Helping children be the best they can be Dear Parents, Governors and Children,

OUR NEXT HOLIDAY Our next holiday is Christmas, and school will close at 3.30 p.m. on Friday 16th December. We will re-open at 8.45 a.m. on Tuesday 3rd January. UPDATE TO EMERGENCY NUMBERS We are experiencing difficulties at the moment contacting parents when their child is ill, or left behind from an after-school club or activity. Please make sure, if you change your mobile number, or even move house, that you let school know. Thank you. REMEMBRANCE POPPIES ON SALE FROM 31ST OCTOBER Once again the Royal British Legion are allowing us to sell Remembrance Poppies on their behalf. Children are able to buy a poppy for a minimum donation of 20p. These poppies are sold in the school breaks by older children, so if your child wishes to buy one, please send the money with them. Many thanks. DAMAGE TO READING BOOKS When your child brings their reading book home, please make sure that younger children dont get hold of it and scribble on the pages. We are having quite a number of books returned that are damaged in this way, and we are unable to remove the scribble. Many thanks for your co-operation. SCHOOL MEALS AND HEALTHY PACKED LUNCHES Our new Winter menus are now operating for school meals, on a four-week cycle. Copies of these are available from the school office if you would like to go through them with your child and help them choose what they would like to eat. We are also working hard to try and encourage the children who bring a packed lunch from home to bring a healthy lunch. Here are some Healthy lunchbox suggestions - Use a different sandwich filling each day - preferably including a fruit or vegetable. For example: Chicken, Ham, Egg, Grated cheese, Tuna, Mashed banana, Cottage cheese. Fruit and vegetables Seedless grapes, satsuma, tangerines or clementines (peeled and wrapped for younger children) small bananas, apples, plums, dried fruit such as apricots, dates or raisins. Avoid bananas because they go brown. Some vegetables to try - Cherry tomatoes, Carrot sticks, Celery sticks, Cucumber chunks, Baby sweet corn, Grated carrot and raisin salad. Drink - Avoid sugary and fizzy drinks. Instead use water or fruit juice. Other lunch box items - Scones, malt loaf, flapjack, yoghurt, teacakes. Savoury suggestions Rice cakes, Bread sticks, boiled egg, Cheese and crackers. Keep it cool - to keep it fresh by supplying an insulated bag or box. DONF FORGET YOUR SHOEBOX As usual, St James church is supporting Operation Christmas Child shoebox appeal. Please help by donating a gift-filled shoebox. These will be sent to children who are in need living on the streets or in large orphanages. Further details of items suitable to be included are on the leaflet that your child has brought home. Please bring shoeboxes to school before Monday 8th November. If you require further information, please contact Jean Gravette on 01302 856859. Many thanks for your gifts, which really make a difference.

PARENTS COFFEE MORNING We are holding another Coffee Morning for parents on Wednesday 16th November. If you would like to come along and share your ideas and opinions about school life with us, you will be most welcome. The coffee (and biscuits) will be served in the school hall, starting at around 9.00 a.m. We look forward to seeing you there.

CHILDREN IN NEED, FRIDAY 18th NOVEMBER SHOW YOUR SPOTS FOR PUDSEY Children are invited to come in spots or dots for Children in Need day on Friday 20th November (or just colourful if they choose). We are asking for donations of English coins, from pennies to pounds to put in our Pudsey Buckets, and the more coins we can collect on the day then the more money there is for Pudsey Bear. Thank you for your support. MINOR ACCIDENTS IN SCHOOL This is just to remind you of our procedures for minor accidents in school, now that the children are playing mostly on the hard playground because of the damp weather. If a child has a bump or scrape, we will treat them in school according to our First Aid policy, and give them a bump note to take home in case they forget to tell you about it. If we feel concerned about your child, we will telephone and ask you to come to school. We will keep your childs class teacher informed about the circumstances of the accident. SAFER NEIGHBOURHOOD TEAM MEETINGS The next meetings for the Safer Neighbourhood Team are all being held at Woodfield Primary School, at 6.30 p.m. on the last Friday of every month, starting Friday 28th October and continuing each month, right through to Friday 27th July. If you have anything on your mind about your neighbourhood, go along and speak to one of the Police Support Officers, or contact them on Doncaster 385339 CROSSING LITTLEMOOR LANE Please be aware that if there is no Crossing Patrol warden and no-one from the Safer Neighbourhood team is available to cross children over the road, school staff are not allowed to perform this duty. DMBC have left us in no doubt that we should not try to take the place of these wardens, so please impress upon your children the need to be vigilant if they cross unaccompanied. Similarly, please park sensitively when you bring and collect your children, bearing in mind not blocking our neighbours drives or double parking and causing problems for children trying to cross the roads. Additionally, please do not park ON the pavement, as buggies and wheelchairs need the space on the footpath, as well as it being dangerous for children if you try to drive on the path. Thank you for your cooperation. CONTRIBUTIONS TO OUR NEWSLETTER We are encouraging the children to contribute to our weekly newsletter with stories, pictures and items of interest they have done in the classroom our outside school. The contributions this week are from Year 5 Yellow class. Look out for more class contributions in the coming weeks

