Crestwood Park Primary School

Black Country Food Bank would like us to send a great big "Thank You!" to our parents for the enormous amount of food donations today. This will go a long way to feeding the many people in our community who need a little help from time to time. They have indicated that there will be so many families who will benefit from your donations - grateful thanks on behalf of them all!

Every school has to design an emergency lockdown procedure which enables a school to close down and protect itself and those in it from an identified and urgent risk very quickly such as: an intruder of the school site, a local incident (civil disturbance or risk of air pollution), a serious fire in the immediate vicinity, a dangerous animal which could be nearby or any other attack. Lockdown restricts access quickly and prevents both staff and children from moving towards any danger. One example comes from a Wiltshire school, which found 2 escaped lions from the circus, had made their way onto a school field ! Lockdown happened and the incident was very quickly dealt with.

Once a year we must 'try out' our procedures to make sure that all staff are aware of their duties to ensure safety. With this in mind, we will be conducting a lockdown drill sometime this term (before Christmas). The whole idea of this will be gently discussed with children during an assembly so that they are not made afraid when it happens. Therefore, if your child comes home one day and tells you that they were shut in their classroom, sitting on the floor with blinds closed and doors locked please don't be alarmed it will have been a drill for a procedure that we hope we never have to use!

Our kitchen staff are being inundated with money to pay for drinks at lunchtime or toast and milkshake at break, which the cashier has to put into named envelopes and ensure that the correct change is in there at the end of each session. They now have around 20 of these envelopes which is taking up so much time to collate and the practice of sending £5, £10 or £20 notes asking staff to let parents know when more is required cannot be sustained.

A reminder that a school lunch costs £2.30 and drinks can be purchased at either 25p, 30p, 45p or 50p. Also break time toast and milkshakes cost 25p each. Money for lunch money must be brought to school either daily or weekly (no more than one week at a time) this can be given to your child or left at the school office for very young children. Money for tuck (toast and milkshake) must also be brought daily or weekly. Key Stage 1 children may leave this with staff in class or the school office but Key Stage 2 children must take responsibility for their own money at break time.

Once again we have received complaints from our patient neighbours about parking on and around Lapwood Avenue. Apparently, police have been informed and should be paying us a visit very soon. I seems that the biggest issue is that cars park on both sides of the road leaving little room to drive through and making it impassable for two cars. Therefore, if two cars meet - one has to reverse to allow the other one through. It also means that parents and more importantly, children cannot be seen by oncoming traffic making crossing the road extremely dangerous.

While we appreciate that parents have to park somewhere to drop off children, if everyone only parked on one side of the road it would greatly help the congestion and make it safer for anyone needing to cross over. Please be considerate when parking your car and help us to keep everyone safe.