January - Newsletter 12 (27th January 2016)

 

Dear Parents/Carers,

 

Thank you to Mrs Paddison and her team of helpers who sorted out the lost property for us. Anything named has been returned to the children. Unfortunately most of the clothing in the lost property didn’t have a name on. This has been sorted out (into bags of uniform and non-uniform) but needs claiming by Friday – we will recycle any unclaimed items (they are being taken to the Wood Street Mission). There are photos of the clothing on the PTA Facebook page so you can see if anything belongs to your child. This highlights the importance of labelling all clothing that your children wear in school – thank you.

 

Tuesday 9th February is Safer Internet Day and we will be reinforcing important online safety messages to the children during this week. As part of this the Pupil Forum have met with Mr Toyne to discuss how we can help, as the slogan for Safer Internet Day this year is: ‘Play your part for a better internet.’ Each class is designing a poster giving age appropriate safety messages. We will put these together with posters from the children at St Simons and St Peters Primary Schools to create a booklet to share in school. We will also share it with our Zambian partner schools as they are starting to develop the use of technology with their children.

 

There are some excellent websites you can use with your child to discuss internet safety at home too:

 

http://www.saferinternet.org.uk/safer-internet-day/2016/3-11s

 

http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/ (there is a link to this site on the homepage of the VLE)

 

It is certainly worth having a look at these with your child and discussing your rules for using the internet safely.

 

Our Year 6 children are also thinking about road safety next week as they take part in Operation Eagle Eye along with some of the children from Ramillies Hall School. They will be taking part in traffic monitoring activities including speed checks and parking surveys. They will also write a report on the local traffic situation which we will be able to share. The children will be putting up the road safety banner which they designed together outside our schools:

  

Lane End Primary School took its first children on 4th April 1967 and was officially opened on 23rd June 1967. This means that 2017 is our 50th anniversary! We are starting to plan for this special anniversary and hope that you can help. Did you come to Lane End when you were younger or have friends/relatives who did? Could you write us an anecdote or special memory which we may be able to use in a anniversary book we are putting together? We need names and dates within your story/memory. We have been digging out old school documents and photos and Mrs Titterington is starting to put together a school timeline (when the school was built, when it was changed to an infant and junior school and when it was amalgamated again etc.) – if you have any information on key events which could help inform the timeline please also send that to us with as many dates as you know. We’d also like any photos of the building as it was when it was first opened. All stories/memories/information can be emailed to Mrs Titterington: admin@laneend.stockport.sch.uk We will tell you more about our anniversary year plans in due course and look forward to sharing these celebrations with children, parents, staff and friends of the school past and present.

 

Recent staff training has included developing the use of coding for our computing lessons. We have an excellent resource for teaching coding which we use in school which is part of Discovery Education’s ‘Espresso’ software. All teachers attended training on Monday evening and are using the coding software with their class (Years 1 – 6). Our Year 5 and 6 also had an extra lesson with Mr Tidswell, the computing expert who was delivering the training. ‘Espresso’ is available on our VLE at home (just click on the picture) and the coding modules are located in the ‘my services’ section (top right of the homepage). It has ‘block coding’ tools and also modules for the teaching of two programming language: HTML and Python. If your children would like to practise at home then we would recommend experimenting with the challenge zone or the free coding sections of block coding (blocks are either events, objects or actions which are used to program) or the free coding section of the HTML and Python modules.

 

Thank you to CottonPrint (owned by the Mather family – Mia, Harry and Alice’s parents) who generously supplied and printed our new football kit without any cost to the school. The team looked fantastic for their first match in the kit. Although they lost they played very well and can hold their heads high for the rest of the matches this season.

 

 

We have also been represented by our infant gymnasts who performed brilliantly at Stockport Gymnastics Club; coming fourth out of the nine teams. 8 of our cross country runners also took part in a large event at Marple Hall School with great individual and team results. Well done all!

 

Thank you as well to Major Singh Solicitors (owned by Mr Major Singh-Raud, Hardeep’s dad) who have also kindly agreed to fund a new general sports kit which we be able to use when we take teams out for other sports events – this will ensure that our attire matches our great sporting attitude! You’ll see the new kit in play soon!

 

We aim to be approachable and work in partnership with parents, so if there is anything you wish to discuss, please do not hesitate to come and talk to us.

 

Yours sincerely,  

James Twigg

 

 

Forest School Update

 

Dear Parents/Carers,

 

We are very pleased to let you know that we will soon be able to use ‘Lane End Woods’ with the children. Over the Christmas holidays a lot of work was done to part of the wooded area just beyond the school fence. This work has included the making safe of trees and plants as directed by our arboriculturalist’s report (the tree specialist who examined the site), removing much of the brambles and any rubbish etc. A fence was put around the part of the woods which we will be using and a secure access gate from our fence line through to the woods was installed. Much of this work is being kindly funded by our excellent PTA from their fundraising activities which so many of you support and we couldn’t go ahead without this – thank you.

The area is now looking fantastic and we are hoping to start using it as a valuable resource for the whole school very soon. The Forest School philosophy is that Forest School should be an inspirational process, offering children and young people opportunities to achieve, developing confidence and self-esteem, through hands on learning experiences in a local woodland environment.

The kind of activities we will be able to use Lane End Woods for are:

 

Forest School work, including:

Team work, e.g. building a bridge or den from natural resources, flora and fauna identification, confidence and self-esteem building activities which work on the Growth Mindset ethos of learning, tree currency activities (turning the forest into a shop where each item has a value), stick activities (weaving, building, art work, marshmallow sticks), making mud pies and mud creations to name but a few!

Other activities such as:

During English lessons for poetry writing, descriptive writing and settings for fairy tales.

During Art lessons for drawing and painting our environment or creating natural art sculptures.

Science activities on plants and mini beasts, shadows and weather.

Geography activities on mapping skills.

In History looking at the lifetime of a tree.

During Maths for measuring and using the ‘forest shop’.

 

Once the woods is up and running we are going to run sessions for parents to show you some of the exciting things we get up to.

 

I have undertaken a year-long course which has incorporated learning about the Forest School Ethos, how to encourage children to take risks with their learning to build confidence and self-esteem, the setting up of a safe site including the creation of risk assessments, the management of the woodland to ensure it is sustainable, skills training (using tools safely, lighting fires, and building structures) the planning of Forest School sessions, and sixty hours of outdoor and paediatric first aid training which Mrs Parker and Miss Sweeney (Forest School Teaching Assistants) also attended. I will also be carrying out training for our teachers and teaching assistants who will be able to use the woods with their classes for much of the less specialist Forest School work. I will also have opportunities to work on Forest School skills with each year group.

 

How can you help?

 

We need lots of resources to make the woods better and better. If you have any old climbing ropes, sheets, tarpaulins, buckets, brushes, plastic tubs with lids (take away ones), old metal pans, socks, hats and gloves we would really appreciate them for our activities. Please send them into school in a bag marked ‘Forest School’ – thank you. We also need eight wooden pallets to make a wood store and an old stainless steel sink for a mud kitchen. Please let me know if you can help.

Maybe the company you work for can help, particularly if they run fundraising schemes for the community, environmental issues or schools. Mrs Peacock (Amber’s mum in Reception) has kindly bid and won £250 through her work to help resource the woods.

This is a very exciting development for Lane End and one which the children will get a great deal out of. We look forward to updating you on how it is going soon.

 

Best wishes,

Jenni Chamberlain