Headteacher’s News 3-2-23

WOW! Check out this home learning! Elizabeth in 2JV loved her non-fiction reading book ‘How to make a peach treat’ so much that she has been busy teaching her family how to make one! It looked delicious!

Well done Elizabeth – This is amazing!

Class 3RW loved their visit to the school library this week. Some of our fabulous readers enjoyed finding ‘Flat Stanley’ books, with the help of Mrs Cousins who always kindly helps us find the books we love to read! We’ve just finished enjoying our class read, ‘Flat Stanley The Egyptian Grave Robbery’ and loved discussing our favourite parts of the story. Did you know we are actually writing to Sara Pennypacker too? Sara is now one of the authors of these books. However the books were originally created by Jeff Brown! We have Sara Pennypacker’s address in Massachusetts, USA and are composing a letter! Mrs Robertson and Mrs Wanless have enjoyed seeing Y3 writing skills in action, e.g. Use of paragraphs, punctuating question sentences and extending sentences with subordinating conjunctions (because, if, when and although). Well done Class 3RW.⭐️

Class EYRR have really enjoyed reading our new special text “What the Ladybird Heard.” Grandma fantastic brought us this focus text and enjoyed listening to us identify the characters, setting and creating predictions and solutions when exploring the plot points. We then decided to write our own stories using the listening fantastic and we independently read the sounds on the speed sounds charts to read and write our own farm setting stories.

In 4AA, the children have been learning about working as a team to achieve a goal. Each group was challenged to enter a ‘Funniest Potato Person’ competition. The children have designed, named and given their potato person a very unique job title. We are currently in the process of making these and we will be having a vote next week for the funniest potato. The children have been working incredibly hard in their teams and we are all excited to see the end results!

Attendance Matters

Whole school average to 03-02-2023 = 93.0%

This is above the national average for all schools (92.3%)) Great news!

But below the national average for primary schools (93.7%). Not so great news!

This week’s attendance was only 92.12% (Aiming for 95% next week – come on we can do it!!)

Well done to 4WV who had the highest attendance this week with 96.77%

For our children to gain the greatest benefit from their education, it is vital that they attend regularly, so  your child should be at school, on time, every day the school is open unless the reason for the absence is  unavoidable.

Nationally, pupils with the highest attainment and best rate of progress at the end of key stage 2 and key stage 4 have higher rates of attendance compared to those with the lowest attainment.

Parents/carers, staff and Governors can gain further information and help from the DFE publication “Working Together To Improve School Attendance”: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-improve-school-attendance

School Advisor Visit

This week we were visited by our school advisor on Monday. Among the areas of interest we looked at in school were: the curriculum plan, maths across school and attendance.

Our curriculum plan has and will always be a work in progress to ensure it reflects what our community of children need to learn and want to learn. We will always provide a wide variety of learning opportunities across all national curriculum subjects while your child(ren) attend Northstead.

Maths in school continues to be taught using https://whiterosemaths.com/ schemes of learning. Further work at home to consolidate key maths concepts and knowledge is always useful. https://www.schofieldandsims.co.uk/maths/ provide many useful maths books for your child to use at home and I know from experience of using these at home and in the classroom that they are an excellent addition to your child learning maths in school.

Our advisor was very impressed with our attendance procedures and how we both manage, report and encourage good attendance at school.

Vacancies – Cleaning Operative

Vacancies

Bikes, Scooters and Blades

Thanks to all of our parents and carers who support school in ensuring our playgrounds are a safe space for all of our community. However, there are still a minority of children who are riding their bikes, scooters and blades in our playgrounds and this is causing a danger to everyone else. Support school – bikes, scooters and blades must not be used in our playgrounds or on our premises.

Don’t forget…

As a child of Northstead Primary School we offer the children free online access to www.ttrockstars.co.uk www.spellingshed.com and for the older children Atom Prime to enable them to revise and learn more at home if they choose to.

Other news.. (Next week)

We look forward to the visit of Richard Buck, a local athlete and actor who will be sharing his skills, knowledge and experience with the children on Thursday. An email to all parents about arrangements for this day has been sent today.

Have a great weekend everyone and we look forward to our last week of half term next week.

Mr S.C. Hopper

Headteacher