I hope everybody had a good holiday and is looking forward to a successful 2010.

We welcome Toni McSherry, our new deputy headteacher, to St Mary’s. Toni is teaching Year 3 until the end of this year - please introduce yourself if you see her around school.

 This is also a good opportunity to thank, once again, Kyra Sheppard who has been acting deputy headteacher since before Sarah Taylor went on her maternity leave. Kyra did a great job and we’re all very grateful to her.

Congratulations to Mrs Brown (who was Miss Winder!) - she was married at the start of our Christmas holiday.

Snow

The recent snowy weather, both before Christmas and at the start of this week, highlights how important it is to have an effective way of communicating between home and school. It’s a good time to remind everyone what our procedures would be if the weather in London got as bad as it is in some parts of the country.

 · Assume the school is open, unless you have been informed that it isn’t!

• If it looked like we might have to close, we would send a text message as early as possible to everyone explaining that we MIGHT have to close.

• At about 8.40/8.45 we would follow this up with another message saying whether we are open or not, or which classes are open and which are closed. Obviously, we can’t make firm decisions like that until we know which members of staff have made it into school and we’d make that decision as late as possible - we wouldn’t mark late any children who got into school on that day!

• If possible, we would also post a message on our website explaining what the current situation was (the address is at the top of this newsletter - perhaps it might be a good idea to add it to your internet explorer  ‘favourites.’)

 Obviously all of this depends on the exact situation at the time but the advice above is what we would intend to do.

 There is one big ‘please don’t’ to go with this!

Please don’t ‘phone the school to ask if we are open - we only have one ‘phone line in and if it is constantly engaged with families asking whether we are open then staff can’t get through to us to explain what their situation is and so the situation becomes more confusing, not less. I know it’s hard NOT to call, but if you assume we’re open (but maybe running late!), wait for a text message and don’t leave for school until as late as possible you should be OK.

 The general advice I’ve outlined above would also apply if there was a major incident nearby during the school day - we’d try to keep you informed through text messages and our website

One important ‘please do’ to finish with!

Please do make sure we have you current mobile ‘phone number and, in the event of severe weather, please switch it on and keep checking it!

Dates For Your Diary