School News

Welcome back – September 2023

End of Year Newsletter for Parents and Carers

Here is our end of year newsletter.

Letter to Parents June 2022 – Support with the Cost of Living Crisis

Here is a letter from our Head Teacher, Mrs Leonard. It contains updates on our summer term events and changes we are making to support families at this difficult time.

Letter to Parents – June 22

Letter to Parents March 2022 – COVID and Ukraine

Here is the current newsletter from our Head Teacher, Mrs Leonard. It contains the latest advice about Covid-19 cases in school and also some information about talking to children about the situation in Ukraine.

March Letter to Parents – COVID – Ukraine

World Book Day – Thursday 3 March 2022

Here is the letter sent home with your child about World Book Day. We can’t wait to enjoy some reading together and see all your costumes!

World Book Day 2022 Letter to Parents and Carers

February Half Term Newsletter for Parents and Carers

Here is the latest school newsletter containing important updates including changes to timings of our school day.

February Newsletter 2022

Increased COVID-19 cases – Update 16.01.22

Here is a letter regarding the current situation in school from Mrs Leonard. It was sent to all parents and carers via the class email on Sunday 16th January 2022.

Update Letter for Increased Positive COVID-19 Cases – 16.1.22

Extra measures in place in school due to increased COVID-19 cases – January 2022

We have put some of our extra precautionary measures back in place in school due to several positive cases. We are doing everything we can to keep all our pupils and families safe.

Here is a letter from our head teacher, Mrs Leonard, that was sent to you via your child’s class email on Sunday 9th January, to explain more.

Increased COVID-19 Cases Letter to Parents

If your child is in an affected bubble, you will have received an additional email and letter with further information.

End of Autumn Term Newsletter

We wish all our families a happy and safe festive season. Here is the latest newsletter from our head teacher, Mrs Leonard, that was sent home with all pupils on Friday 17th December.

End of Autumn Term Letter Christmas 2021

Half Term Newsletter to Parents

We have had a lovely first half term back in school, with lots of exciting activities and a real return to a more ‘normal’ routine (despite a return to bubbles for a short time). It has been especially rewarding to take our children on school trips once more, and we have been so proud of how hard they have all worked in class.

Here is the latest newsletter from our acting head teacher, Mrs Leonard, that was sent home with all pupils on Friday 22nd October. It includes information about two competitions running over half term – make sure your child takes part!

Newsletter End of Autumn 1 2021

Water Safety in the Curriculum

As you know, just before we broke up for the Summer break we were faced with the sad news of Matthew Sherrington, a former pupil of our school, who tragically lost his life whilst playing in the sea with some friends. Our thoughts continue to be with his family who have been campaigning for more awareness of the dangers of playing in or near the sea. As a school, we support this campaign and have adapted our PHSE curriculum to include water safety lessons every half term. The children will take part in regular age appropriate lessons, and we have also sent some information on water safety to all our parents. We agree that it is our duty to educate our children who live close to the sea about its potential dangers, and hope that such an education may help to prevent any further tragedies in the future.

Extra measures in place in school due to increased COVID-19 cases

We have put some of our extra precautionary measures back in place in school due to several positive cases. We are doing everything we can to keep all our pupils and families safe.

Here is a letter from our acting head teacher, Mrs Leonard, that was sent home with all pupils on Friday 17th September, to explain more.

Letter to Parents – Increased Positive COVID-19 Cases

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask your child’s class teacher.

Green Tree Schools Platinum Award

We are incredibly proud to announce that we have been awarded the prestigious Green Tree Schools Platinum Award by the Woodland Trust for getting involved in green activities including tree planting, visiting local woodland, reducing carbon emissions and being a woodland ambassador. We take every opportunity to bring the great outdoors, wildlife and green issues into the classroom.

Here is our well-deserved certificate (see left), and thank you to our Nursery staff for leading on such an important area in our school.

Back to School September 2021

School opens for all pupils on Monday 6th September 2021. Here is a letter from Acting Head Teacher, Mrs R. Leonard, with lots of useful information for parents about how our school will operate in the new school year.

Letter_to_Parents_September_2021

COVID-19 (Coronavirus)

For all the latest information, please see our ‘Parents – What You Need to Know’ page here.

Musical Success for Blackhall Bluebells

Our nursery continues to work closely with leading specialists from Durham Music Service.

Over the last few weeks, we have explored the story ‘Greta and the Giants.’ The book tells the story of Noble Peace Prize nominee Greta Thunburg, inspiring children to believe that ‘no-one is too small to make a difference.’ The story was promoted as part of Durham’s book festival ‘The little read.’ Durham Music Service were extremely keen to share our musical ‘provocations’ (ideas to provoke a musical response) on their Facebook Live.

We are extremely proud of how much our children have progressed over the last two years and thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to celebrate our children’s achievements. (Especially as we were the only nursery in the whole of the county to be chosen to share our work!!!😁). Here is the link to County Durham Early Years Facebook Live https://fb.watch/4rej3VzbFT/ which was then liked and shared by Durham County Councils early years educators Helen Nixon and Sue Rounce: https://fb.watch/4rej3VzbFT/

You can find out more on our Nursery Class Page and watch our powerpoint slides which explain what we did, how we did it and the impact on our children’s learning and progress.

Arts Council Award

We are very excited to announce that we have achieved the Artsmark Gold Award, awarded to us by the Arts council of England.

This means that as a school community we have worked together to promote arts and culture in our values and ethos, engaged our children with the arts, embedded a diverse curriculum with lots of cultural opportunities, developed all of our staff and ensured equality and diversity for all.

We are determined to keep building on this success and offer our pupils ever increasing cultural capital.

Thank you to all of our parents, carers, governors and friends of the school – we couldn’t have done it without you! And congratulations to Arts Lead Mrs Sergeant and all of our hard working and inspirational staff team.

Newsletters

Our School Newsletter is uploaded every term to our website (in PDF format).

Our newsletters are full of interesting information about what’s going on in school and include useful dates for your diary. If you require further information about any of the items shown please contact the school and we will do our best to help.

You can find all our school news here.

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