Christmas is a particularly important time of year within school and it is a time when we have previously been able to help make memories which will last a lifetime. I wanted to write to you to reassure you that I understand the importance of Christmas and these memories and we will work hard to ensure that the children have an equally special time this year.
As you can appreciate, we won’t be able to hold our usual Christmas events, including the two nativities and KS2 Christmas Concert. We have had regular discussions about the possibility of carrying out these nativities/singing in school and videoing them for parents/carers to watch but sadly it has been made impossible for a number of factors, the most important being that;
- there are a number of children within the school who have photographic and video restrictions in place and it would be unfair to leave them out of any whole class productions.
- there are currently restrictions on singing and chanting set out in the government guidelines for schools.
We will, however, be doing our very best to ensure that the spirit of Christmas is alive throughout the school in various ways, some of which cannot yet be shared with you because of orders directly from Father Christmas! Plans we can share with you are:-
- FOWPS are very kindly helping us to light up the school! We will be having two large Christmas trees outside and various magical lights adorning the trees around school.
- The raffle of Christmas hampers will go ahead this year. Details of how to donate and buy raffle tickets are here.
- Christmas Lunch – the kitchen will be offering Christmas Lunch on Wednesday 16th December. We are aware of feedback about the lunch on offer for Christmas Lunch and are currently in discussion with our caterers about any changes that could be made to the menu.
- Christmas Jumper Day – on Wednesday 16th December the children will be allowed to come in ‘non-uniform’ Christmas colours or a Christmas Jumper (if they have one). Donations on this day will go to ‘Shelter’ because we usually collect for the homeless charity during the Christmas Concert which won’t be possible this year. The Y6 residential is currently under review and, if it goes ahead in the New Year, we will provide fundraising opportunities at a later date.
- Each class will be carrying out lots of Christmas craft and learning activities. We will regularly share photos of classroom activities
- FOWPS have generously paid for an online Christmas Panto to be shown to the children during the afternoon of Thursday 17th December.
- The Christmas Postbox will be open from 1st December and will close at noon on 15th December. If your child wishes to send any cards to their classmates, they will be placed in the postbox and Y6 will provide a Covid-Safe delivery service!
- The Christmas message will be shared with children through various video assemblies.
As I mentioned, there will be other surprises along the way so let the fun commence!
Kind regards,
Mark Krisson
