Ashton Gate Primary School Newsletter

Welcome to the new look Ashton Gate Primary School newsletter. We hope this new system will help make the newsletters easier and faster to read, and help make sure you don’t miss any important information. Here are a few of the improvements…

• The mobile-friendly layout means you no longer need to zoom in and pan around to read the newsletter on phones and tablets.
• Use the year group filters to hide stories that relate to specific year groups. The newsletter will remember which year groups you’ve hidden and automatically filter them when you open the next newsletter.
• The table of contents summarises the stories in this edition. Use the In this edition section to jump to specific stories.
• The new system is more accessible. It should be much easier to use with assistive technologies such as screen readers.
• Important dates for your diary stand out more and you can tap the button next to each one to quickly add the event to your own calendar.
• You can now subscribe to the term dates calendar to see school holidays and inset days in your own calendar. Once you’ve subscribed, new terms and inset days will be added automatically every year.
• Important or useful links now appear as buttons so they stand out more and you can more easily take action if needed.

This tool is brand new, created for us by a parent at the school. We would really appreciate your feedback, especially if you run into any problems or have suggestions to make it even better.

Thank you so much to Dr Susie Davies for her talk this week to parents and carers in our local community about ‘The Power of Play’. It was an inspiring and powerful presentation about how parents can help to support their children in the digital world that we live in today.

There is further information about this and her work to empower parents and young people to make informed choices about smartphones, social media and screens here: https://www.papayatalks.com/resources

We have observed road safety concerns and illegal parking on double yellow lines on Greenway Bush Lane near to the School Street barrier location. To ensure the rules of the road are being followed, and to ensure the safety of the children at Ashton Gate Primary School, parking enforcement has been informed and will be doing patrols.

As the school community, you are able to make a huge difference – improving road safety for all children attending the School. The map below shows a 5-10 minute Walking Bubble, your school is centred in the middle of the map, and the surrounding circle illustrates to a 5-10 minute walk to and from the school.

If your home is inside the walk zone, it means that you live very close to the school and that active travel could be a great option for you. If you’re not already, why don’t you try walking, scooting or cycling to school? Parents, if you need the car to travel to work, it may be quicker and easier to leave it parked at home while you do the school run. 

If you live outside of the walk zone, in order to reduce congestion at the school gate we would like those who currently arrive by car to try parking outside of the zone and walking or scooting the rest of the way to school. You may even find it takes you less time than trying to find somewhere to park near the school gates.

We also have a Park and Stride agreement with Aldi, so you are able to park in Aldi car park and walk to school from there. 

Following on from last year’s successful 6 Nations Rugby Event held at the Ashton Site (and all the great feedback we had about how much fun it was), we’re pleased to announce that we’ll be holding another one this year!

England will take on Wales at Twickenham on Saturday 7th February during the opening weekend of the 2026 Six Nations Championship.

We’ll be showing the game at the Ashton Site Hall. We’ll have our usual fully stocked bar with beers from our local Bristol Beer Factory and snacks will be available during the match.

We have also teamed up again with Pimms Pizza, so if you would like to order a pizza for the match you can do so via our website and it will be delivered during the event.

Event details

Doors open: 4.15pm
Kick Off: 4.45pm
Bar closes on final whistle around 7:00pm (ish)
Tickets are £2 per adult but kids go free!

Tickets and pizza orders must be placed by 4th February.

We look forward to seeing you there no matter who you will be cheering on and remember that all the money raised during the event will go straight to the school.

You can purchase tickets and order you pizza by following this link:

Regular school attendance is one of the best ways to help your child succeed. When children come to school every day, they keep up with their learning, build confidence in their skills, and develop good routines that set them up for the future. Every day at school matters—it helps your child stay on track and get the most out of their education.

It is also important to arrive at school on time. If a child arrives late to school every day, their learning begins to suffer. Below is a graph showing how being late to school every day over a school year adds up to lost learning time over one academic year.

Please remember to order your child’s lunch before 10pm on a Wednesday. If your child only has a meal once a week, you will still need to book this.

We are still having a lot of children who do not have a lunch booked with no packed lunch. Please remember the default meal is always salad bar. No other option will be available.

Please remember not to order a school lunch if your child is on a school trip, where a packed lunch is required. If you have already booked a meal for this date, the meal can be cancelled by the payer until 10pm on a Wednesday for the following week. As all food is pre-ordered there will be no refunds issued for non-cancelled meals.

A reminder that we are a nut free school. Please do not send your child to school with snacks/packed lunch with items containing nuts. This includes items such as Pesto, filled crepes and chocolate spread.

We are now on Facebook. Please like our page, we will be using this page to celebrate events and learning moments taking place across the school. We encourage you to invite other parents and family members to join as well, so that too can be part of our vibrant school network. Rest assured, our Facebook page will prioritise the privacy and security of our children. We will follow all the necessary precautions and guidelines to protect identities and ensure a safe online environment.

Studybugs is no longer in use. Please record any illnesses/medical appointments using the Arbor parent portal app. For planned absences please complete the online form on the attendance page of our website.