This week has had a plethora of student activities. Year 8 students have attended the IET Faraday trip, our reception pupils have gone on a winter walk to the park and our eco-club and student council had the opportunity to connect with an environmental activist, Vivek Gurav. I want to thank the staff for continuing to provide these valuable enrichment opportunities for our students. If you would like to listen to the BBC radio interview or see our students cheering about being eco-warriors, please watch these short clips:

A reminder that we have a number of festive events planned for our final week of the Autumn term.

Our primary pupils will be able to enjoy a pantomime performance on Monday, Christmas card workshops on Tuesday and a Christmas assembly and carols on Wednesday.

The whole school will also be enjoying a special Christmas lunch on Thursday and can wear a festive or Christmas jumper on Friday, with a £1 donation going towards the Save the Children charity.

Finally, the PTFA will be holding their annual bake sale on Wednesday.

You may have seen recently in the news the national concern over strep-A. Please read below guidance from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) regarding the management of scarlet fever outbreaks in schools. At this stage, there are no reported cases in the midlands, but we must remain alert to the public health recommendations.

Scarlet Fever and Group Strep A Infections

The Secretary of State for Education, Gillian Keegan, is closely monitoring the increased cases of Group A streptococcus (Strep A) and scarlet fever. As a Department, we are working closely with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), who are leading on the response.

UKHSA is reporting an increased number of cases of Group A streptococcus (Strep A) compared to normal at this time of year. There is no evidence that a new strain is circulating and the increase is most likely related to high amounts of circulating bacteria and social mixing.

What are scarlet fever and Strep A?

Scarlet fever is caused by bacteria called Group A streptococci (Strep A). The bacteria usually cause a mild infection that can be easily treated with antibiotics.

In very rare occasions, the bacteria can get into the bloodstream and cause an illness called invasive Group A strep (iGAS).

What are the symptoms of Strep A/scarlet fever?

Strep A infections can cause a range of symptoms that parents should be aware of, including:

If a child becomes unwell with these symptoms, please advise parents to contact their GP practice or contact NHS 111 (which operates a 24/7 service) to seek advice.

If a child has scarlet fever, advise they stay at home until at least 24 hours after the start of antibiotic treatment to avoid spreading the infection to others.

Encourage parents to trust their own judgement and if their child seems seriously unwell call 999 or go to A&E if:

Managing confirmed cases

Early years settings and schools should contact their UKHSA health protection team if there is an outbreak of 2 or more scarlet fever cases within 10 days of each other and the affected individuals have a link, such as being in the same class or year group.

Further information for staff on how and when to do this can be found here: Managing outbreaks and incidents – GOV.​UK (www.gov.uk)

If there are confirmed or suspected cases in an education or childcare setting, there is no reason for children to be kept at home if they are well.

How to help prevent Strep A?

To prevent the spread of Strep A, UKHSA advises children, young people and staff to implement good hand and respiratory hygiene practices.

For more information visit the UKHSA website or the Education Hub.

Resources will be made available in due course on the online resource centre.

We will have adverts out over the Christmas period for known growth and expansion posts within the school. If you know of anyone interested in the below roles, please direct them to the Avanti Careers page: https://www.avanticareers.org.uk/consultants/avanti-fields?source=avanti.org.uk

• Primary class teacher
• Secondary science teacher
• Examinations officer

Avanti Fields will also have further recruitment opportunities coming up. If you know of anyone interested in joining our recruitment pool, please share with them this bulletin to have them sign up.

On Tuesday our student council will be holding a lost property drive. They will be setting up lost property in the dining hall at break time and then manning the lost property table over lunch 5a and 5b for secondary students to collect any belongings. Please do remind your children to check if they have any items to be collected. Anything not claimed will be donated to charity or if school uniform items, washed and used to support our pupil premium and vulnerable students.

In addition to this, if you have any items of school uniform that your child has grown out of, please have your child bring them into school on either Thursday or Friday. Children bringing in uniform donations will be permitted to wear plain tracksuit clothing on Thursday to support you in washing the uniform before it is donated. All uniform donations will be used to support our pupil premium and vulnerable students.

We have launched our annual student survey. All students have been emailed a link to the survey, but I would appreciate if you could remind your child to complete the survey by the end of next week.

Our year 8 netball team won all their games last night at the East Leicester Netball Competition. We won our games against Orchard Mead, Soar Valley and Sir Jonathan North. The girls displayed incredible netball skills and worked well together as a team. We had Bhavani N from year 7 who played in her first tournament for Avanti and deserves a special mention being the youngest player and for her incredible goal keeping talent. Our player of the match went to Tanvi B for her exceptional shooting skills, she was so consistent and scored most of our goals. A huge well done girls!

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• Monday 12th December: Primary pantomime experience
• Monday 12th December: Q&A session for Daisy class 1:30pm – 2:30pm
• Tuesday 13th December: Reception flu vaccinations
• Tuesday 13th December: Primary Christmas card workshops and grotto
• Wednesday 14th December: PTFA bake sale
• Wednesday 14th December: Year 11 Gateway College visit
• Wednesday 14th December: Primary Christmas assembly
• Thursday 15th December: Govinda’s special Christmas lunch
• Friday 16th December: Christmas jumper day (£1 donation towards Save the Children Charity)
• Friday 16th December: Early finish for secondary pupils at 12:50pm, regular finish time for primary pupils

School returns on Monday 9th January 2023.

