Today has been a burst of colour, joy and worship with our Diwali festival day. It has been lovely seeing so many of our pupils and staff attend in traditional clothes and enjoy the celebration activities. The secondary garba has been lively and students have enjoyed a special Diwali lunch menu. I wish all families a happy Diwali and that we all take time to reflect on the lessons of light and love.

Reminder: The school is closed for Diwali and Govardhan Puja on Monday 13th and Tuesday 14th.

This week we have had a wealth of activities and opportunities take place across the school. In secondary, all year groups welcomed Dr Sanjiv Nichani deliver assemblies on the increased use of screen time and its effect on mental health and brain development. Students have also had tutor led assemblies around the significance of Remembrance Day, led by the History team. Following from last week, one of our pastoral support officers will be launching a ‘Leading with Hope in a time of Conflict’ initiative in the upcoming weeks with our Year 7 students.

In the primary, we have welcomed parents from all year groups to attend our Diwali parent workshops and we held our first ever Diwali assembly, which had our students present around Diwali themes!

One piece of work I have been undertaking is with our pastoral and admin staff around strategies to effectively communicate with our parent body. It has been unfortunate that we have seen a rise in ‘difficult’ interactions with a very small number of our parents. I would like to remind all parents that the staff at Avanti Fields should be treated with respect and that any forms of abuse or intimidating behaviour will not be tolerated. We understand that there may be times where frustration run high, however, all of our staff are here to support yourselves and your children, and we are all working for the same purpose.

SSC Update – Dipak Patel

I am pleased to share some exciting news with the parent body of Avanti Fields, in time for Diwali.

After some persistent chasing Miss Bardsley & I finally managed to get a meeting with Sir Peter Soulsby (City Mayor) & Councillor Manjula Sood (Assistant City Mayor) at the school last week, to discuss proposals I had put to them a few months ago.

I am pleased to inform you all that they have agreed to the name change of Furrow View to ‘Bhaktivedanta Marg’, which means – ‘The Path of Knowledge and Devotion’, a fitting name for the road that leads up to our school.

They will now go back and look at how best to change all the surrounding street signage, we have also asked them to put ‘Avanti Fields School’ pointed signage on both sides of the ring road and on Lower Keyham Lane, beneath the current signage for Gateway College.

Finally, they are going to look at our postcode with a possible change or to approach Apple & Google Maps to back engineer their software so that the postcode leads people by Colin Grundy Drive as opposed to Thurmaston Lane.

It was a very positive meeting, with the outcome we wanted to get to before next week’s festivities.

We wish you all a Happy Diwali.

Secondary Calendar

• Monday 13th November: School will be closed – Diwali
• Tuesday 14th November: School will be closed – Govardhan Puja
• Wednesday 15th – 17th November : Anti Bullying week
• Thursday 16th  November: Leavers GCSE Certificate Evening (5:00 – 6:30PM)
• Friday 17th November: Knife crime awareness stand (lunchtime)
• Friday 17th November: Y11 1:1 Careers guidance
• Wednesday 22nd November:  Secondary: Flu Vaccinations

Primary Calendar

• Monday 13th November: School will be close – Diwali
• Tuesday 14th November: School will be close – Govardhan Puja
• Wednesday 15th – 17th November: Anti Bullying week
• Wednesday 15th November: Odd Socks Day
• Friday 17th November: BBC Children in Need day (Non Uniform Yellow Spotty clothes)

House Point Winners

Fire are on Fire! Fire won our house point competition last term, so Miss Savadia treated them to a picnic. They ate lots of yummy food and spoke about how they show the core values daily. They also spoke about the importance of WHY we follow our core values. We are so proud of them. Below captures how some children felt:

Veer, Bluebell – My favourite part of the picnic was sharing jam sandwiches with my friend, Aryan. I show respect everyday by using my manners like please, and thank you.

Ariya, Snowdrop – I enjoyed eating all the yummy food with my friends and I felt proud of myself. I use my manners every day and I show courage by being brave on the Trim-Trail.

Aarohi, Buttercup – I really enjoyed the picnic with our friends from different classes. I show empathy when my friends are feeling sad, and I play with them and give them a hug.

Krisha, Daisy – I liked the picnic and I show gratitude everyday by saying thank you.

Odd Socks Day and Children in Need

Mrs Ganatra would like to inform you that Wednesday 15^th November is ‘Odd Socks Day’, which marks the start of Anti-Bullying Week 2023. This means children can come into school with 2 different socks on – get as creative as you like!

BBC Children in Need is back this year on Friday 17th November 2023! Please send your child to school in spotty clothing, or something yellow. A donation of £1 is kindly requested.

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 

Primary School Calendar:

We have an abundance of exciting events taking place next week. Please ensure you keep up to date with the Primary school calendar to ensure you do not miss out on anything: Calendar – Avanti Fields School

Key events coming up:

November

13^th and 14^th Diwali and Govardhan Puja, school closed.

15^th– Anti- bullying week

December

12^th– Nursery Christmas parent/ carer workshop 2.00pm- 3.00pm

-Whole school Christmas card workshop, Santa’s Grotto and Fayre 3.00pm- 4.00pm

13^th– Reception Christmas Carol performance and Christmas parent/ carer workshop 1.00pm- 2.45pm

15^th– End of Term (Last day of school for children)

IMMUNISATION SESSIONS AT OUR SCHOOL

The School Aged Immunisation Service from Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust will be delivering vaccinations at our school for the:

Seasonal flu vaccination for children –  reception to year 11
Wednesday, 22 November 2023

3-in-1 teenage booster + meningitis ACWY vaccination for young people (starting from school year 9)

14 February 2024

Human papillomavirus (HPV) and Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccination for young people (starting from school year 8)

08 May 2024

Important changes and more information

• Introduction of self-consent for young people in year 8 and above where no parental response has been received.
• HPV – national change from two doses to one dose following guidance from the JCVI (the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation).

Community opportunities

 PTFA  – Annual General Meeting

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

17^th December 2023

To be held at Avanti Fields School, Hamilton at 3:00pM

Please see a link to the PTFA AGM Letter.

Parent Teacher Friends Association (PTFA)

 PTFA  

Garden Project Volunteers

 Mansha Dance School – Kathak talk

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.