Our work with the community

It’s been an incredibly busy few months working with both our existing partners but also securing new links that will benefit both the children of our school and the wider community itself. Our ’10 good deeds’ week enabled our school family to show appreciation for the people around us and the organisations that work in our local area. Year 4 were able to begin their work with Dee Caf and had a great time working with Tina and her staff, whilst chatting to some locals about their lessons. We were also able to write some letters of appreciation to Alan, who many of you will know by face, for all his tremendous work in keeping our streets clean and tidy.

We have also set up a new partnership with Magic Breakfast: a charity which provides breakfast to school age children. In January, all children will be able to get something to eat as they come into school, free of charge, to set them up for the day ahead. As I write this, our Year 5 pupils are preparing to sing carols down at the Tesco on Portman Road as part of our community outreach programme. This will be one of the first live performances for our unofficial choir, which Mrs Beauchamp has done an excellent job in putting together and practicing.

Our Year 6 children continue to benefit from the work done with School Online in developing their core curriculum maths skills. This is a link we are really proud to have and every child has been provided with a login, meaning that they can access the excellent resources at home, anytime they wish. Furthermore, Reading School continue to provide tutoring sessions for our Year 6 pupils online, meaning they have the wisdom and expertise of GCSE students to guide them through their learning every single week. As a school, we have managed to secure the support of Reading FC Community Trust for the rest of the academic year. They have been working with Year 4 over the last term but will begin working with younger pupils over the next few terms to develop both their PE techniques but also core academic skills. This is a really exciting partnership for us which will lead to much bigger opportunities for all our children.

Our early years children have been working with Brighter Futures for Children to raise awareness of attendance, resulting in a reward afternoon in a few days to celebrate the increased rates of attendance among the year group. Some children will also be presented with a special certificate to reward their excellent attendance over the last few weeks! Last but not least, Asda recently filmed their online Christmas advert here at Ranikhet! The filming crew spent two (very long!) days here creating a winter wonderland. The advert will be shared with everyone once it is finalized, but Asda are very keen to work with our school long term and the next steps will be to secure a long lasting partnership that will give lots of opportunities to our children.

We are working very hard to promote our school and our fantastic children and families. We are in a position where we now have plenty of opportunities to work with lots of external providers and we want to make the most of them. As a final note, I want to say a huge thank you to all of you who have supported our upcoming Christmas fair with donations, offerings of time and just general support. It is hugely appreciated and we are really excited about the event itself.