The whole school attendance for December was 93.91% which was another slight drop from November and keeps us below our floor target of 96%. There were fewer children absent with the sickness and respiratory virus, however attendance was mainly affected by families not providing a reason for absence. Most parents/carers are very good at informing us of the reason for their child’s absence, which can be done via calling (01207 504431), texting (07537436638) or emailing the school (consettjunior@durhamlearning.net).

Failure to inform us does result in an unauthorised absence which may then instigate further action and monitoring. If your child has been off several ad-hoc times, with the same reason, this is recorded.

On Monday 16th December the autumn term attendance letters were sent home, they were colour coded using a traffic light system. If you received a red letter you may have been asked to contact the school for a support meeting. Please do so.

The December attendance by year group is as follows:

Year 3 – 97.78% – What an amazing result year 3!

Year 4 – 91.82% – Bottom year group.

Year 5 – 92.18%

Year 6 – 93.73%

As year 3 have achieved the best attendance for December each child in year 3 will be given a cake/giant cookie this Friday (10th January) as their reward. Class 1 (Mrs McMahon) have achieved the reward for the best class attendance at an amazing 98.81%, well done!

The Class 1 reward for this is a FREE non-uniform day which will also be on Friday 10th January. This sees Class 8 knocked from the top spot, having achieved this for three consecutive months.

As we are now in our final hours of school before we close for the festive period, we would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for the their support and kindness this year, especially in this last few weeks when school events and collections have been in abundance. We appreciate that families are very busy at this time of year, so seeing so many of you attend events and/or sending in money and gifts for charity is truly amazing. We cannot thank you enough.

Please stay safe this Christmas time and enjoy it, in whatever you do. We hope families and friends, from near or far, are able to come together to make this a special time for you and your children. We look forward to seeing everyone in January, with tales of their holidays.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all from all the Staff and Governors of our wonderful school. School re-opens on Tuesday 7th January at 7.45 a.m. for those who attend breakfast club.

We have now chosen winners for our Elf on the Shelf competition and children have been awarded their prizes.

Thank you to all families who emailed their mischievous elf photos to school, there were around 25 families who sent photographs in and it was very difficult for us to choose. We ended up with 12 overall winners, instead of 10 and but we gave all children whose families sent in photographs a runner up prize (20 children).

Winners: Amy R, Sienna R, Matthew F, Ava C, Sophie S, Lacey L, Elliot and Rhys F, Joshua G, Jessica W and Finn and Isla M.

The gallery link is below if you want any ideas before the big day next week! Mrs Raine is very grateful as she hasn’t needed to revert to Google for ideas this year!

https://www.consett-jun.durham.sch.uk/elf-on-the-shelf-competition-gallery-2/

We have now enjoyed two amazing Christmas shows from our very talented children, and how fantastic they did.

Whether your child had a speaking part, front of stage dancing, back of stage dancing, backing crew (popular and very important), no matter how big or small a part, being able to look out into a sea of over 200 adults is very daunting…for adult or child! Remember they are aged between 7 and 11! However, i am sure you will agree they pulled it off marvelously. There were no errors, no judgements, yet plenty of well deserved applause.

For the last few months staff have worked tirelessly with the children either by preparing them for their lines, giving direction and praise, making props (and outfits!), promoting the event and ensuring you were all well informed about the amazing shows.

Even the children took the lead this year and created and choreographed their own dances! Lauren in year 6 was so enthusiatic during practice there was need for a first aider! Such commitment and enthusiasm. The new venue was daunting for us all, the change and list of new rules was hard to promote to families, but we thank you so much for your patience and support.

Once again, the biggest thank you from us to you.

We hope the children have a fantastic party day tomorrow, we will be sure to capture the moment and upload a gallery of fun tomorrow.

From all staff and governors

Thank you so much to the families who have supported us in raising money for Save the Children today. Children could replace their school jumper/polo with a festive one for the day and donate £1 to do so.

We have raised £140.00 and this will be forwarded to the charity. Some families have been i touch as they have forgot to donate, and sent in next week will be added to the total and forwarded to the charity.

Thank you very much

The children have had a fantastic Christmas lunch at our school today, check out the gallery below. They certainly know how to sing out some of the old classic Christmas songs…with those voices you are all in for a treat at the performances next week!

It was all very festive and all the children enjoyed the larger Christmas Lunchtime gathering!