Happy New Year! This Week's Worship Value is "Truthfulness" - St Stephens C of E Primary School

NEWSLETTER –29THJANUARY 2021

  For we are the handiwork of God, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance
                                        for us to do.” Ephesians 2:10

                                        Happy New Year!
                   This Week’s Worship Value is “Truthfulness”
This week, we learned about “Esther” a courageous woman, married to a King who was fooled into
passing a law to persecute his wife’s people. She stood true to her faith and courageously engaged
a meeting with the kind, despite the risk of punishment to bring the issue to his attention. Justice
was done and we applaud Esther for risking her life by questioning the King’s judgement in order to
save her people.

This ancient story of rescuing a nation carries particular meaning when, this week, Holocaust
Memorial Day took place. The attached article demonstrates how a Football Club chose to mark the
event by lighting up the stadium in purple lights. The wording in the article reads, “The theme for
Holocaust Memorial Day 2021 is ‘be the light in the darkness’, which encourages reflection on the ways
individuals and communities resisted the darkness to ‘be the light’ before, during and after genocide…
Holocaust Memorial Day is an opportunity each year for people around the country to stand together
with those in their local community, across boundaries of faith, age and ethnicity”.

Well done West Ham Utd for drawing attention to the need to work together for peace in our
communities. Persecution of faith and belief should not be tolerated and we are thankful that our
community is a shining light to others our faith groups work together to support our community.

 https://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2021/january/27-january/west-ham-united-light-london-
                            stadium-holocaust-memorial-day

1 John 3:18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions
and in truth

NEWSLETTER –29THJANUARY 2021

Update on School Places
We are continuing to receive requests for places and our bubbles are full in some areas of school.
We know that the lockdown is going to be longer than we all would like but we must remind families
that pupils should stay at home where they can, particularly if there is an adult at home.

The Chair of Governors issued a letter to parents and in it he set the following expectations:

Any requests for places at school will be assessed on the following priority order and evidence will
be asked to be provided in all circumstances.

     Vulnerable Children and Key critical front line workers where 2 parents/carers are critical
       workers or a single parent is a critical worker and cannot work from home.
     There one critical worker in the family who cannot work from home.

  If requests for places at school start to exceed the limits set then Critical front line worker places
  will be granted in the order of priority

   NHS frontline clinical staff or administrators (e.g. NHS 911 etc) whose work is critical during
  the pandemic
    First responders.
     Police officers and some civilian police staff
     Firefighters
     Those in NHS support services needed to help hospitals and clinics running
     School staff who are attending on site provision at their own school

We have now reached limits in some bubbles and we will only offer places where there is a crucial
need which is agreed amongst the staff team. We must advise that it is likely that a place offered
will not be in your child’s own bubble. We must remind families that to take a place in school
increases the risk of the virus spreading across school users and our numbers are already above that
of the National Average which the DFE advise is 20%.

We appreciate how hard it is for families to balance work and homelife and our staff are also trying
to balance their work with the education of their own children. We are very grateful to families for
continuing to support school staff. Our teachers report that there are more children logging in to
live learning than in the last lock down and we are still working hard to meet the needs of our
families wherever we can.

Food Market
The food market is continuing to run on Friday afternoons from St. Stephen’s Church from 1.30 p.m.
All welcome!

NEWSLETTER –29THJANUARY 2021

                  VIP Winners who have “Aspired to Greatness”
          By working through difficulties with trust about the outcome
         Luna Butland - FE             Hannah Bhayat - FI           Antoni Bizon- Y1,
          Rejoice Panodou -Y1/2        Lacey Johnson– Y2,         Crystal Iddon – Y3
           Testimony Igho – Y3/4        William Imms – Y5     Lewis Cowell – Y5/6
                                       Emelia Wade - Y6

    Golden Book winners who have “Aspired to Greatness” in their Work.
    Delilah Ryan - FE                    Kishen Nayee – FI              Levente Gelb – Y1
Samantha Keshavraz- Y1/2                    Abhiram Vuppala - Y2,             Leo Clayton- Y3
        Olivia Early – Y3/4      Daniel Rigby – Y5     Dominika Gruszczewska - Y5/6
                                          Eva Wu- Y6

            Lunchtime VIPs – who have “Aspired to Greatness” and
                      Excelled at lunchtimes in their behaviour
Olza Koxha – FE               Joseph Leadbetter Swain- FI,                Hamdaan Kazee - Y1
Supreme Igho - Y1/2              Aisha Musa - Y2,           Oliver Leadbetter Swain - Y3
       Jayden Sutcliffe – Y3/4      Maryam Hammajam – Y5          Excellence Igho- Y5/6
                                       Saffiya Musa - Y6

                  Have a great weekend everyone!

       We hope our families at home also enjoyed the snow this week!

NEWSLETTER –29THJANUARY 2021