Five Elms Primary School

Dear Parent/Carer

It has been great to have all the children back! It is lovely to see everyone having fun and back with their friends and settling into a good routine for their continued education. Thank you for your support over lockdown and for all the hard work you have been doing with your children to keep them learning at home. Well done!

Is your child due to start school in September 2021?

If your child was born between 1 September 2016 and 31 August 2017, they can start school in September 2021, and you should have applied for their place by Friday 15 January.

If you missed the memo, don’t panic, there is still time and you can apply by visiting www.lbbd.gov.uk/school-admissions.

It’s important to know that getting your child a place at school is not an automatic process, so you still have to apply, even if they are already at a school nursery or they have a brother or sister at that school. If you need to apply, head to the school admissions page now (above).

End Of Term

The children finish this term at the normal times for the Easter holidays on Thursday 1st April 2021 and return to school on Monday 19th April 2021.

If one of the children tests positive for Covid in the first week of the holidays, please let the school know by emailing covid@five-elms.bardaglea.org.uk. If there are any positive cases, the school will let you know if your child needs to self-isolate via a GroupCall text message.

A young carer is someone under the age of 19 who help to look after or support a member of the family due to a variety of reasons such as mental or physical illness, substance misuse or long term illness / conditions. Support is available for children and families through Barking & Dagenham Carers. Information is attached to this newsletter.

If you feel that your child is acting as a Young Carer it is important that we know about this so that we can give support in school as necessary, even if you decide to make your own referral to the service. Alternatively you can, speak to Mr Ash who will arrange for a referral to be made on your behalf.

We are aiming to make SchoolPing our main means of communication to parents. It is a free-to-download app that keeps you connected to all your child’s school news, via instant messages sent straight to your smartphone. All you need is an internet connection to stay in the loop with everything from sports days to parents’ evenings. You can receive and view documents such as the newsletter right there in the app. You can also choose how you want to check your updates: on your smartphone, tablet or computer. To get the app on your phone you’ll need to search for SchoolPing in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store and download. When your child started at Five Elms Primary a personal username and password would have been created for you which is in your child’s starter pack. If you have these details then proceed to open the app, search for Five Elms Primary and then enter your username and password. If you do not have these login details, please contact Miss Reid on her direct email address on areid@five-elms.bardaglea.org.uk and she will be able to assist you.

(Please note, these emails will be read and replied on Mondays to Wednesdays only). Thank you for using SchoolPing!

A big thank you for your contributions towards this year’s Red Nose Day, in total £817.37 was donated towards this charity. Well done!

As was mentioned in our last newsletter, we have a large stock of used school uniforms which we would like to make available to parents for £1 per item. All are in good to very good condition, washed and bagged and ready to go. From Monday March 29th, we will be listing items available for sale, including size on our school website www.fiveelmsprimary.co.uk under Parent Area – Second Hand Uniform sales. If you are interested in obtaining any item listed or if you have any queries, please contact Miss Reid on her direct email address on areid@five-elms.bardaglea.org.uk (Please note, these emails will be read and replied on Mondays to Wednesdays only). We want to make this service available via our Facebook page going forward but we are experiencing some technical issues which we are in the process of resolving.