As we head towards the Easter holidays, I want to recognise what a busy half-term we have had. With only 4 weeks, it has felt like we’ve opened and closed the term at the same time, all while putting some amazing opportunities in place for our pupils. This week our Reception pupils attended a dinosaur workshop and we had the joy of seeing the Year 1 Easter bonnet parade.

Today the entire school has celebrated Gaura Purnima and Holi. As we observe the birthday of Sri Chaitanya called Gaura Purnima, the day of the golden, full moon. This year’s celebration had both a classroom discussion and a visit to Worship Hall. Students and staff  participated in the  ceremonial abhishek (bathing) of Sri Chaitanya, accompanied with kirtan. And all members of our school community enjoyed a special festival day lunch.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Mr Clothier for his work within the PRE department since October. Mr Clothier joined us to cover Miss K.P. Patel’s sabbatical and has seamlessly joined the team, become a role model for our pupils and built some fantastic relationships along the way. We wish Mr Clothier all the best in his next steps. In the same vein, I want to wish Miss Devalia all the best as she begins her maternity leave after the Easter break.

Advance Notice

The final INSET day for Avanti Fields will be on Friday 24th April. Please be reminded that the school will be closed for staff training.

Secondary Calendar

• Monday 8th April: First day of summer term
• Wednesday 10th April: Y11 Geography field work trip
• Thursday 11th April: Talent show

Primary Calendar

• Monday 8th April: First day of summer Term
• Tuesday 9th April: Primary workshop – Jungle Jo

What a brilliant end to the term! We have finished the week by exploring the Festival of colours; Holi and celebrating Gaura Purnima, the birthday of Sri Chaitanya through the tradition of bathing Gaura Nitai and having a special celebratory food for lunch.

Book fair

We have raised a total of £645.55 from the fair, to which the school will benefit from new books from Scholastic! We hope you have all enjoyed this experience and this has inspired our pupils to keep reading!

Easter bonnet competition

All pupils joined in the Easter bonnet Parade. There were so many amazing hats to choose from, we hope you enjoyed making them at home with your loved ones. Well done to the winners this year!

RRSA Article of the Week

Article 2 

All children have the rights set out in the UNCRC, and individual children and young people shouldn’t be discriminated against when these rights are realised. This covers both direct and indirect discrimination.

Here is an activity you can do at home:

Watch Thomas and Friends on Gender Equality. Thomas talks about what his friends are good at and says that girls and boys should work as equals and have the same chances in life. What are you really good at? Share this with your friends. Can girls and boys be good at the same things?

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

Primary School Calendar

April

8^th– School open- pupils back to school

22^nd – Earth Day celebrations- dress up and afterschool fundraising event.

May

6^th – Bank Holiday

14^th / 16^th – Parents evening 3.00pm- 5.30pm

21st- Nursery Sports day 2.00pm- 3.00pm

22nd- Reception Sports day 1.45pm- 2.45pm

23^rd – Year 1 Sports day 1.45pm- 2.45pm

24^th – Staff Training day, school closed

27^th– 31^st – Half Term

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

Easter clubs and provision

Please find attached opportunities for Easter camps across the City during the holidays. If you are interested in booking your child onto these camps, please visit www.empwrsports.co.uk for further details.

Stress Awareness Month

Please see the Stress Awareness Month news letter link below:

Stress awareness month- Secondary Schools (for students)- final

Reading Rampage 2024

Reading Rampage 2024 is well under way with our Year 7 students having the opportunity to take part in author talks as well as a range of challenges. Authors during the live talks were very impressed with the high standard of questions being asked by the Avanti Fields students!

There have also been many challenges set up through the programme for students to really be involved in the programme and gain a more detailed insight into the books they are reading. We have had some impressive alternative book covers which the authors themselves have been impressed with. SJ Willis, the writer of ‘Bite Risk’ stated, “Wow this is FANTASTIC! Congratulations to the artist” and Dee Benson, the author of ‘Glow Up Lara Bloom’ commented, “This is fantastic! Really captures the essence of the story.” Other comments were also made from the author and illustrator of ‘Finn Jones Was Here’ with both saying that the book cover “really sums up the book beautifully”. Well done to our students!

