Add they brought me some rock! 😊 Thank you!
We also had assemblies on Kindness and understanding our mental health on Thursday- ask your children what they can remember!
Important safeguarding information PLEASE READ.
As a school we support many friendship challenges with pupils. These may be face to face disagreements and misunderstandings or increasingly these are on-line, and out of school time.
All pupils are supported by school colleagues in their communications with adults and peers within school, this guidance and support increases when pupils may have disagreements, misunderstandings or friendships issues. Within school we seek to use restorative principles to assist the pupils to learn and develop their skills in this area of communication. We are able to support pupils here in school because colleagues are vigilant and often can support in real time, but digital, online communications can be more tricky
We are aware of communications which happen through a variety of mediums such as snapchat or WhatsApp. Often these communications can spill over into school. This has been a feature over the last couple of weeks, and we have reached out to a number of parents to make them aware of the situation. We have been encouraging parents/carers to try to review the content of their children’s phones and devices, to check for unkind messages or images. We have suggested to several parents that their children leave some group chats to protect themselves from comments.
We expect all our parents/carers to work with us on this particularly when communication takes place outside of school. We would recommend you having these conversations with your children, check their devices and promote kind and considerate communications whether in group chats or individually. Parental controls are relatively easy to install on devices, but do contact us if you would like some advice. If you ever do come across anything that worries you please let us know in school and we will help if we are able.
Please follow the link for guidance from BBC Bitesize How do I manage school group chats and messaging apps – a guide for parents – BBC Bitesize
And from the NSPCC What is social media? | NSPCC and Chat apps | NSPCC
And finally for this week…
Did you know that it was Apraxia Awareness Day last week? It is celebrated each year to raise awareness of Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS). CAS is a motor speech disorder that affects the brain’s ability to plan and coordinate the movements needed for clear speech. A child with CAS may have difficulties producing sounds, syllables and words consistently despite normal understanding and cognitive abilities.
There is no cure for CAS but intensive, individual speech and language therapy can significantly improve communication over time.
Mikey’s Wish is a charitable organisation led by Mikey that supports the research and awareness raising of this.
Have a lovely weekend,
Jenny
If your child leaves home in the morning a little unsettled and you want to quickly tell us, so we know to expect a tricky start to the day, a quick email (that we can follow up later) to the tutor and/or core team with ‘Handle with Care’ in the email title will ensure that we are aware.
