Welcome to the Christmas 2021 edition of the school’s newsletter. This term we have welcomed Andy and Ashley onto the maintenance team, Tracey onto the care team, Mark and Amie onto the education team and Leanne is our new evening cleaner. We look forward to welcoming Sharon, our new food technician, onto the staff team in January and also Amy who joins our Primary team as our second Primary school teacher. We are sad to say goodbye to Dawn T who has spent the last 19 years working on the care team going above and beyond and offering support to some very vulnerable young ladies. Her craft and cooking activities will be missed but more generally it must be acknowledged that Dawn’s leaving will be a significant loss to the school. We wish her all the best in her new venture. Covid remains with us, but so far we have got away relatively lightly and have not seen the amount of cases sweeping through much of Mid Sussex. It remains to be seen what the new term will bring and what rules may or may not be applied. We will, of course, do our upmost to continue to keep our staff and the children and young people here at Farney Close as safe as possible. This will be helped by 2/3rds of the 12 to 17s now having had at least their first Covid vaccination with some having had their second as well. Many employees have now also had their booster. October saw us raising awareness about Breast Cancer with some really fun events raising over £450 which I am sure you will agree that for a small school like ours is fantastic.
It has been a very busy 2nd half to the term which started with a wonderful bonfire and fire work night on the 4th November. The children, staff and their families had a wonderful evening with the weather being kind to us and the evening going without a hitch. We also very much appreciated the hot chocolate and donuts. King’s house lads and staff are to be commended for packing up supplies for the homeless and walking the streets of Brighton and Hove to hand them out. It is always humbling for us as staff to hear how compassionate and caring our young people can be. Enrichment day for our secondary school pupils took place this week (9th Dec). A variety of activities took place from a visit to the panto, mountain bike trip, icing skating, Indian cookery class, wreath making, wreath making, games in the sports hall, Christmas arts and crafts and a Christmas chill out day. A wonderful day was had by all that participated and a huge thank you goes out to those that made it possible. We have our annual Christmas jumper day on Friday with the donations for this going to our chosen charity ANKOMA. This is a small village living with poverty on a daily basis in Ghana. We have been working with this charity for 6 years now and have raised a fantastic £5425. This half term we held a special assembly to show what it is like to live there and to look at the work that Ankoma Outreach does to help the community. This was for all our new pupils that were unaware of our work with this charity. The kids were really engaged and it is an invaluable experience to help those less fortunate than themselves.
We have a member of staff giving up his Xmas to go out to Ghana with presents that he has organised and money from fundraising that has taken place via Christmas jumpers and a wonderful lucky draw for a Ginger Bread cake made by one of our very talented staff members. Our Primary class are looking forward to a day out at Drusilla’s Park on Monday (13th). We hope that they will have a wonderful day and enjoy all the activities that are taking place there as part of the festive season. Farney’s Christmas week is going to be as Christmassy as we can make it whilst continuing to be mindful of Covid. This week we have judged the Christmas Cake decorating competition and on Monday we will be judging the Christmas decorations on the House. There are prizes for all that take part with a night out for the House that looks the best and entertains us the most. We have some fantastic prizes to give out following a generous donation of an assortment of games. I am really pleased that some of our secondary school day pupils will be staying late to decorate the Well-being centre so that they can also take part. Tuesday will be a usual school day but tea will organised by the Houses so that they can have an evening of festive fun. Wednesday will see us all take part in a carol service which is likely to be outside so please bring items to wrap up in. This will be followed by a Christmas lunch cooked by our wonderful catering team and served by the Senior Leadership Team. Children and young people will leave site at 3pm on Wednesday so that they can be home in time to join you for their zoom parents and carers meeting with their tutor and Link Worker. You will have received their end of term reports prior to this meeting Let me finish this part by wishing you a wonderful Christmas on behalf of all the staff and the Board of Governors at Farney Close. May you have a safe, peaceful, happy Christmas and here’s to
a wonderful 2022. The school shuts for Christmas from Friday 17th December. We are all really look forward to welcoming the children back into school on WEDNESDAY 5th January. Staff will be available to speak to you on Tuesday the 4th January 2022.
Information sharing:
Please be reminded that our Safeguarding Team are:
Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) – Sara
Deputy DSLs – Steve and Becky,
Extra trained members of the Safeguarding team – Ray, Sharon, Sally and Austin.
Governor responsible for Safeguarding – Carole Johns.
Dates for your diary:
09.12.2021 – Enrichment Day.
13.12.2021 – Christmas decoration judging.
15.12.2021: • Carol service • Christmas Lunch Day • End of term for CYP •
Virtual parent / carers evening 16.12.2021 –
Inset day 04.01.2022 –
Inset day. 05.01.2022 –
Children return. 16.02.2022 –
Children home for half term break.
17th and 18th Feb – Two full days training for all face-to-face staff. SCHOOL WILL BE CLOSED TO PUPILS. 28.02.2022 – Staff inset day.
01.03.2022 – Children return.
IMPORTANT NOTICE Our School Nurse (Sally) has asked me to remind you that it is not too late for your child to receive their HPV, Flu or Covid vaccinations. Please drop her an email if you wish to take her up on this opportunity. sbourns@farneyclose.co.uk
You can view this newsletter online by clicking here.
