School Newsletter : 22 December 2023

A HUGE thank you to everyone in the Burdett-Coutts School family and community! Your support, kindness, understanding and collective spirit over the autumn term has been wonderful. We’ve had many new pupils and families join us across the term, and it has been lovely welcoming all our Preschoolers and their families to our school.

We’re also VERY excited to announce that in the recently published Government School League tables, our school is ranked 8th overall in Westminster for outcomes for all pupils and 1st overall for disadvantaged pupils.

Our school came together to celebrate the end of term with a wonderful Christingle Service in St Stephens Church on Friday. It was made even more memorable by having children from our Choir Club wearing the special children’s white surplices borrowed from Mr Carden’s church (St Luke’s). Thank you Mr Carden!

The service began with the lighting of the fourth candle on the Advent Wreath, followed by a festive songs, readings and prayers. We heard about the story of Jesus’ birth from Luke’s gospel with the reading from chapter 2 verses 1-16. At the end of the service the lights were dimmed and we lit our Christingles (being very careful of those around us!) saying the following special prayer:

As you have received this light, so remember that Christ is the Light of the World. Whoever follows Him will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. May these Christingles remind us to shine as lights in the world, bringing light to those who walk in darkness.

If you are not sure what a Christingle is, and what each element represents, ask your child/ren – they should be able to tell you all about it!

The children were delighted as they entered the dining hall to a festive scene of crackers, popcorn and the aroma of the Christmas dinner! A huge thanks to our catering team for an outstanding meal, that was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone. For many, there was no dinner required that night!

Thank you to all the parents, friends & school staff who turned out on 7th December to help make the Friends of Burdett-Coutts Xmas Fair a success. It was a frenzy of planning, setting up, baking & present wrapping but together we got there in the end. The children had a fabulous time and we raised much needed funds for our school.

Our next event is the Easter Fair on 15th March. Please come to our meetings if you can, it’d be lovely to meet new parents and it’d be great to have you onboard.

Provisionally, our meetings will be on Thursdays in the Ground Floor Hall from 9 – 10am on the following dates: 11th Jan, 25th Jan, 8th Feb, 22nd Feb, 7th March & 14th March.

Mrs Lee set a speech-writing competition a few weeks ago and on Thursday we heard speeches from 8 children from Years 2-6 during assembly.

The topics of the speeches ranged from hobbies such as skateboarding and reading to favourite animals (cats and big cats) and important issues: women’s rights, bullying, autism and the rise of AI.

A huge well done to the children who took the time to research and write their speeches, to then stand in front of the whole school to read them out.

We are going to have a big focus on oracy throughout the year, so it was lovely to hear these children giving us such good examples of how to speak in public, with good enunciation, volume, speed and looking at the audience. Well done everyone!

Please ensure that your child is wearing the correct PE kit to school each week.

Pupils who are not wearing their full PE kit will not be able to participate in lessons, and a note will be sent home indicating why they were not able to participate.

The full PE kit for the Autumn/Winter term is as follows:

• Plain navy blue leggings or tracksuit bottoms
• School navy blue PE t-shirt
• School navy blue sweatshirt (all year groups).
• Pupils in KS2 (Years 3 – 6) must wear a school navy sweatshirt for PE and NOT their school jumper.
• Plain black trainers (velcro if your child struggles with shoe laces)
• Please ensure all items of uniform are clearly labelled (with a permanent pen or label)

We have now moved to email updates and notifications, and only using text messaging when reminders are urgently needed.

Please check your Spam folders and if you haven’t seen any emails from us, please contact the school office so that we can check that we have the correct email address for you.

If you would like your child to move from bringing a packed lunch to having a school meal, you must inform the office at least a week in advance of this change being made. Kindly note pupils are not allowed to alternate between having packed lunches and/or school meals on a daily or weekly basis. If you have any questions, please see a member of the school admin staff at the school office.

You can find the current school lunch menu here >

If you require a printed copy, please ask at the school office. Should you have any questions about the menu, kindly make an appointment to speak with Miss Barnett.

Why good school attendance matters: Missing a few days of school here and there may not seem a big deal, but research shows that it can have a significant impact on children’s learning.

Children who miss a substantial amount of school fall behind their peers, and struggle to catch up. Most of the work they miss is never made up, which can lead to big gaps in their learning.

• Poor attendance often starts at primary school and children who fall into this pattern are likely to under-achieve at secondary school.
• Pupils who miss between 10 and 20% of school (that’s 19 – 38 days per year) stand only a 35% chance of achieving five or more good GCSEs, compared to 73% of those who miss fewer than 5% of school days.
• An attendance rate of 95% is generally considered good; this allows for children to miss 9.5 days across the school year.
• Persistent absence (PA) is defined as an attendance rate of 90% or below.
• All pupils are expected to have an attendance rate of 95% or higher.

Attendance class of the week: Each week we will be celebrating the class with the highest attendance levels.