Newsletter

13.06.25

It has been another busy week in school. We have had our non-uniform day today and lots of donations for the summer festival have come in: enough chocolate to feed Great Barr! 

Sunflowers had great fun at the farm on Wednesday, we had our attendance assessor in school on Tuesday and staff, governors and pupil representatives went over to James Watt college for their community lunch yesterday. Glenmead were invited by the Vice Principle of BMET, Randeep Sami. He is a great community link for our school and is always welcoming whenever we attend their events. The children told me the cakes and sandwiches laid on for lunch were delicious.

Year 5 and 6 girls are out at Villa Academy for a football opportunity today. They played 7 other schools and had a ball. Thanks to Ivy, Amelia B, Esme, Miley, N’ana, Charlotte, and Sofia.

Welcome our new Sunflowers class:

Next Friday, 20^th June, we will be welcoming parents and children for our new Reception intake into school for their first engagement event. It is always lovely to welcome new families into our community and get to know all the little people who will be joining Glenmead in September.

Mrs Gabbitas and her team are busy scheduling nursery visits to see children in their current settings and will be arranging home visits to all the homes of our new Sunflowers class. As always, we have a lot of siblings: I find that reassuring. Families returning to us with their little ones means they have faith in Glenmead and what we can offer.

Girls into Football:

Sparks Active, a company that have provided quite a lot of physical activity to our school, is offering free community-based football opportunities to girls. The sessions are aimed at girls in Year 3 to Year 6 in the Kingstanding area, who do not play club football, but are looking to try the sport or just be physically active. They would love the session to be full and we all know that Glenmead is football mad!  Parents can book a place by clicking the link https://bookings.kssp.co.uk/project/68258 or they can scan the QR code on the flyer that is included with our photographs today.

Stars of the Week:

Children were nominated this week for demonstrating an understanding of uniqueness and diversity of identity: tricky ideas that require a little bit of self-reflection. Well done to our Stars of the Week: Samiat, Ariena, Ceri, Zac, Layla, and Bella.

5M made it to the Hall of Fame for the recent Primary Schools’ Maths Wizz competition. They all received a lovely little keyring as a prize. Snaps also go to all those children who gained their House Point Certificates this week.

Our thanks to Year 5 who led thoughtful prayers on the subject of diversity and appreciation of difference in celebration assembly. Our appreciation goes to Samiat, Noah-James and Sofia.

Attendance Recognition:

We have a little outbreak of high temperatures and headaches in Year 4 and attendance has been a little bit affected by children out of school poorly. However, holding it together are 5M and 2M with the least school days missed. 1G are also getting recognition for the most improved attendance compared to last week.

Our Sports Personalities were mainly chosen this week for their great efforts for our Sponsored Run. Amazing stamina and perseverance from: Renat, Sakithu, Maddie, Jessica, Zoe, Ivy, Amelia and Alistair.

We had some certificates that didn’t make it to our last celebration assembly. Binita, Georgia and Cyrus were sports personalities. Stephania, Matvey and Mohammedahad levelled up on Reading Plus and Tate, Navaeh, Abdur and Emily were our Lexia Superstars. Stephania and Kobi gained their pen licences and Tsabeh, Revwe, Addi-May and Alaia were nominated as Super Skippers.

We had a clutch of swimming badges for Ivy (1500m), Tate (100m), Ella (5m) and Leah (Stanley Award 6).

Luca was also thrilled he could share his football medals in assembly on Monday. He is extremely keen on football and was feeling proud of his team’s achievements.

Phonics Screening Check:

As well as preparing their class assembly, 1G have had their phonics tests this week. It is a national test, that all Year 1 children do, to see whether they have made the expected gains in their decoding skills. We are still finalising the data, but the team tell me that it has been another successful year. It is reassuring to hear that we are sustaining the high standards set in the past two years.

Sponsored Run:

This has been one of School Council’s fundraising events of this year and is always quite popular with the children. They are tasked with doing as many laps of the running track as they can in the time allocated. They like the challenge and the monies raised are ploughed into equipment and events for the children.

Donations can be made through Arbor. I can see that sponsor money is starting to trickle in. The pupils that raise the most money get bragging rights on next week’s Friday Post.

Late picking your child up?

The vast majority of you are really good at letting us know if you have been held up for some reason and can’t make it to collect your child. A quick call or a dojo message is all it takes.

If we don’t hear from you, and late arrival becomes a regular occurrence, we will charge you childcare costs. The Charges and Remission Policy states that we will charge £5 for each five minutes after home time that your child is left in our care: that’s very expensive. Try to arrive promptly to collect your child and avoid being subject to these charges. 

We are looking forward to our Role Model Assembly on Monday morning. I am excited to see who is nominated this year. We have Class Photographs taking place on 18^th June (Wednesday next week). If it is normally a PE day, class teachers will be requesting that children come dressed in smart school uniform for their photographs.

After a busy week, we all need a lie down. See you all bright and early on Monday. Please remember to put the children’s meal orders on: https://parents.schoolfoodunited.com/login. We need to try to get attendance back on track next week please. Try hard for us.

If you need to reach us, have a concern or need help of some kind, contact one of the senior leaders via Class Dojo message, give the pastoral team a ring or email to enquiry@glenmead.bham.sch.uk. We will try our best to respond.  

Dates for your diary: