Newsletters

MESSAGE FROM MRS JONES

Dear Parents and Carers

It has been a very interesting and sometimes challenging term but one which has been celebrated by the reintroduction of parents attending events e.g. Year 2 Easter Assembly and the school’s club offer going out in readiness for the Summer Term.

Year 6 have been informed of a range of leavers activities that will be taking place for them next term and we have planned a residential trip for the current Year 5 who will be going into Year 6.

Although we must be mindful and take appropriate, precautionary steps, things look positive for all of us at Vaughan and we appear to be moving in the right direction. I am hoping to announce more events for parents to attend over the upcoming term and look forward to welcoming parents back into school to celebrate the school community’s achievements.

I would like to thank the entire parent community for their support and wish all of you a restful break and look forward to seeing you all on Tuesday 19^th April for the start of what will be, an exciting Summer Term.

Take care of yourselves and each other

Mrs Jones
Headteacher

UPDATE FROM THE SCHOOL GOVERNING BODY

The School Governing Body has continued to meet this term, with the Standards and Effectiveness Committee and Full Governing Body meetings taking place.  The agendas of these meetings have included:

• Review of safeguarding at Vaughan
• Review of new and updated policies and procedures
• Updates to the School Improvement Plan
• Review of data and trends, in relation to pupil progress
• Review of school risk assessments, including Covid risk assessments and planning

We welcomed Jitesh Chauhan as a new Community Governor, and said goodbye and thank you to James Delaney our link Governor from Whitmore High School. We are now actively seeking a new Governor from the staff team at Whitmore. 

We have a representative from Nower Hill High School on the Governing Body - Ben Ford is the Chair of our Standards and Effectiveness Committee. Having Governors at Vaughan representing these local High Schools is very important to us. 

Governors continue to undertake their own personal training and development in relation to the requirements of the role. Collectively Governors have also attended training on the role of Governors during inspections and the role of Governors in school exclusions. 

Governors are delighted to see that all children are being offered places at extra-curricular clubs, and thank the teaching staff for providing these in addition to the usual school day. 

Finally, on behalf of the Governing Body we thank the Friends of Vaughan, for organising the school discos at the end of term.

Nerys Anthony
Chair of Governors

HOUSE SYSTEM

After the successful launch of the House System, we are pleased to announce that the school has elected its Year 6 House Captains and Vice House Captains in Year 6.

All pupils in Year 6 were invited to apply for the roles and all entrants presented their election ‘manifestos’ in whole school assemblies. 

All the House names were voted for via School Council and the houses have been named after trees.  The pupils of the school voted for the House Captain and Vice House Captains of each house and the representatives are named below:

Ash – House Captain: Lucas;  Vice House Captain: Sasha Bella

Beech – House Captain: Emily;  Vice House Captain: Isla

Elder –  House Captain: Princess;  Vice House Captain: Maja

Oak – House Captain: Milly;  Vice House Captain: Vrinda

Willow –  House Captain: Mayuri ;  Vice House Captain: Anthusha

Testimonials from the pupils below:

Lucas (House Captain):

To be a House Captain is to be a friend and a leader.  Being a House Captain is about being a role model and I’m here to inspire the children of Vaughan Primary School to be the best they can be!

Isla (Vice House Captain):

Being elected as Vice-Captain is to be a good role model to younger years and inspire everyone to go for their dreams and to do the best so that they can achieve their personal goals.

AFTER SCHOOL CLUB PLAYWORKER VACANCY

The school is currently recruiting for a playworker for our After School Club.   Please click the link here for more details. 

SCIENCE WEEK

Week Commencing Monday 28th March 2022

We’ve had a fantastic Science Week at Vaughan focusing on ‘Growth’.  All the children have been planting and each year group from Year 1 – 6 have planted at the allotment. 

Mr Casey came in to do workshops with the children and to share his expertise on growing.  The younger children have been noticing things that grow including themselves, and the older children been made some amazing projects linked to Science including ’Space’ in Year 5 and ‘adaptations’ in Year 3. 

Every child has planted a sunflower in a pot which they will be bringing home. 

Well done to all the children they have been so enthusiastic and we are all looking forward to seeing how their plants grow throughout the Summer Term.

Here are some photos from the week ...

Let Girls Play!

On Wednesday 9^th March the girls of Vaughan participated in England’s “Biggest ever” football session and ensured that for one day girls had control of our MUGA pitch at lunch time.   By 2024, The FA’s and Barclays ambition is for girls to have the same football opportunities as boys in schools and clubs.  #LetGirlsPlay is a campaign to drive influence and change perceptions, showing that football can and should be played by girls.  It is bringing together a growing community of people of all genders, ages and backgrounds who want to champion equal access for girls, helping create independent, resilient young girls who will be a force for good in all local communities.

To find out more, visit: www.englandfootball.com/letgirlsplay. 

To play our part we held penalty shoot outs in year groups from Reception to Year 6 on the MUGA.  Over 200 girls took part and each goal scored was awarded a house point towards our new house system.  The winning house was…ELDER!

The girls really enjoyed the opportunity to play together and the boys enthusiastically supported them throughout 

“It was great to get to play with the different girls in the year group and we worked together to teach each other new skills” (Lea – Year 6).

“We are hoping to have one day a week where we can play together - maybe Female Football Friday!” (Maja – Year 6).

Here is the certificate of participation we received for being involved in this event: 

YEAR 5 & 6 FOOTBALL MATCH
WEDNESDAY 16TH MARCH 2022 

On Wednesday 16th March, Vaughan were invited to play in the Under-11 Charles Alcock Cup by Harrow School. A Harrow and FA football festival, celebrating 150 years of the FA cup. The Harrow School pupils were very welcoming and led a fun warm up session with the Vaughan players. 

Vaughan’s school football team, which consisted of Years 5 and 6 boys, played exceptionally well in the three games they played! The boys worked extremely hard as a team throughout every game, despite the weather! In our game, against Roxeth school, Vaughan won 6-2! Player of the tournament, as voted by the players and Miss McCrohan, was Otis  (5C)!  He scored amazing goals as well as demonstrating teamwork and determination throughout the tournament. 

Overall we placed third in our group, the boys should be very proud of themselves as they represented Vaughan brilliantly!

KEY MESSAGES FROM WELFARE

Please remember that we have a 48 hour policy for sickness and diarrhoea.  This means that we ask parents to keep their child at home for 48 hours after the last time their child has vomiting or diarrhoea.  This is to minimise infection to other members of the school - children and staff.

Medication

If your child is prescribed medication which has to be administered at school, please complete a consent form which can be found on the school website with clear instructions.  It must come via the school office or alternatively, call Welfare tel: 0208 427 7222 Ext 2 and arrangements can be made to collect from outside the school office.

Any medical queries, please contact Mrs O’Rourke or Ms Goodspeed in Welfare.

Medical appointments during the day

And lastly a reminder about medical appointments.  If your child has a medical appointment during the school day, please remember to email attendance@vaughan.harrow.sch.uk with the details and with proof of the appointment.  We do ask however, that appointments during the day are kept to a minimum and that you book appointments for outside of the school day.  Thank you.

SAFEGUARDING UPDATE

Safeguarding Forums

Thank you to all the parents who attended the forums on the 9^th March.  Parents asked some great questions and a useful discussion was had on a number of points. As these were successful, there will be more forums in the summer term. If you have any suggestions for topics which you would like to be covered, please email Miss Rogers at inclusion@vaughan.harrow.sch.uk

Monthly Online Safety Newsletters

We continue to send parents and carers the latest information about how to keep your children safe whilst they are online.  The newsletters cover a variety of topics such as: how to set parental controls, which apps children should or shouldn’t have access to and how to stay safe on social media.  If you haven’t read any of these to date, please look out for them as they contain a wealth of really useful information, so that you can implement necessary measures at home.

RARING2GO! HARROW SPRING MAGAZINE

Raring2Go's Spring digital magazine is full of great ideas to enjoy everything that Spring offers… crafting, gardening and enjoying park life that’s just on the doorstep.

They’ve got a great feature on ‘10 ways to love the Earth’ (pg 26) to encourage parents and kids to get out and about and learn more about the environment in a fun way along with lots more things to do…

To access the digital magazine, please click on the link below:

https://magazines.raring2go.co.uk/harrow/spring/

FRIENDS OF VAUGHAN UPDATE

Hope you are all well and have been able to find some time to get outside over the last few weeks and enjoy the beautiful sunshine and early signs of Spring.

We have been really busy as we get back to organising fundraising events for the children. You can take a look at the latest committee meeting minutes on the school website and please get in touch if you would like to get involved!

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

Fundraising Events

• School Disco - 31st March
• Parent Quiz - May (tbc)
• Bake Sale  - 8th June
• Summer Fair - 2nd July

Committee Meetings

• Friday 22nd April - 2pm

WHAT’S NEW

Bake Sale

On the 10th February we held another cake sale and were blown away by the beautiful cakes donated by our talented parents as well as a sizable donation from Taylor Shaw, the school’s caterers. 

We raised almost £650 from the sale and a huge THANK YOU goes out  to all the parents who helped.

School Disco

We are so excited to be ending the Spring term with a School Disco! We have sold almost 400 tickets and are sure it will be tons of fun for the children while raising funds for the school

Summer Fair

We are very much looking forward to the return of the school Summer Fair this summer on Saturday the 2nd July 2022. After COVID-19 put the brakes on plans for the last two years, we are looking forward to celebrating its return. The Summer Fair is our chance to celebrate and enable the school community to come together. As you can imagine it is a massive effort, with contributions from a variety of staff, parents and other community volunteers to make the day a success. If you are interested in helping or wish to find out more about how you can get involved, we would love to hear from you.

HELPING FRIENDS OF VAUGHAN ALL YEAR ROUND

Raise Money While You Shop! 

You can support Friends of Vaughan without spending a penny extra by shopping through

Easyfundraising or Amazon Smile. 

Sign up to Easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/vaughanschoolpta (or download the app) and use the links provided whenever you shop online with John Lewis, M&S, Ebay and more. 

Please use Amazon Smile whenever you buy from Amazon and select Vaughan School PTA as your charity. You can set this up on the app so you don’t need to remember each time.

Regular Giving

As with all charities, you can choose to support us through regular donations which are all eligible for Gift Aid. If you, or a member of your community would like to do this then please contact our treasurer who can advise on the best way at fovtreasury@gmail.com.

Thank You!

Finally, a big thank you to all of you for your support so far this year!

Keep in touch: 

facebook.com/groups/VaughanPTA

vaughanpta@gmail.com

SLIMMING WORLD OFFER

As we are getting nearer to summer weather you may be thinking about becoming more healthy.  Your local Slimming World group has a discount running until 28th May if you wish to sign up.

HARROW FOODBANK

Further information is available from the following website:
https://harrow.foodbank.org.uk/

TERM DATES

School will close at 1.35pm on the last day of each term
(please see separate letter sent regarding the end of the Autumn term)

Afternoon Nursery will be closed on the last day of each term.

After School Club finishes at 4.00pm on the last day of term. 

Please do not book holidays for during term time as these will not be authorised.  If you wish to request leave from school, please complete a Request for Leave form and email it to attendance@vaughan.harrow.sch.uk for Mrs Jones' attention.