Students are encouraged to continue to check Google Classroom for updates on challenges and parents are able to view some of the great things that our students are involved in by following Avanti English on X (formerly Twitter) @AFS_English

Finalist – Lord Lieutenant’s Award for Young people 2024

I am delighted to announce that Maya Parmar been selected as a finalist for the Lord-Lieutenant’s Award for Young People 2024 for Young Artist of the Year category. She is one of sixteen young people selected across four award categories, chosen by a panel of judges from over 70 nominations which were received from the public. She is invited to an Awards Evening hosted by His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant Mike Kapur. Please congratulate her if you see her on this incredible achievement.

Oxford Unlocked Residential

On Thursday 14th March year 10 pupils had an enrichment opportunity to visit St Edmund Hall at Oxford University. Over the course of two days, they had an action-packed programme to give them an insight into university life and entry requirements to raise aspirations. The pupils were a credit to the school and share some of their insights below:
“The student finance, A-levels information and all of the other events were all very helpful and gave me a better insight for college, university and beyond. Personally, the activities were all very fun and educative. I am very grateful for this opportunity which has cleared some questions about higher education and doing it in a fun way.”
Dhiaan N
“A few of my highlights from the trip was that I loved the city and campus tour because I really got to see what the university had to offer. I also really enjoyed the evening activity with our groups because it was quite interactive and fun. The Q and A also really helped as I got a better understanding of the university and the degrees that they offer and what A-Levels I would have to take in order to study those degrees.”
Greemy H
“The trip itself was inspiring and really insightful, the information given was helpful and above all, the experience was amazing.”
Vibhish S
“It was a very valuable and informative experience, as well as lots of fun. The maths taster session was very interesting and the q and a session with student ambassadors were engaging and extremely helpful. I have learnt a lot of new things about university experiences that I will take away with me.”
Meisha P

Avanti Fields Talent Show

You are invited to attend the Avanti Field’s talent show in the main hall on Thursday 11th April 2024. The show will commence at 18:00 and doors will be opened from 17:30. The cost for the show is £3.50 payable on ParentPay and you will get 4 tickets for the price of 3! All money raised will be reinvested into your child’s education and activities. Refreshments will also be available to purchase courtesy of the PTFA. We hope to see you there!

Uniform Guideline – Brigade

Parents Direct Ordering Web 2024

Please find attached our updated 2024 flyer which includes how to order details for parents, size and how to measure guides and our new updated summer 2024 summer order deadlines.

We ask that you please forward the flyer to all your parents, highlighting the new deadline dates for 2024.

Please also ensure a copy is given to new intake parents and ask them to register with us as soon as possible so they don’t miss out on any early order promotions or important information.

Also included on this digital version of the flyer are hyperlinks to the following:

• A link to our website (front page)
• A link to register your email address with us or alternatively hover you phone camera over the QR code (you may have to zoom in to increase the size of the QR code) to access the registration portal.

We recommend all parents register with us as soon as possible to ensure they do not miss out on important dates or promotions

• On the bottom of the back page you will find another link to our website, a link to our customer service support email address and an-other link to our customer support FAQs (frequently asked questions) support.

Because our service to parents is online only, our aim is to ensure that the ordering process is as simple and hassle free as possible with minimum returns.  Therefore, we have included/added the following to our website:

• A short video on how to order online
• A short video showing parents how to correctly measure their child
• Tailored size guides for the majority of our online products

We ask that you please ensure all your parents receive a copy of the flyer and are aware of the above as soon as possible.  Furthermore, we ask you to please add the flyer to your uniform section of your website with a link to our website.

Inspection Rating – Govindas

A very big well done to the Govinda’s catering team. We have again achieved a 5 rating for our food hygiene.

We are now a two months 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]

PTFA Spring Newsletter

Disco Dandiya

Get those Garba gadgets out! Avanti Fields PTFA are excited to dance our way into our first major event of the year. After last year’s huge success, we’re proud to host Disco Dandiya night on Saturday 13th April at Avanti Fields School to celebrate Chaitra Navratri. Tickets on sale now – get yours booked early to avoid disappointment.

⭐️EXCITING NEWS⭐️

We are excited to announce our early bird special offer for the Garba & Disco Dhandiya event…. Limited time only all tickets £4

Get yours booked to avoid disappointment!

https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/avanti-fields-ptfa

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.