Dear Parents/Carers,

Our school is committed to the safety and wellbeing of all our pupils and our priority is to keep the children safe at all times.  I am writing to remind you about our Lockdown emergency procedures, we have in place, should our school ever need to go into ‘Lockdown’.  A school lockdown is the opposite of an evacuation.  In a ‘lockdown’ children and staff remain inside the building for their safety.

It is standard health and safety practice for schools to have lockdown procedures in place as it is good practice for schools to prepare for all situations regardless of how unlikely their occurrence may seem.

As you may know, there have been a couple of local incidents, in previous years where we have had to initiate the partial lockdown procedure, in real life circumstances so staff and children are familiar with lockdown procedures and we always inform the whole school community after the event.

Please read a brief summary below.

The Lockdown procedure is available on the school website and all staff have been trained on the procedure.  We will be refreshing our awareness of this procedure with staff and children in coming weeks and carrying out a practice exercise of a ’partial lockdown’.   Primary Schools are not advised to complete ‘Full Lockdown’ drills due to the children’s age.  We will talk to the children about this in assembly and in classrooms with class teachers in a sensitive manner.   It is obviously not our intention to make any child feel anxious, however it is important that we have procedures in place and practice these to ensure everybody is clear on what they need to do.

Our school site is extremely secure and access is restricted, so we are almost operating on ‘partial lockdown’ as a normal everyday routine.

Please discuss this with your children and we will continue to update you on all important safety matters. 

Yours sincerely,

 T Larkham

Tom Larkham

Headteacher

Our Shropshire Sings after school club members will be performing at this year’s “Shropshire Sings”, an annual music event organised by Shropshire Music Service, on Monday 10^th June at the West Midlands Show Ground.

We will be going to the showground by coach, leaving school around 2.30pm on the day of the event, in order to attend the afternoon rehearsal. As the children will be on site from 3.00pm until the end of the concert they will need to bring a packed tea with them to eat prior to the concert start time of 6:30pm. If your child is entitled to free school meals and you would like us to provide them with a packed tea, please inform the School Office prior to the date of the event. Once the concert is over, participants will need to be taken home from the venue by their parent/carer as we will not be returning to school.

The showground will open at 5.30pm for the audience, with the concert starting at 6.30pm with a running time of approx. 1 hour. Please bring your own chairs, picnics and possibly an umbrella (for sheltering from inclement weather or sunshine!).

Tickets will be available to purchase on the gate on the day of the event. However, they will be more expensive so we would encourage you to purchase them in advance (it will also help speed up arrivals on the day of the event). Ticket prices are:

Tickets can be purchased via your child’s Arbor account up until midnight Thursday 23^rd May, after which you will need to purchase them on the gate at the concert at the non-discounted price.

The children have been learning songs and practising hard – it would be lovely if you could make it to the evening performance to see the result of their hard work.

Yours sincerely,

D Porrett

Mrs D Porrett

Music Coordinator

Dear Parents/Carers,

OFSTED INSPECTION OUTCOME & REPORT

I am delighted to be able to share with you all the outcome and final report from our most recent inspection, conducted in March.  This inspection was a full, graded inspection, as apposed to the 2021 inspection which was not graded.  This was the first graded inspection since 2013.

Ofsted have graded Coleham School OUTSTANDING in all areas: the best possible grading for a school.

Ofsted look at 5 areas when inspecting a school:

• Quality of Education
• Behaviour & Attitudes
• Personal Development
• Leadership & Management
• EYFS

To be graded outstanding in all these areas is a huge achievement for all the staff and the children, past and present, who have worked hard every day over the last decade to make Coleham School the special place it is.  As a school, we have not put things in place or done anything special for the sake of Ofsted, neither before the inspection nor during it, and it is important that we are recognised for doing what is in the best interests of our community.

Thank you to everyone who completed the parent survey and spoke to the inspectors: they have certainly seen Coleham for what it is!  We will now continue our journey, making sure that Coleham remains a great school at the heart of the community for many more years to come.  Please enjoy reading the report: we will be releasing the report to our wider community on our website tomorrow, alongside a special, short celebratory video in true Coleham style! The report will also be available on Ofsted’s website in a week or so.

Thank you, from all of us, for your ongoing support.

Yours sincerely

Tom Larkham

Headteacher