Halloween Disco
On the evening of Monday the 31st October, Balby Central decided to invite a rather large coven of young witches and ghouls from the surrounding area. Worryingly, they also happen to attend OUR school!! Luckily, we had an onsite photographer, called Mr Hirst who captured some of the creatures as they enjoyed their evening! Various members of staff attended the disco, after being invited by the School Council. As you can see, they are a very attractive Balby Coven!

New year 3 pupils joined our disco for the first time, and here are some of their comments. Izzy Grady- I really liked the songs, my favourite was The Conga, but it was a bit crowded in the hall. Jack Illman- I liked it because it was fun! But it was a little bit too noisy! Alisha Kaur-I liked the food and the DJ. I loved the games, but not when people started running about. Harvey Washer- I liked the Halloween music, it was amazing, but I did not like all the noise.

Our Black and White Day Thursday 20th October Yellow Class
For our last lesson with Matt, the archaeologist, we had to dress in black and white which was lots of fun for us! The reason being was that we were going to be filmed in a silent movie in Space @ Once we were in groups we planned our movie on a storyboard. Soon after, we practised our little routine, plus adding facial expressions for effect. A considerable time later, we went over to Space @ for a final practise before we had to stand in front of all of year 5 and perform our mini silent movie. At lastfilmed, what a relief! By Izzy, Ella and Faith. Fisticuffs Jayden, Liam and Josh. On our last day with Matt, we were asked to come to school in black and white clothes to perform in a silent mini movie. Matt showed us several black and white clips of silent movies featuring Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. They were really funny! We planned our movie on a storyboard, and practised our movements at Space@ again and again! But it was a great day. By Iain, Ouch.That hurt! Maddie, Ebony and Maisie Ha ha , that fooled him! What a pushover! Rhys, Thabiso and Deacon

Childrens behaviour in school

Dear Parents and Children, 4.11.11 We have been looking again at how children behave in school, how we encourage good behaviour and what we do when things go wrong including any bullying that may be taking place. We want life at school to be enjoyable and focussed very much on learning and we all put a lot of effort into this aspect of school life. Every visitor to school, from Ofsted to supply teachers, comments on the excellent behaviour of Balby Central pupils, something in which, we can all take great pride. Children throughout school are nearly always calm, polite, thoughtful, respectful to adults and each other and enjoy their time in school. However, there are occasions when things go wrong children fall out with each other, lose their tempers and even occasionally hurt each other. Sometimes this is because of events that start outside of school or at home, and sometimes it is generated by events in school wet and windy weather at lunchtime, falling out over a game, play that gets too rough, teasing that goes too far and so on. Sometimes it is repeated and intentional, and can involve one child being older or more powerful in some way than the other, or small groups ganging up on an individual. When this is the case, we would recognise this as bullying and is clearly something that we take very seriously. In all events, whether it is a minor squabble or a serious incident, our aim is consistent to help children understand what good behaviour looks like and help them achieve it. Sometimes this involves children being separated from others, being kept in, talking to parents, with older children, getting strikes or being on report, even leading to exclusion. However, most of the time it means that we talk it through with them, help them to settle the disputes, agree how to behave better in the future and get on with their friends or work better with adults in other words it is a very important part of their education. Adults, including parents and staff, play a very important part in this modelling decent values and behaviour, keeping calm and respectful, even when things go wrong, defusing rather than inciting, exercising judgement rather than blindly applying rules always with childrens best interests in mind. It is a complex and long-term business children change as they grow up and what is common behaviour at one age or situation can be a problem at another. Please can we all continue to work together to help keep Balby Central such a good school children by thinking about their behaviour and its impact on others, staff by keeping positive and looking to the educational aspect of behaviour and parents by calming things down and discussing situations. If parents or other adults do need to intervene to help children behave better with each other, it always works better if it is done with, and through, the school please talk to a member of staff if there is a situation that you are not happy with we will work with you and the children to resolve it. With best regards, Pete McGuigan