Dear Parents

Thank you for all your generous gifts for our harvest festival collection. We have been able to send a cheque for £268.60 to Unicef for Sudan Relief.

Sadly I have to report to you that a former member of staff, Val Beveridge, died last Sunday. She had suffered from cancer. Many parents, and some pupils, will remember her. If anyone would like to make a donation to Cancer Research at Royal Marsden it can be given to the office or sent directly. Val’s funeral is on Wednesday 17th November at 1.30pm, St. Swithun’s Church, Purley. A number of staff will be attending and therefore there will be some disruption to normal lessons at school on Wednesday afternoon for some classes. I will be taking those classes affected until the teachers return.

Selsdon Library Family Reading Group will be meeting on Saturday 13th November at 2.30pm. The poet Paul Lyalls will be visiting to perform poetry about family life and school. Please contact Liz Rose at the library (8657 7210) for more information.

I have been very pleased with the response from the children this week regarding the free lunch. At the moment our school lunches make a loss for the school, by several thousands of pounds a year. In order to break even we need to increase the take up of school meals to around 200 a day. I do hope that you will consider the good value that a school meal offers, as well as being nutritionally balanced. Surely the best bit is that you don’t have to make a packed lunch!

Please remember to keep an eye on our website for the latest information and additions to the diary page. Please ask for a copy of the diary from the office if you do not have access to the internet.

It has been brought to my attention that some parents may not be aware of how they may get access to various school documents. Most documents that do not relate directly to pupils or staff are freely available. For instance if you wish to see a copy of a particular school policy, such as our music policy or our anti-bullying guidelines, you should ask at the office. Minutes of governing body meetings are similarly available, but obviously only agreed minutes and not confidential minutes (known as ‘part B’) that may relate to issues such as individual staff pay. You may ask to view your child’s confidential file by appointment. As policies are reviewed over the next few years, they will appear on our website. Already you have access to some ICT documents in the ‘Policies’ section.