On Wednesday evening we hosted a range of providers to share information for our KS4 students around possible career choices and next steps in education, employment and training. It was a very busy evening, with sixth form and college stands seeing a high level of students enquiring about their educational pathways beyond Avanti.

Yesterday, we also hosted the first primary Spiritual Insight Workshop for parents. Parents begun to explore with Mr Gajjar, our PRE expert, the first two of our core principles.

• We are unique spiritual beings with incredible potential, and we achieve our full potential by discovering and nurturing all parts of ourselves – intellectual, emotional, physical and spiritual.
• We choose how we wish to respond to life and what we nurture within us.

Thank you to those parents who have already completed our parent survey. I would encourage all parents to complete this survey so that we can ensure that our next steps are the most impactful: https://avanti.wufoo.com/forms/afs-parent-survey-questions-202324/. The survey will close on Monday 30th October.

2024-25 Term Dates

Please see the links below for the term dates for next academic year. These have also been updated on our website.

AFS Primary Term Dates 2024 to 2025

AFS Secondary Term Dates 2024 to 2025

World Mental Health Day

This week was World Mental Health Day. Please take time to watch this short yet extremely powerful 2-minute video. # check in on those around you.

School Activities Programme

The school has been working with Active Together to secure a stream of funding to further open up our school facilities to the wider community. We are in the process of finalising our proposal for the next two academic years and the final stage is to open up for feedback and consultation with our parent community. Please do share your ideas and suggestions.

Secondary Calendar

• Monday 30th October: Staff INSET Day (School will be closed for students)
• Friday 3rd November: Professional Growth forms deadline
• Friday 3rd November: Y11 1:1 Career Guidance

Primary Calendar

• Monday 23rd October – Friday 27th October: School open for Nursery pupils only
• Monday 30th October: Staff INSET Day (School will be closed for students)

Experience events

At Avanti Fields we want all our pupils to receive a rich and vibrant curriculum offer. To support this, we plan in additional events and visitors to enhance the experiences the children have at school. Some of these events are paid events such as the Pantomime. Please login to Parent Pay to make a payment to support these events. You will have received an email earlier regarding the details of all the events we have on for Autumn/ Winter. 

Nursery Winter Events -£10

Reception Winter Events- £10

Year One Winter Events- £7

Attendance

Coming to school on time and regularly is important to ensure your child is accessing the full curriculum. In assemblies, each term, we celebrate 100% and high attenders.
Class attendance celebration:
Each week we celebrate the highest attending class. Well done to Buttercup and Snowdrop who have managed to be a weekly attendance winner and won the attendance trophy for the week. Each class has a target to reach to ‘Neptune’ to win a class prize. I wonder who will get there first?

House point winners

Fire is on fire! Well done to all primary pupils who are in Fire. They achieved the highest number of points this half term and early on after the half term they will get a special picnic treat with Miss Savadia!

Diversity Awareness

This week our pastoral assembly programme focused on raising awareness of the protected characteristics and why we are much stronger as a community when we are united. Please see attached the slides from the assembly and the linked video to support our message to celebrate and respect people from all different backgrounds.

Assembly-more-united

Lunch cards and lunch payments

Over this last week, we have been working 1:1 with our secondary students who either don’t have their ID card or don’t have sufficient funds on their ParentPay accounts. While we are still offering students a meal, we have been communicating with parents changes to our processes, which will come into effect after the October half-term, from Tuesday 31st October.

We are implementing the arrangements listed below for a number of reasons. Firstly, when students don’t have adequate funds, or their ID card on hand, they significantly slow down the service queue, which results in longer (unnecessary) wait times for other pupils. If a child doesn’t have their ID, the catering staff have to manually type in a child’s name before serving. Secondly, if a child continues to have a negative ParentPay balance, this can begin to accrue a debt for the family, but also for the school. As we tender out to a catering service, if there are negative balances left unpaid, the school is required to make up the difference. This means that money which should go towards educational resources within the school instead go to cover parent debt.

Lunch arrangements

• £5 replacement fee for a lost ID card
• No lunch will be provided to students without their ID card
• No lunch will be provided to students with a negative balance

Should your family be experiencing any financial difficulties and may find the new arrangements a challenge to meet, please use the website contact form, select Concern/Issue and a member of our admin team will be in contact to discuss any interim support measures we might be able to offer.

Chemistry Competition: RSC Top of the Bench Competition

Calling all students that like Chemistry!!

