FARNEY CLOSE SCHOOL
PARENTS AND CARERS NEWSLETTER
Summer 2025
Summer term 2025:
It has been a very busy term with one thing and another. Ofsted Education took us by surprise, turning up this half term. We look forward to sharing our report with you once it has been published. Thank you in advance for all of the wonderful comments so many of you made.
Over the Summer term educational school day trips have taken place to Lego land, the Bluebell Railway, the Tower of London and Harmonious science museum plus beach trips for those that have had a really good term.
Most of our year 11s enjoyed a day paddleboarding, crazy golf and playing beach volleyball in Brighton, a treat due to them coming to the end of their secondary education. The residential girls went to Thorpe Park as the “prize” in the Christmas House competition. Other trips are also planned prior to the end of term.
Our residential pupils continue to benefit from a range of activities each evening with us obviously taking the opportunity to enjoy the warm, light evenings. The slip and slide is always popular as is Cooking, BBQs, Beach time, swimming, on site sports and mountain biking. Our new Cinema room is also very popular.
We had a wonderful week learning about and celebrating VE day with letters and poems written and posters created. Letters were written to and received – from veterans with the week culminating with a cream tea made by our wonderful catering staff. The hall was skilfully decorated by our Art teacher and pupils, taking us back in time as we joined together to celebrate 80 years since victory in Europe.
Upon the request of our School Council, a Friendship bench was donated by one of our contractors. This is positioned in our KS3 playground and is a space to go if someone is looking for someone to talk to or just be with.
More generally our school council members have been fantastic this year, offering lots of positive suggestions and supporting us in helping to move the school forward with the “voice of the child” being at the top of our agenda. Thank you – you know who you are 😊
Our school Library has been relocated to a beautiful room far larger and more accessible for all pupils.
Our Key Stage 2 children have been enjoying weekly swimming lessons at a local pool, over the year, led by one of our care team who is also trained as a swim teacher.
Our Forest schools has gone from strength to strength this year with it now running for KS3 and some of KS4 throughout the day. From the Autumn term KS2 will also be doing Forest Schools. A new shelter means that this is a topic that can run through the year.
Since January we have changed our school day timetable. Instead of having 5 lessons each day (except Friday) our KS3 and KS4 now have 6 lessons which are 50 minutes long rather than an hour. This has supported children in remaining focussed in class but also enabled us to introduce a 6th lesson focussed on life skills. The subjects covered include Forest Schools and a huge variety of subjects dependant on what year group you are in such as Photography, Lego therapy, Debate club, Driving Theory Lessons, Motor Mechanics, Construction, a variety of Sports, Cooking and Fishing. Year 10 all work to gain their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh Award in this lesson whilst for year 11 lesson 6 is used as an opportunity for revision as we move through the year.
I hope that people enjoyed the opportunity to meet our education team at our various parent and carer consultations. We will be looking to gather dates for next year’s consultations so that you can get them in your diary.
You will note that we have several inset days over the year. This is in part to accommodate the fact that our Teaching Assistants and Higher-Level Teaching Assistants, are all studying for their ELSA awards. The ELSA (Emotional Literacy Support Assistant) intervention is designed to build the capacity of schools to support the emotional needs of their pupils. We believe that this will be a further move forward in our ability to support children in learning how to regulate themselves.
Our visitors from ANKOMA:
Farney was recently (June 2025) buzzing with the energy and joy of the Ankoma Dreamers – eight young people, aged 9-14, from a small, rural, poverty-stricken farming village in Ghana.
The Dreamers made a big impression here at Farney Close. They stayed for 5 nights, where they first joined an art class, a music class, and a DT class, as they have no supplies or practical lessons in their village.
They spent time with the Primary pupils, exchanging rock paintings, playing games and sampling chocolate for the first time, despite Ghana being the world’s second largest cocoa producer!
Secondary pupils also joined the Dreamers for PE, including Stool ball, Mechanics, and also baking English scones for a cream tea in cookery.
The Dreamers ended their time in the school with an assembly where they talked about the many differences between Ankoma and England that they had already encountered, as well as hosting a Q&A and performing traditional Ghanaian songs and dances.
They loved spending time with our pupils at lunch, at break, in lessons, and also with the residential children playing rounders and going to stables to groom horses. They felt so welcomed and made friends, it was beautiful to behold, and it brought the very best out of the Farney pupils.
