The latest news from LRPS (January 2024)

12th January 2024

12th January 2024

January 2024 Newsletter

Dear parents and carers,

It’s been a great first week back! Wishing you and your families a very happy new year! 2024 is set to be an exciting one for our school.

West End Schools’ Trust (WEST): As 2024 begins, our school is embarking on an exciting new chapter as we officially become members of the West End Schools Trust (WEST) - a foundation Trust (meaning our Governors, Headteacher and Senior leaders still make all of the key decisions for LRPS). Our governing body spent many months considering the best way forward for our school following our decision not to convert to academy status with the other OWL Trust schools after a consultation with our community stakeholders.

We know that over the last 5 years we have gone from strength to strength as a school by having the autonomy to make the decisions, at school level, that are right for our children and our community. Being a member of WEST allows this to continue, whilst also continuing to work closely with other schools and organisations in our local area who share our values. WEST already have many strongly established partnerships that our Lemington Riverside children and families are set to benefit from including Newcastle United Foundation, Centre for Life, Tyne and Wear Museums, Theatre Royal and Newcastle University.

Yesterday we welcomed the headteachers of the 8 other schools within the Trust alongside some of the trustees of WEST. It was an exciting morning and we cannot wait for the journey ahead for our school!

A positive start with attendance! We have made a positive start with school attendance across the school this week with our overall attendance standing at 95%. A positive start to 2024!

Some important reminders:

-       Please try to make medical/dental appointments, etc. out of school time wherever you can. If there is no alternative, please try to make the appointment as close to the start or end of the school day so that your child is missing minimal time in school. For any appointments you must provide us with evidence of the appointment in order for us to authorise the time out of school. We cannot authorise any time out of school for appointments that are not for your child.

-       Most children arrive at school every day on time for 9am – well done! We understand that on the odd occasion we all run late and this is not an issue. We do, however, have a number of children who are often arriving late at school. This really impacts on your child’s wellbeing – they are missing out on learning and it’s never nice walking into a lesson half way through. Likewise, late arrivals (even by just a couple of minutes) have a big impact on our busy admin team who have to take the children to class. If a child arrives after 9:30am we have to mark this as an unauthorised absence, which in turn has an impact on your child’s overall school attendance.

-       We have a small number of parents/carers who are regularly requesting to collect their child before the end of the school day. Unless it is an emergency or an appointment that we have approved in advance, children cannot be collected from school before the end of the day.

Thank you for your support with the above.

Tuition and after school clubs: We are proud to offer free after school tuition for one hour per week for all children in years Reception up to Year 6. We also have after school rugby clubs for Year 1/2 and science for Year 5/6 starting next week. Click here for all of the dates/times for each session.

Football: Good luck to our Y5/6 mixed football team who are in league action at Walbottle Campus next Thursday 16th January. Howay Lemington!

ParentPay: A reminder that we use the ParentPay app for any payments of lunch money or wraparound money. If you need any help getting set up, please come and see Nicole in the office.

Riverside Wraparound: We continue to offer child-care, provided by our staff team, between 7:45am-8:45am and 3:30pm-6:00pm every day during term-time. Bookings and payment must be received at least 24 hours in advance. To make a booking, please speak to Nicole in the office.

 

As ever, we want to continue working closely with our families to provide the very education for our brilliant children – do come and speak to any member of the team if we can be of any further assistance.