This week I would like to focus on school attendance, and more specifically, the impact of family holidays during term time. On Friday 24th November our attendance was 94%. In the three weeks leading up to Christmas, our whole school attendance dropped to 90%. Since our return, which has now been 5 weeks, our attendance has not yet reached where it was at the end of November.

What that means for your child is that they may become persistently absent if their individual attendance falls below 90%. A family holiday where your child misses 10 days of learning equates to a 5.6% drop in their attendance.

To support parents with their child’s attendance, we publish the term dates in the Autumn Term for the upcoming academic year. Please use the links to view the primary and secondary term dates for 2024-25.

We have a Brand New Minibus

On behalf of the SSC (School Stakeholders Committee) I am delighted to let you know we have taken delivery of a brand new minibus this week.

The SSC made an approach to the Trust Board during the Covid Shutdown requesting that some of the savings for not having to run a bus service to our temporary site be used to fund a minibus for the school, so that we would have 2 buses to use. Although this was granted at the time, lengthy delays in manufacturing have meant that we only got confirmation of delivery before Christmas.

Unfortunately, the old minibus needs too many repairs so we have just one available to us again (although it will be much more reliable than the old one). We are therefore looking at ways to fund a second bus. If you have any ideas, funding, sponsorship or donation opportunities that would help the school can you please get in contact with me.

Many Thanks

Dipak Patel

SSC Chair

We are now a month into our successful launch of numerous evening and weekend ‘activity’ classes at Avanti Fields. We are supporting the coaches to build sustainable classes so they continue and are going to be offering more classes from April this year. We have had some great feedback from the participants so far and would encourage you all to try a class out if you have not done so already. There are a variety of classes to suit all ages and abilities including Dance, Yoga and Sports. Special Offers of £2 trial classes are available for Pickleball, Indoor Tennis and Multi Sports. If  there are any classes you would like to see or coaches you can recommend.  For more information please contact [email protected]

Reminder

A reminder that the school will be closed on the first Wednesday 28th Febraury back after the half-term for the AST Ethos INSET day for all staff. 

Secondary Calendar

• Monday 12th February : Y8 Radhadesh trip: Parent meeting
• Wednesday 14th February: 3 in 1 booster vaccination
• Wednesday 14th February: Student Leader bake sale
• Friday 16th February: Multi Skills Festival

Primary Calendar

• Tuesday 13th February: Nursery Parents workshop
• Wednesday 14th February: Reception Parents workshop

RRSA Bronze award

Avanti Fields School has been awarded the Bronze: Rights Committed Award.

This is the first stage in achieving the Unicef UK’s Rights Respecting Schools Award.

Achieving Bronze: Rights Committed means there is evidence that:

• We have introduced the RRSA Three Strands into our school community.
• Our school’s Senior Leadership Team understand what is involved in the Award and are committed to embarking on the UNICEF UK rights respecting journey.
• The right foundations are in place for our school’s journey to the second stage of the Award, Silver: Rights Aware

We have submitted a detailed action plan for how we are going to achieve our Silver award which is aimed at empowering our students and making them aware of their rights. We aspire to inspire spiritually compassionate change makers.

If you wish to find out more information about the award, visit: https://www.unicef.org.uk/rights-respecting-schools/getting-started/bronze/what-is-bronze/

What is Bronze: Rights Committed? – Rights Respecting Schools Award

A post from zoeya on Rights Respecting Schools Award provided by: https://www.unicef.org.uk/rights-respecting-schools

RRSA Article of the Week

Every week, children will be learning about an ‘Article of the Week’. This will help our children to learn and develop an understanding about the Convention on the Rights of the Child articles.

This weeks RRSA focus: Rights to play

Article of the Week – Rights Respecting Schools Award (unicef.org.uk)

Here is an activity you can do at home:

Some people like to relax by dancing. Different cultures have different traditional dances. Do you know any? Why not try to learn a traditional dance with your parents/carers using the programmes from BBC School Radio?

Primary School Calendar

February

13^th– Nursery parent/ carer workshop 8.00am- 9.00am

14^th – Reception parent/ carer workshop 1.30pm- 2.45pm

19^th-23^rd – Half Term

28^th– AST staff training day, school closed.

We have an abundance of exciting events taking place throughout the academic year. 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

Holiday Club – Linden Primary School

This February half term Linden Primary School are running a holiday club. Families in the community engage with holiday clubs during the school break to keep their children active and for childcare provision.

If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch with Megan Aston – Area Director – Leicester City & Loughborough

Please see the links below for further information.

Linden Primary School Letter February

February_MultiActivity_Holiday_Camp Linden

Measles Cases in Leicester

You may have seen the news about the increasing number of measles cases in Leicester.  We know that there has been a significant number of outbreaks in schools in our city and across the country.

It’s important that if you would like to be vaccinated, or if you are unsure of your vaccination status, you contact your GP.  They will be able to either provide information about your vaccination status or organise your vaccination for you.

Measles is circulating

Measles is extremely infectious and can be serious Make sure your children get two MMR vaccines on time; the first at 1 year of age and the second at 3 years, 4 months If you or your children missed these vaccines, it’s not too late. Ask for the free vaccine from your family doctor (GP) if you or your children aren’t up-to-date If you have symptoms of measles, stay at home and phone your GP or NHS 111 for advice. STAY AWAY from GP surgeries and A&E departments – you could spread the illness to others Symptoms include: high fever; sore red, watery eyes; coughing; aching and feeling generally unwell; a blotchy red brown rash, which usually appears after the first symptoms Go to nhs.uk for more measles information

Resources (social media toolkit)

To support schools and early years settings, Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland NHS have developed a social media toolkit to promote the importance of measles vaccination within our community.

• Access the social media toolkit here (Family Information Service)

We would appreciate your help in sharing this information across your communication channels with your school community.

Information in other languages

Translated leaflets explaining the measles mumps rubella (MMR) vaccine for all ages are available on the NHS resources website in the following languages:

• Bengali
• Polish
• Romanian
• Somali
• Ukrainian

f you have any questions or concerns on the above, please do not hesitate to contact Public Health at [email protected].

Teenage booster and MenACWY

Parents and carers, don’t forget the School Immunisation Service is coming to school on 14 February 2024 for vaccinating year 9 students for 3-in-1 teenage booster and meningitis. Make sure your online consent decision forms are in by 11 Feb. Visit www.leicsandrutlandimms.co.uk to fill them in. Our school code is LE143679. If you need help or have questions you can call the service on: 0300 3000 007.

Please see the link below for further details

teenageboostervax-social-media-and-copy-toolkit-secondary-schools-Jan24 (003)

Lost Property

The school will arrange a display of lost properties on Wednesday 14th February between 2:45 to 3:15PM. Outside of school building near Reception area . All students can look for their lost properties during the above said date and time. School will keep the unclaimed lost properties until 16th February. After that all unclaimed lost properties will be donated to the charity.

Valentines Bake sale

To celebrate Valentine’s day and help raise funds for the student Leaders, they will be holding a homemade chocolate sale on 14th February. If students want to pre- order to avoid disappointment, they need to visit Ms.Jones in the Music room at break. Students will also needs to pay in cash. There will be vegan options available as well.

 PTFA  

Garden Project Volunteers

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.