It has been truly heartwarming watching both groups of children. This is the third time that Farney Close has hosted the children from Ankoma, partnering with the charity The Ankoma Dream. Seeing the friendships form is exactly what this project is about – building bridges between communities and cultures.
For the Ghanaian children, some of them could not speak English until a couple of years ago, others were foraging in rubbish dumps for food to survive, so it is great to see just how far they have come.
From Sussex, they journey to Cumbria, where they visit more schools, as well as farms, and take more educational trips, including visiting a dentist for the first time! It really does broaden their horizons and open their eyes to different opportunities. In fact, one young man who was a Dreamer in 2018 is now the first child from the village to go to university!
Farney Close has been fundraising for Ankoma for 10 years, and the children really enjoy helping those worse off than them.
Perhaps this will be the next generation of philanthropists!
End of this academic year:
We look forward to our transition day on the 9th of July which will see our present year 6s spend the day in the main school, our year 5s spending time in the year 6 class and our year 5s starting in September spending the morning on Primary.
Your child’s end of year report is either with you or about to be. Please get in touch with James, our Head of Education, jmills@farneyclose.co.uk if you have any questions regarding their school day report and Steve, our Head of Care, stevedesouza@farneyclose.co.uk with any questions about their social care report.
Attendance postcards are going out to those that have 95% attendance or over for this summer term. Principal postcards will also go out to those that have been identified as doing really well over the term.
For those with children moving into year 10, they will be made aware of their options for the new academic year shortly.
The staff at Farney Close extend their best wishes to all our year 11s, our year 12 and our year 13 that are leaving us to take up the next stage of their education. We look forward to welcoming some of our year 11s into our post 16 provision.
End of year celebrations:
You may remember that over the Easter break we experienced a sudden loss of a long-term member of the care team. As a result of this our celebration day at the end of term will not only be raising funds for Farney Close but also for the British Heart Foundation, in Clare’s honour. Earlier in the year (prior to the Easter break) we held further fundraising for this charity, including holding a football tournament, all of which has already raised £864.40.
I hope that you are able to join us for our end of year celebration on Friday 18th July. Our plan is much similar to last year. We will have fund raising stalls (please bring cash), a sports day, refreshments and a chance to mingle and chat. We will open at 10am and run until 1pm after which we ask that you take your child home with you for the summer break. For those of you not able to attend your child will travel home by their usual means of transport. We would still welcome donations for our raffle or tombola or stall prizes to support this event. Thank you to those who have already kindly donated.
Fundraising
Should anyone be interested in supporting the schools fundraising team, with fundraising events or applications moving forward, please do not hesitate to get in touch. Fundraising enables us to obtain those extra special bits!
Dates for your diary:
- Monday 8th September – Children return to school from the Summer break. Staff have three inset days on the 3rd , 4th and 5th so will be in touch on one of those days to see how your Summer has been.
- Friday 24th October – Last day of the half term.
- Monday 3rd November – No school – inset day for staff only.
Tuesday 4th November – Children return for the second half of the Autumn term.
- Wednesday 17th December – Carol service / Christmas play (yet to be decided) but you will all get an invite.
- Spring term starts for pupils on Tuesday 6th January 2026.
Please ensure that you do not book any holidays during term time so that your child does not suffer any lost learning. Thank you.
Thank you:
I hope that you will join me in thanking all the staff that work at Farney Close for their commitment and hard work. Without every member of our team we could not provide the service that we do.
Thank you for the support you have offered the school and for the dedication that you show your child that makes our job that much easier.
Have a wonderful break and we look forward to seeing your child back with us in September.
Kindest of Regards
Sara
Should you require support or advice over the summer break, please follow the links below.
If you wish to contact us about a Safeguarding issue, please email dsl@farneyclose.co.uk
The Senior Leadership Team (Sara, Ray, Steve and James) will also be accessing their emails periodically over the break. The education and care staff emails will not be checked over the break to enable these workers to have a well-deserved rest.
A member of staff will be in contact with parents and carers on either the 3rd, 4th or 5th of September.
The school reopens for children on Monday 8th September 2025.
If you require further support, please consider the following links:
Childline – 0800 1111 – https://www.childline.org.uk/
NSPCC – 0808 800 5000 – https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/our-services/nspcc-helpline/
NHS mental health support – https://www.nhs.uk/using-the-nhs/nhs-services/mental-health-services/how-to-access-mental-health-services/
Action for Children –
Internet Safety –
https://www.parentsprotect.co.uk/internetsafety.htm?utm_source=bing&utm_medum=ad&utm_campaign=pp–online–safety
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