This week, children have been enthusiastically learning about all things community-related as part of our Me and My Community themed week.
Highlights included Grandad Wheels, sessions considering stereotypes and diversity, a walk to the village library and the opportunity for parents to join in Wake Up, Shake Up.
Speak with your child about some of the learning they’ve done this week linked to communities.
There’s another themed week later in the year – Being Healthy.
Our new school charity
Part of our Me and My Community themed week involved the selection of our school charity. Last year, our charity was Leeds Hospitals Charity. This year, the shortlist was selected by the Admin people across Sphere Federation. The six charities were then discussed in class before our new Junior Leadership Team met to agree the final charity.
They’ve selected Willow Foundation as the charity we’ll support this year.
We’ll raise some money across the year for the charity – the main way will be collections at Christmas and end-of-year performances.
STOP!
Next Tuesday (12 November) is Anti-Bullying Day. This year’s theme is Choose Respect and we’ll be taking part in Odd Socks Day on this day.
Odd Socks Day celebrates that we’re all unique. Children are invited to wear odd socks (with their uniform), marking the fact we’re all different in some way. Part of Anti-Bullying Day, the day sends an important message to pupils that they should be allowed to be themselves, free from bullying. It helps us celebrate Anti-Bullying Day in a fun and positive way.
Our weekly Living and Learning statement next week is I know how to STOP bullying. This is one of the most important Living and Learning statements. Make sure you and your child talk about our two STOP acronyms:
- Several Times On Purpose
- Start Telling Other People
Beyond next week, please keep talking about these – one’s a definition of bullying and the other’s a solution. Talk about the differences between falling out and bullying, and between a one-off situation and something that’s happened more than once.
Check out this anti-bullying advice for parents and carers.
Happy and healthy and safe
We’re confident that all the things we do are effective in keeping children safe but we like to make sure we go over and above, so we can keep getting better and better. That’s why we invited someone from the local authority to visit us to carry out a comprehensive check and evaluation around safeguarding.
The checks were certainly thorough! In total, there were 75 points coverig a whole range of things, such as recruitment, staff training, teaching pupils about staying safe, and health and safety.
We’re delighted to say the audit (23.10.24) went really well:
- 68 areas were rated green (meaning safeguarding arrangements are in place and meet the required minimum standard)
- 7 areas were rated pink (safeguarding practice identified as exemplary)
Thanks to Miss Hague and all the pupils and staff who were involved.
Every day matters
We’re delighted that our whole school attendance figure for Autumn 1 is 96.6%:
- higher than our 2023-24 figure
- higher than the 2024-25 national figure so far (in fact, we’re in the top third of primary schools nationally for attendance)
Let’s keep this up! Thank you for helping to make sure your child attends school as much as possible.
Linked to this is the second of a series of messages about what a child misses if they’re absent for a prolonged time. We know children are ill sometimes – that’s inevitable – but regular holidays or unnecessary absences mean children really struggle. This time, we focus on Reading.
If your child was absent for five days in a row…
If your child misses five consecutive days, it’s likely there would be gaps in their knowledge, confidence or skills.
- In Reading lessons, we practise a wide range of reading skills like prediction, performing poetry and inference.
- Your child would also miss reading texts which would support their writing skills; we analyse model texts before we write them.
- They’d miss our fluency text for the week, too, meaning they’d miss out on the opportunity to develop their confidence when reading aloud, and to discover a range of new words or facts about our current topic.
- If your child’s in Key Stage 1, they’d miss out on five daily poem sessions and five class story times – really popular times for children.
- If your child’s in Key Stage 2, they’d miss their new target page agreed with the rest of their group in Book Club and miss out on the discussion about the story so far.
- They’d miss out on a few chapters of the class novel and could be confused for the rest of the book.
- Missing five days means a child would miss out on their weekly library visit – they’d not be able to choose a new library book.