School vacancies
We have 2 vacancies on our local governing board, interested parties are reminded to follow the steps to nominate within the details sent out last week. This information can also be found on our vacancies page and governance page.
We also have a vacancy in our school kitchen to cover maternity leave, required from February. Please see details on our vacancy page.
See Mrs O’Connor for further details.
Parents survey results
Thank you to the families who completed the questionnaires at our recent parents evening sessions. We has 70 responses, which is about 50% uptake as we have 142 families in school. This is a greater response than we had in July, with more families choosing to complete paper forms, only 11 completed using the QR code. Highlighting that sometimes a move back from digital is worth considering! Many thanks again, the responses are overwhelmingly positive with 100% of those who completed the survey stating that they would recommend our school. This is delightful news. Hodnet is a great school, we know this, our children and families know this, and we are delighted that you have shared this with us.
In the results attached you will see that I have put the % data for each of the boxes and added a column to combine Strongly Agree and Agree, showing an overall positive response figure.
Parent Questionnaire Results November 2025
Breakfast
A nutritious breakfast is the best way to start the day, preparing children for their day ahead, giving them the energy they need to keep going until morning break snack time or even lunchtime for those who do not have a playtime snack.
We will be doing some work about breakfast choices in some classes in school as we are finding that some children either do not have breakfast at all, or are having high sugar content breakfasts leading them to have spikes in their concentration and learning attitudes throughout the morning.
We can offer free breakfast club to pupils eligible for income based free school meals, and we are always willing to offer fruit or toast to pupils who occasionally come in without breakfast at home – we want pupils to feel safe and secure to learn, they can’t do this if they are hungry.
Please see Mrs Lyall to enquire about Breakfast Club places, the support we can offer is linked to our Pupil Premium funding spending offer, it is not in relation to publicised free breakfast clubs for schools. We are not part of this government led initiative as yet, as we do not qualify under the current criteria.
Reminders – playtime snacks are provided for classes R, 1 & 2 via the national fruit scheme. Children in other classes can bring a piece of fruit to eat at playtime. Fruit only please, no nuts or seeds due to allergens.
Some websites with breakfast ideas:
Healthy breakfast ideas – Healthier Families – NHS
Healthy breakfasts for kids
20 breakfast ideas for kids | Good Food
Celebrating Success. Book Worm 21.11.25
Well done to everyone who received awards or shoutouts this week, we are very proud of you.
Today we celebrated reading in our celebration assembly, with praise for lots of children for their reading at home and reading throughout the curriculum in school.
- Class R – Jacob
- Class 1 – Oliver B
- Class 2 – Ella
- Class 3 – Esmae
- Class 4 – Kiaan
- Class 5 – Lola
- Class 6 – Harriet
Congratulations to all our chosen Book Worms, your reading at home and school was excellent this week.
Remember to keep up those good reading habits.
Celebrating Success. Certificate of Achievement 21.11.25
Well done to everyone who received awards or shout outs today. We are very proud of you.
- Class R – Theo for always working hard, listening carefully and trying his best.
- Class 1 – Harry C for improved participation in lessons and enthusiasm for his work. Well done!
- Class 2 – Arlo for showing our school values, a fantastic learning role model.
- Class 3 – James for a fantastic week this week, well done!
- Class 4 – Harper for being focuses, driven, determined and always getting on with her work to the best of her ability.
- Class 5 – Leo for always displaying our school values, a lovely hardworking member of our class.
- Class 6 – Milly H for having a positive can do attitude, great participation – well done!
- Raffle ticket – Isabelle S
- EY/KS1 Headteacher’s award – Phoebe L in class 1 for fantastic independent learning, engaged and getting on with her learning following our values.
- KS2 Headteacher’s award – All of Class 4 for being superb learners, for being on task, fully engaged and collectively supporting each other to be the best that they can be. Amazing! Class 4 were highlighted by Mrs Lyall this week and an external visitor to class with Mrs Williams today, they have blown us away – keep it up!
- Lunchtime award – Jake in class 2 for creating exciting games with his friends at lunchtime.
School lunches
We would like your feedback about our school lunches. At the moment we are asking our children for feedback, but we will also reach out to parents before Christmas. Please see a member of school staff if you would like to provide immediate feedback.
We are seeing a change in the pattern of packed lunch choices which is causing us to reflect upon our staple choices. For example, this week on roast dinner day over 60 pupils had a packed lunch instead of a school dinner and a further 20 children chose to have a school prepared sandwich, this is considerably more than on other days when we serve sausage or pizza or similar. Highlighting that children and families are choosing to not to eat the more traditional, arguably more nutritious food, leaving us to wonder why this could be. The roast dinner day is our most expensive serving day due to the high cost of the meat, so we will be looking at the menu to see how we can weigh up preferred meals with nutritional content and costings. This is tricky! But we need to look at this going forwards to ensure value in our kitchen in addition to being responsive to the needs of our community.
Your thoughts would be greatly welcomed about this matter.
Weekly House Points 21.11.25
Weekly house point totals are:
Owls =54
Badgers =88
Squirrels =119
Foxes =89
Well done to the Squirrels team this week.
Nursery Education
Please see the information below regarding the future of Early Years Education in Hodnet.
School nursery & preschool joint statement consultation
A paper copy of this information has been sent home with children today along with a parental feedback form to kindly return to school before Friday 28th November. Thank you.
Class 3 exciting visitors
Thank you to Dr Rogers who visited class 3 last week to share his knowledge of rocks and fossils and to Mrs Watts who came in today to teach the children how to do Stone Age flint knapping with former pupil James.
Look out for photos in our classroom area.
End of the day procedures
A polite reminder to inform school if your child is being collected by someone other than their parent or the person who usually collects them. Also if circumstances change during the day meaning that children are no longer attending a pre-booked club. In order to keep children safe at the end of the day, we need to be fully informed about childcare plans, thank you. Please see our procedures document for further information.
Beginning and end of day procedures 2025 28
Parking
Thank you to the families who park considerately and legally at drop off and pick up times, keeping our children safe.
Some polite reminders:
- Please do not park in the turning circle on The Grove.
- Please do not block the school car park entrance, emergency access is required at all times.
- Please park respectfully on the WMC car park, aiming to fit cars neatly spaced to allow many families to use this parking option.
- Please do not park on the yellow zig zags.
Thank you.
Early Help coffee and chat events
Please see the timetable of events held at Raven House.