cotham gardens primary school

weekly newsletter  18/07/2025

 

Year 6 have pulled it out of the bag this week with their amazing production, awesome leavers' disco and their excellent SATs results (more below). The production "Snow White and the Three Bears" was written entirely from scratch by our Year 6 and writing lead, Mr Alex Jarman. The show was full of pithy one liners, singing, dancing, technical mastery and great acting. Huge congratulations to everyone who supported. Thanks to to the brave parents who set up the disco. The hall looked amazing, the food and drinks were delicious and the children behaved impeccably. 

Teaching and learning will be continuing right up until the end of term, and we will be announcing the winners of our attendance challenge in assembly on Tuesday, the last day of this academic year. 

Have a lovely weekend.

Emmeline Smith  

Staff updates

After an outstanding 23 years' service, Mrs Sue Hill is leaving the school at the end of this term due to ill health. Sue has worked in a variety of roles over the years, and I know she is very sad to be leaving the family. We wish her the very best and would like to thank her for her longstanding service to the children of Cotham Gardens. Sue says,  

“I’ve built up a lot of good friendships over the years that I’ve been at the school, and I’m going to miss everybody. I wish you all the best for the future.” 

We are delighted to welcome back Mr Chad Mensah to the Year 4 teaching team in September. Chad has previously worked at our school as a supply teacher and is thrilled to be returning as a full-time member of staff. From the teaching team, we are saying goodbye to Miss Nuria Estevez-Cervera and Miss Lizzie Payne. We’d like to congratulate Lizzie on successfully completing her Early Career Teacher programme with us and wish both her and Nuria good luck in their new schools.  

Mr Ryan Blyth (SEND Learning Support Assistant) will be starting his teaching qualification at Bath Spa University in September. We also say goodbye to Mrs Lily Pattison who has decided to concentrate on her other career as a designer. Mrs Fran Taylor, Finance and Office Administrator, has secured a promotion at another local school and also leaves us in September.  

From our long-term agency staff, Miss Amy Hardy and Mr Tai Appelt are staying with us next academic year, while Mrs Parthena Konstantinidou (aka Mrs K) and Mr Chris Pearce head off on their travels to Cyprus and Australia respectively. Miss Kavita Bhalerao and Mr Joan Mercadal also leave to pursue other opportunities (although we suspect they may be back as soon as the opportunity arises!) 

We’d like to thank all our leavers for their dedication to the school and wish them well in the next stage of their lives and careers.  

Finally, Mrs Welsford has decided to step down from her Deputy Head role in September in order to focus on her work as SENDCO at Cotham Gardens. She will continue to work four days a week across both sites.

 

 

We are delighted to say that Cotham Gardens has performed in line (or above) the national average in: 

• Early Years 
• Year 1 phonics screening check 
• Year 2 phonics screening check 
• KS2 Reading SATS 
• KS2 Maths SATS 

After a year of intensive school improvement, we are very pleased to see the quality of education the children receive shining through in these national assessments. The impressive improvement in pass rates speaks for itself, and our internal data points to even better outcomes next year.

	Cotham Gardens 23/24	Cotham Gardens  24/25	National average   24/25
KS2 SATS Reading	71%	81%	75%
KS2 SATS Writing	50%	62%	72%
KS2 SATS Maths	59%	74%	74%
KS2 Combined    (% children who achieved the standard in Reading, Writing AND Maths)	39%	53%	62%
Year 2 Phonics screening check	94%	100%	91%
Year 1 Phonics screening check	83%	93%	80%
Children achieving a ‘Good Level of Development’ (GLD) in Early Years	88%	76%	69%

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MONDAY 21ST JULY

6B Park Trip

9.15am - 10.15am

 

5B Park Trip

10.45am - 11.45am

 

6W Park Trip

11.45am-12.45

 

Reception Teddy Bear Picnic

Leaving the Elmgrove site at 12:50 to walk up to the park and returning to school at 15:00.

 

YR4 Golden Treat to the Park

14.00PM - 15.00PM

 

TUESDAY 22ND JULY

YR3 Park Trip

9.15am - 10.15am

 

5MC/5WL  Park trip 

10.45am -11.45am

 

WEDNESDAY 23RD JULY 

SUMMER HOLIDAYS BEGIN! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week’s class attendance winners are:  Ladybirds / 4OB / 6B with 100% - Well done! 

This week’s class punctuality winners are:

6B / 6J / 6W with 97%  - Well done! 

 

 

🌟 SUMMER ATTENDANCE CHALLENGE UPDATE 🌟

 WOW! An incredible 138 pupils haven't missed a single day of school during 

our Summer Attendance Challenge! Talk about dedication! 

With just 2 days to go, we're sprinting toward the finish line! The excitement is building as we get closer to revealing our attendance champions! 🏆

Don’t forget, the classes with the highest attendance at each site will earn themselves a special class treat! And wait... there's more! Pupils hitting that impressive 97%+ attendance mark during the challenge will be entered into our exciting prize   draw on the last day of term! 🎯 ✨

Let's make these final days count and finish this term with a bang! 🚀

 

                          

 

We would like to kindly remind all parents and carers that there are no INSET days remaining in this term. As such, all children are expected to attend school until the very last day of the academic year, which is TUESDAY 22nd July.