We are looking for a team of two year 9 students, one year 10 student and one year 11 student to represent Avanti Fields School in the regional RSC Top of the Bench Chemistry Competition.

Please use the holidays to prepare for a short chemistry quiz. The top 4 scoring students will then be invited to sit the regional quiz online.

Tue 31st Oct – Tue 7th Nov – see a science teacher at lunch time to sit the selection quiz.
Wed 8th Nov – Fri 10th Nov – selected 4 students sit the regional online quiz during lunch time.

Any questions see your science teacher,

Dear Parents, Carers, Staff & Pupils

PTFA continues to bring you lots of community events and initiatives over the next few weeks. The exciting line-up of events in our calendar reflects festival season. That means lots of celebration and, hopefully, lots of fundraising for our school.

You’ll be receiving posters and promos via email, and can also check out details about forthcoming events on our social media pages (Facebook & Instagram) as well as on display around the school premises.

Please look at what’s coming up:-

NAVRATRI – October 20, 21 & 22 (Oct Half Term)

Attached are details about our Navratri events, which we’re bringing you bigger and better than ever before!

FOUR events of full-on celebration and dancing, with something for everyone!

Friday 20^th Oct – Daytime 1.30pm – 5pm – Children’s special session with live music by Jungle Band from India, Special Price at just £3 each, Normally £5.

Friday 20^th Oct – Evening Disco Dandiya Nite (7pm – late) with Live DJ – don’t forget your glowsticks!

Saturday 21^st Oct – Daytime Navratri event 1.30pm – 5pm with live music by Jungle Band from India

Sunday 22^nd October – Daytime Navratri event 1.30pm – 5pm we have promotion for the Sunday Navratri Next week price has been reduced to £3.00 only .

Tickets are £5 each for all Navratri events and a limited number of package deals for Fri Evening, Sat & Sun at £12 for all three. Navratri at the school is extremely popular, and we expect to sell out to capacity very quickly.

Click Here to Book Tickets

DIWALI BAZAAR – Sunday 5^th November 2023 11am – 4pm

For the first time ever, the PTFA is proud to bring you a special Diwali Bazaar at the school. There’ll be a wide variety of stalls selling Diwali-related items such as gifts, sweets, snacks, arts and crafts, rangoli, fashion, etc.  There’ll also be special demos and workshops on the day. Free entry!  If you’d like to have a stall at the Bazaar, please get in touch with the PTFA on [email protected].

We are also excited to announce the Hot Potato Shop will be bringing there food truck to the event so we can enjoy their ethos friendly hot food on the day.

We have also arranged our popular HANUMAN CHALISA, MAHA-ABHISHEK & BHAJANS 3pm – 6pm on the same day as the Diwali Bazaar on the 5^th November, For sponsorship, donations and registering as Laadoo or Maha-Abhishek Yajman please complete the form on this link.

This is a FREE event and Prashad will be served, for us to cater accordingly please let us know if you are attending by booking your free tickets here. Click Here to Book

As you can see, we have been extremely busy arranging the above events, we strongly urge you to book asap as we expect all of the to sell out.

 Hanuman Chalisa  Challenge for students:

As part of our Diwali Mela Celebrations on the 5^th November we will also be hosting our Annual Hanuman Chalisa event stating at 3pm.

We would like to encourage as many of our pupils as possible to take part in the occasion whilst helping us to raise funds for the school.  So, we have a challenge for them to take part in. We are inviting pupils to collect sponsorship for sitting through the recital of 11 Hanuman Chalisa on the day.

To encourage participation, we will be giving every child that registers and completes the sponsorship activity, a free present and certificate.

To register your child please click on this link and complete the form.

https://avanti.wufoo.com/forms/q1m3z5xl04b5b0m/

All pupils taking part will need to arrive by 3pm on the day and we would encourage you to bring your sponsorship money and form with you.  All family and friends are welcome to come and take part also and watch your child complete the challenge.

Whether your child is taking part in the challenge or not you are all welcome to attend this Free event and Prashad will be served, for us to cater accordingly please let us know if you are attending by booking your Free tickets Click here to book.

Sponsorship forms will be handed out to your child this week (Primary). For Secondary pupils we will email sponsorship form to you once you have registered.

We hope to see you on the day at the most popular PTFA event we host.

Many Thanks

PTFA Committee

 Bollywood Zumba Dance Sessions

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.