Dear Parents and Carers,

I wanted to take a moment to highlight a recent update from Roblox—a popular platform among many young people—that introduces new parental control features designed to give families greater transparency, oversight, and control over children’s online activity.

New Features Now Available on Roblox

Roblox has launched several key tools that allow parents and carers to tailor their child’s digital experience more closely, including the ability to:

• Block specific users from their child’s friend list, removing messaging and engagement with that person.
• Block individual games or experiences, beyond general content maturity settings, for more precise content management.
• Track the time spent on Roblox and gain insights into which experiences children are engaging with most.

To access these features, parents must link their own verified Roblox account—a safeguard ensuring only trusted individuals can adjust parental settings.

Updated Roblox Safety Centre

Roblox has also redesigned its Safety Centre as a one-stop hub for resources, guides, and reporting tools to help support safe and informed usage of the platform.

While no system is ever completely secure, these developments are a positive step. They reinforce the importance of combining technical tools with education, support, and most importantly —open conversation. Discussing online safety and gradually involving young people in these decisions can encourage greater digital responsibility and trust.

At Hodnet, we continue to support pupils in becoming responsible digital citizens and encourage families to stay informed and engaged with their child’s online world. Should you wish to learn more about Roblox’s safety features or need support navigating them, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

Thank you for your continued support,

Mrs Lyall.

Academy photography staff will be in school on 10th June to take the class and group photographs, these will happen within the school day. Proofs will then be sent home for families to purchase either online directly or via the return envelope.

As from today (7.5.25) we have moved our uniform supplier from Stitchdesign to Mapac. Mapac used to provide the garments to Stitchdesign, so we are aiming to offer a more streamlined sustainable service by using the direct supplier.

Any outstanding orders will be fulfilled by Mapac in conjunction with Stitchdesign, please can all new orders be placed through Mapac using the link below.

www.mapac.com

On Friday 20th June we will be hosting our Father’s day lunch. This is the same day as sports day, we have chosen this date with duplicate events based on feedback from previous years when families found it tricky to get time off work for multiple events in quick succession.

Please see the information on parent pay to sign up for the lunch.

THIS IS OUR FAMILY

St Luke’s Church, Hodnet – Family Weekend

14th and 15th June, 10am-4pm

We invite all the children in the parish to create something which reflects an important person or people in their lives, whether it be family, friend, or pet.  This could be a painting, drawing, piece of craft, flower decoration, a poem – whatever springs to mind when thinking of that special relationship.

Closing date for entries is Friday 6th June when they will be picked up from Hodnet School.  Your entry needs to have your full name and age on the back of it or on an accompanying note.  Alternatively you can bring your entry to St Luke’s Church on Saturday 7th June between 10am and 12 noon.

Every entrant will receive a special certificate.  There will be a prize for the three best entries: ages 4-6, 7-9 and 10-12.

All entries will be displayed in St Luke’s over the weekend of 14th and 15th June for everyone to see.  The church will be decorated with flowers and the historical records will be available for children to see if their parents or grandparents were christened, married, or buried at St Luke’s.

If you have a small photo of a local wedding or baptism, bring a copy to hang on our ‘family tree’.

Church tower tours will be run from 10am – 12 noon (adults only).

A special ‘Songs of Praise’ is to be held on Sunday 11am-12 noon reflecting on ‘Our Church Family’ and there will be a chance to vote for your favourite hymn to be included in the service.

Are you interested in helping children to play and thrive at lunchtime? If so we would like to hear from you!

In September we will have a vacancy on our staff team for a lunchtime supervisor to work for 1 hour per day, 5 days a week. 12-1pm.

Please see Mrs Lyall for further information before 16th May.

Anyone interested in this post will be subject to enhanced safeguarding and right to work checks as part of the necessary safer recruitment process.

We are in need of some new football kits or general sporting kits for school and would like to know if any parents know of any local sponsorship or support towards costs.

Our children are so passionate about sport and we facilitate lots of competitions, both at inter school and county level, but we are in need of some kit to ensure we look as super as we play!

If you could support this in anyway, please see Miss Manton our PE & Sports lead or Mrs Lyall.

Some of our children in a range of classes, both KS1 and KS2, have shared that they have contact with pupils outside school using WhatsApp. A reminder that the age rating guidance for using WhatsApp is 13 years old. Staff are increasingly finding that they are dealing with issues relating to fall outs or discussions using communication channels or other social media platforms, which then impacts on school life. Staff can then be occupied dealing with issues instead of leading learning. We kindly ask that families support us as we endeavour to keep children safe online and reduce online bullying impacting children’s education.