Absence Requests

As stated in our school attendance policy, only exceptional circumstances warrant an authorised leave of absence. Generally, a need or desire for a holiday or other absence for the purpose of leisure, recreation or visiting family would not constitute an exceptional circumstance.

If seeking permission for exceptional circumstances leave of absence, the parent/guardian should complete a Leave of Absence Request form in advance. The request should be submitted as soon as possible; and wherever possible, at least four weeks before the absence. 

The school will consider each application individually, considering the specific facts and circumstances. Parents may be required to provide the school with additional evidence in order to support the request. The expectation of the school is that term time holidays should not be planned or booked as a matter of course, as they are likely to be unauthorised.

 

1. A Penalty Notice

The penalty is £80 per parent, per child payable within 21 days, rising to £160 per parent, per child if paid between 22 and 28 days. (Failure to pay will result in prosecution.) If a second Penalty Notice is issued within a rolling 3-year period the penalty is £160 per parent, per child if paid within 28 days. There will be no option to pay a lower amount.

2. Prosecution

Prosecution could lead to fines up to £2500 and /or up to 3 months imprisonment. (See DfE’s statutory guidance on School attendance parental responsibility measures for more information and Bristol City Council’s Penalty Notice Code of Conduct, available here).

Further information can be found in our Attendance Policy and in the Penalty Notice Leaflet from Bristol City Council.

  

 Term Dates

   Term 6: Monday 2 June 2025 to Tuesday 22 July 2025

 

INSET days for next academic year are now confirmed as follows:

Tuesday 2nd September 2025

Friday 24th October 2025

Monday 3rd November 2025 

Monday 5th January 2026

Monday 23rd February 2026

Friday 3rd July 2026

Wednesday 22nd July 2026

  

 

Bristol City Council are providing Free School Meal vouchers up to the value of £90 per eligible child in order to provide extra support during the summer holidays. Families already in receipt of Pupil Premium will have received these vouchers on Wednesday 16th July. 

 

If your child is eligible for FSM, we want to encourage you to register them.

Children in reception, year 1 or year 2 get free school meals anyway through a different scheme. But if they are eligible for free school meals, we still really want you to register – see why below.

 

Why register for free school meals?

Children who are registered for free school meals don’t have to eat them if you prefer them to have packed lunches.

But registering them is still important because for every child registered for free school meals in the 2024/25 and 2025/26 academic years, the school gets an extra £1,480 (in 2024/25) and £1,515 (in 2025/26) through ‘pupil premium’ funding.

 

Every child registered for free school meals makes a big difference to the school.

You can find more information about pupil premium on our website: https://www.cothamgardens.co.uk/Pupil-Premium/

 

Is my child eligible for free school meals?

If you receive these benefits, your child may be eligible:

• Income Support
• Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) or Income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
• Support under part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• The guaranteed element of Pension Credit
• Child Tax Credit (as long as you’re not also entitled to Working Tax Credit) if you have an annual gross income of no more than £16,190
• Working Tax Credit run-on - but not if you receive Working Tax Credit
• Universal Credit, if your earned income after tax is £616.67 per month (£7,400 per year) or less

 

How do I register?

If you think you may now be eligible for benefit-based Free School Meals and Pupil Premium, please follow the steps below to apply:

• To apply online – please visit https://parent.bristol.gov.uk/web/portal/pages/parents/travel-and-free-school-meals
• Or contact the school office on 0117 3772610, who can apply on your behalf.

 

Children in households with no recourse to public funds (NRPF)

Children in households with NRPF may be eligible if their household income is less than:

• £22,700 for families with 1 child
• £26,300 for families with 2 or more children

 

You can find out more about the NRPF condition on GOV.UK.

 

More information

If you have any questions or specific concerns, please contact the school office.

You can also find more information at www.gov.uk/apply-free-school-meals.

 

 

 

 

Dear Families of Cotham Gardens,

With the end of the school year fast approaching, I am happy to present  the summer edition of our reading newsletter. Over its 21 pages of goodness, we celebrate the year's highlights, deliver some excellent news and share a veritable smorgasbord of book recommendations. We hope it will inspire lots of summer reading!

COTHAM GARDENS LOVES READING NEWSLETTER

Wishing you all a very happy and bookish summer!

 

 

 

 

 

3JD have been thoroughly enjoying the 'The Dancing Bear' by Michael Morpurgo. The illustrations are beautiful and we have discussed how they have added to the story, through conveying the character's emotions. We have only got a few pages to read and we are very excited to find to what decision Roxanne will make!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What a busy end to the year in Year 2! 

We finished reading Fantastic Mr Fox today so decided to make our own book reviews. It was an emotional roller-coaster and we loved every moment of it. 

We have been designing and creating our own wraps for DT. We had to read the design brief before creating a healthy wrap for children. It had to have an item from vegetables or fruit, dairy and protein food groups. The children have been so sensible and loved getting to experiment with different food!

Well done for an amazing year!