The children in Early Years and Year 1 arrived at school extremely excited, as today was the day they were able to keep their scooters at school! Each class participated in an hour session, ran by instructors from Bike Ability Hampshire, as part of their road safety scheme. Once the children had found their scooters and popped on their helmets they were very eager for the session to begin. The classes were split into two and each group completed both parts of the session. Some of the activities took place on our school playground; the children practised their gliding skills, how to ride their scooters and stop safely and played lots of fun games. For the second part of the session the children took their scooters to the road outside the school. The instructors taught them the golden rules for crossing a road; always being with a grown up, looking in all directions to check for traffic before and whilst they cross the road, using our ears to listen for traffic and finally to walk with our scooters across the road. In small groups and with an instructor the children practised crossing three different parts of the road safely. The children enjoyed riding their scooters, but also learnt how to keep themselves safe - especially near roads. Lots of children couldn't wait to be reunited with their scooters at home time and were keen to tell their families all about the training!

Dear Parents

Thank you to everyone who parked away from the school site this morning. As you will now understand, things will be a bit difficult in Binfields Farm Lane probably for the duration of most of the building work. If you can all continue to walk the last section to school it will really help us greatly.

We are keeping three spaces in the first layby clear for the taxis who are contracted by Hampshire County Council to bring some of our pupils to school, and also to help the "out of school providers" who regularly deliver and collect in excess of eight children. Your help with this, both at the start and end of the day, is appreciated.

We have now had some time to think about how the system worked this morning and have a few suggestions. If your child is in Holly or Maple class you might find it easier to walk along the public footpath from Binfields Farm Lane and enter school from the gate in Pyotts Copse. From this direction you can enter the courtyard area as before and your children can enter their classrooms through their usual doors. This may also be the best way for you to collect them at the end of school. If your child is in Years 1 or 2 this might be an option for you too.

If you are bringing your child from the side gate in Binfields Farm Lane your child will enter their classroom from the doors on the fire trail on the outside of the school building. If you are collecting your child from the same gate they will need to leave their classroom from the door to the fire trail and meet you on the outside edge of the building. Parents should not use the fire trail to gain access to the courtyard as this will cross a fenced area for Maple Class.

If your child is in Years 3 or 4 and you can collect from the Pyotts Copse end of the school, it might be worth asking your child to meet you in the playground area (giving them some independence) as otherwise the narrow path from the courtyard to the playground will be very congested.

Similarly if you are collecting more than one child from the Binfields Farm Lane gate, you might want to consider asking the older of your children to collect siblings and meet you near the cycle racks or just outside the gate. The fire trail is not a very wide path and parents with pushchairs may find it difficult when children are leaving classes at the end of the day.

If you are taking advantage of the parking available at the Hampshire Court and you see other families you know, would it be possible for one parent to walk several children to school? This would ease the parking situation in the morning.

It may be that we will need to look at different scenarios as the project goes forward but we will always put the safety of the children first and are very grateful for your cooperation.

The end result of this disruption is going to be a fantastic school so please bear with us while these alterations are being made.

Kind regards

Mrs Worgan