As well as electing/re-electing the Key Committee posts we are looking to expand the team with both additional committee members and active ad-hoc volunteers. We are keen to have representation from all year groups, including Primary and Nursery, as well as some school staff and would like to encourage you all to consider joining our successful group.

PTFA AGM Letter 3 Nov 22

If you would like to discuss further or require some more details about what is involved, please email us on [email protected].

We hope to see you at the AGM.

Many Thanks

Avanti Fields PTFA Committee

Reg Charity No. 1183148

The Winter Holiday Activities and Food Programme (HAF) will be available for children eligible for benefits-related free school meals.

This HAF round we will be sending out a letter to parents/carers of children who were receiving benefits-related free school meals on 7 November 2022.  The letter confirms a child’s eligibility and gives unique HAF Code for the parent to use when registering for a place.

We hope that this letter will widen participation from families.  However, we continue to ask for your help to reach children who may benefit from this programme.

Eligible children can register to attend one HAF programme over winter holiday and they will also receive a healthy lunch each day that they attend.

There are over 60 programmes taking place across the city for parents to choose from.  The dates, times and age suitability will differ by provider.

Spaces will be allocated on a first come first served basis to children and young people who meet all of the following criteria:

• live in Leicester City
• are receiving benefits related free school meals
• are in the age range for that programme

Please distribute the list of programme providers to parents/carers.  Parents/carers can also find details directly from families.leicester.gov.uk/haf.

We are pleased to announce the council is now accepting Household Support Fund applications.

The local authority has received funding of £3.4 million which we plan to distribute to the most vulnerable households within the City.  Our focus in this scheme is to support those who have not received financial support from the Government Cost of Living payments and the previous grant period of this scheme between April and September 2022 – therefore awards to households who have already received both of these will be limited to food only, unless there are vulnerabilities or risk factors identified in the household.  Please note, all support received is a contribution, and not a replacement for the applicant’s entire budget.

The fund will be used to support households most in need with:

• Food
• Gas and electricity (billed and pre-paid)
• Water bills
• White goods (via referral only)
• In exceptional cases of genuine emergency, it may also be used to support housing costs where existing housing support/discretionary schemes do not meet this need

A reminder that this is not a crisis service.

Funding has also been used to support various food banks around the city and to fund the Pop-Up Pantry Scheme available to those receiving free school meals in October 2022 and February 2023.

Supporting your vulnerable families

For this round of the Household Support Fund, support can be accessed by:

1. Application submitted directly by the family
2. Professional referrer form submitted by the school

Schools are not expected to act as professional referrers, this is optional dependant on your capacity.

Option 1 – Application submitted directly by the family

Families can apply directly if they need help with:

• Food
• Gas and electricity (billed and pre-paid)
• Water bills

Applications can be submitted by families, however, this will be live based on one week on and two weeks off (subject to demand).  The dates below show when the form will be live:

• 14 November – 21 November 2022 (please note form maintenance is planned from 10pm Friday 18 November to approx. 6pm on Sunday 20 November)
• 5 December – 12 December 2022
• 3 January – 9 January 2023
• 23 January – 30 January 2023
• 13 February – 5 March 2023

Full details can be found at leicester.gov.uk/householdsupportfund.

Option 2 – Professional referrer form submitted by the school (*school use only)

Schools are able to support their most vulnerable families by making an application on the families behalf via the professional referrer form.

Support available through the professional referral form includes:

• Food
• Gas and electricity (billed and pre-paid)
• Water bills
• White goods (via referral only)
• In exceptional cases of genuine emergency, it may also be used to support housing costs where existing housing support/discretionary schemes do not meet this need

Avanti Fields will be reaching out to vulnerable families prior to the holidays to offer support. If you believe you need the support of a school referral, please contact our admin team at [email protected]

Avanti Fields school is proposing to change our admissions policy for 2024-25. To engage in the consultation, please visit the Avanti Schools Trust consultation page here.

Communications – Wherever possible please use the contact form on our website to get in touch. This is detailed on the website at https://avanti.org.uk/avantifields/contact-us/. The appropriate member of staff will pick up the message and get back to you as soon as possible.

Absence

To report an absence to the school, parents should contact us by 8:00am (primary) and 8.30am (secondary) 

Email: [email protected]
Phone: 0116 326 6813 (Option 1 to leave a voicemail) 

Please remember to state your child’s full name, tutor group and reason for absence. If your child is unwell, please could you give a brief description of the symptoms. 

All education research highlights how crucial it is to a child’s academic progress and wellbeing they attend school , on time, all of the time. Therefore, a reminder that it is important that families organise events or holidays outside of school time to ensure that their child is at school as often as possible.   

The school works closely with the Education Welfare Officer at LCC, and we do seek to ensure that any requests for authorised absence are dealt with on a case-by-case basis, in a sensitive manner. However, the school can never authorise a family holiday or a trip abroad to visit family members during term time.   

This academic year, families will have two weeks at the October half-term, three weeks at Christmas and two weeks at Easter for extended family holidays. Please do ensure that if booking holidays, they fall within the holiday periods.