Headteacher News 20-10-23

As we approach the last week of half term, we have so much to look back on from this half term and be thankful for.

Two special memories from this week for me…

Harvest sing-a-longs with our EYFS and KS1 children and their parents and carers was very well attended this week and we were able to donate over 200 items to The Rainbow Centre for them to redistribute to our community.

The last week, it was a privilege to spend time away from school with some of our Y6 children on their adventurous activity residential at Peat Rigg residential centre. Having the chance to go canoeing with the children, seeing them take on a high zip-wire and then observing their amazing communication and teamwork skills in action was a real treat for me as a Headteacher. A special thanks to Mrs Linsdell for the organisation and delivery of the trip. Residential trips take months of planning and she carried this out amazingly. A huge thanks as well to Mrs Crowe, Mrs Marsden, Mrs Phipps, Mrs Mitchell, Mrs Waller and Mrs Gunstone for their time and dedication.

Next week (Monday) sees the visit of Rock Kidz UK to school to deliver their amazing message around Anti-Bullying and being proud of yourself. A voluntary donation of £2 per child would be welcomed from parents and carers of our community. Children are welcome to come dressed as a rockstar / popstar for the day. (See your child’s class dojo page for any further details).

Attendance Matters

A big well done to class 7 who head into the last week of this half term at the top of the table for attendance. And to Y2 who lead the year group attendance challenge.

Last week’s attendance winner was class class 4 and the year group winner was year 2.

As we head into the last week we have 262 children who have 100% attendance this half term and 394 children with attendance above 95%.

Letters for those children with attendance below 90% will be sent to parents and carers this week.

We know that there are a number of bugs circulating at the moment, however, it is my job as Headteacher to promote good attendance at our school. If you need any assistance to improve your child’s attendance, please do not hesitate to speak to Mrs Roberts or Mrs James.

News from our year groups...

Year 4 have had another fantastic week of learning! Class 13 and Class 15 had their first school trip of the year visiting Danby Lodge in the beautiful North Yorkshire Moors. In a beautiful setting, we learnt all about the journey of a river, erosion and river habitats! It certainly brought our learning about Rivers in Geography to life! Well done to Connor in Class 15 who managed to catch a trout too! We have also been sorting and classifying leaves in Science. The children have learnt how to identify 6 common leaves and the trees they originate from. I wonder if they can show you next time you are out and about? In writing, we have finished reading the traditional folk tale of ‘The Mermaid of Zennor’. We’ve had such a magical and mythical journey reading this book and enjoyed writing letters to Mermaids and sailors! We are looking forward to writing even more! In Maths, we have started our new unit on Addition and Subtraction and are very pleased with the children’s improving progress in their times table knowledge as well!

Class 12 (Y3) have completed our Science experiment on what plants need to be able to grow well. We have concluded that light, water, warmth and time are key variables. We have also been busy bees; role-playing the process of pollination to the “Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. We have also started to read ‘Duffy’s lucky escape’ in our reading sessions. We have used instruments to create the storm that Duffy gets swept away in and it helped us empathise with her.

Year One