Lane End
September - Newsletter 2 (10th September 2015)
Dear Parents/Carers,
We’ve had an excellent start to term and the new Reception children are settling in very well indeed. It’s great to see each class hard at work and enjoying their time in school.
Curriculum maps have gone home this week and we hope that you find these useful. Please do remember that there is a great deal of information for parents about school on our website – the website now has a fresh new look and should be easier to navigate around. Please let me know how you find the experience and if there is anything else we could do to improve it.
A school calendar is attached for your information. This is also on the website in the ‘Parents’ section. Our first PTA meeting of the year is on Wednesday 23rd September at 7:30pm (all welcome) – following this we will update the calendar with planned PTA events for the year.
One event to point out from the calendar (and apologies if it is a bit too soon to mention Christmas!) is our iSing Pop Christmas concert. For those parents who remember our last iSing Pop concert a few years ago at the Methodist Church you’ll know that this is something to get excited about! All the children will be involved and a professional singing coach will be in school to help us learn the songs and record a Christmas CD! We’ll then have a whole school concert at the Methodist Church on Thursday December 10th at 6:30pm. This will replace our infant nativity and junior carol concerts just for this year. So that the Year 2 children don’t miss out on taking the lead roles in a nativity they will perform one to their parents on Wednesday 9th December at 2:30pm. We will also have a Christmas Music Concert for our woodwind players, guitarists and choir on Tuesday 15th December at 6pm. So lots to look forward to! You can find out more about iSing Pop on their website: www.isingpop.com It’s worth a look – particularly as our children star in the video on the site!
Visitors - Another exciting musical opportunity for the whole school to let you know about is coming up later this month. On Friday 25th September two musicians from the acclaimed Hallé Orchestra will be performing in school for ‘Start Your School Day the Hallé Way’. This is an inspirational opportunity for our children to experience the talents and hard work of two world class musicians. Ewan Easton MBE is the principal tuba player for the Hallé and Jim Muirhead plays bass clarinet and keyboard.
We have another exciting visitor who will be visiting our junior children later this half term - Jim Smith, author of the Barry Loser books (which won the Book Awards the current Year 5 and 6 were involved in last year) will be sharing his writing insights with the junior children.
Trimtrail – our trimtrail is now complete and looks fantastic. I am very pleased that we were able to get the extra funding for the better flooring as it has finished it off so well. The glue for the flooring needs to completely set and then the children will be able to start using it from tomorrow (Friday) after assembly. We have timetabled each class to have a slot tomorrow as the children are excited about using it for the first time. We will also be able to talk about how to use it safely. From next week there is a timetable which enables each class to have three playtime sessions over the week.
Please could you help by making sure your children follow these simple rules:
- Don’t use the trimtrail before school (there isn’t time or enough supervision)
- Children can use it after school if supervised by a parent/carer if you would like them to – your children will be your responsibility at this time and they must use it sensibly if you allow them. Please also be aware of how many children are on it and don’t allow your child to go on if there are too many children there. We have the trimtrail as a feature of the school from now on so there is plenty of time to use it and we have reminded the children of this too!
- Junior children who walk home without their parent/carer should go straight home as always. All other children should have left school with their parent/carer by 4pm at the very latest if they are not at a club.
- Don’t use the trimtrail after clubs (there isn’t time or enough supervision)
Although the children can use the trimtrail from Friday we have our official grand opening on 23rd September at 9:30am – the Lord Mayor is coming to cut the cord! Parents are welcome so please stay around for that if you’ve done drop off in the morning. Thank you again for all the support in getting the trimtrail installed – it really has been a whole school community effort led so well by the PTA.
Thank you for the responses to our parent questionnaires at the end of last year. It is very rewarding for us all to receive such positive feedback and know that the overwhelming majority of parents are very pleased with our school. I think that the whole school community can be proud about how well the school and our children are doing. We are always aiming to improve further and the full questionnaire analysis and our improvement plan for parents will be on the school website soon. In the meantime there are a couple of points we have addressed which it will be useful to know about: class assemblies and target setting.
Class Assemblies - We have had feedback in Parents’ Questionnaires about the timing of our class assemblies and recognise that it isn’t always easy for parents to arrange the 10:10am start time. We know that an earlier start time would be appreciated, particularly by working parents and it would be more convenient to hold the assemblies sooner after morning drop-off. We have also found it hard to accommodate rehearsal time in the hall for two assemblies for each class over the year with the hall being used for P.E. lessons, dinners, assemblies etc. etc. – this has been particularly difficult in the summer term with junior production rehearsals. The need to rehearse before the assembly was a main part of the reason for the later start time. We are therefore going to hold one class assembly for each class each year when parents/carers will be invited and this class assembly will start at 9:20am. Class teachers will send a letter home in good time before their assembly is due. Please come in through the community room as previously where you can wait for the short time after drop-off. I hope that this helps everybody out!
Target Setting - We need to try to simplify our target setting process so that targets are easy to give to the children, responsive to their needs and communicated effectively with parents. Our target/challenge books (from year 2 onwards) weren’t as successful as we had hoped and were probably over-complicated. It’s good to try new things and when things don’t work we’re always happy to learn and move forward (modelling our growth mindset!). This year we have stuck target sheets in the back of the children’s maths and English books – these fold out so they can be seen during lessons and when teachers are marking. When your child has a new target (at least once a half term) this will be photocopied and sent home to you – please help support your child with this target and ask us if you have any questions about how to do this. We’ll also be able to share these targets with you at Parents Evening. Reception children will continue with their ‘next steps’ which we are also carrying forward into Year 1. These will also come home for parents to help support us with. This should help us work together to support your child in a more effective way.
My Zambia Visit – following the successful visit of the teachers from Zambia in June and over the last few years and visits by Mr Vallance and Miss Rainey to Zambia, it’s now my turn! I will be going to visit our partner schools in Zambia along with the headteachers from St Simons and St Peters. I will be able to bring back the stories of my travels and share cultural and educational insights with the children on my return. I fly after school on Friday 2nd October and am due back on Sunday 11th October. Mrs Love will be in charge whilst I am away (along with Mr Toyne on Tuesday).
Lacrosse – please note that Lacrosse club is from 3:15 – 4:15pm starting on Monday (the timings were missing from the club letter). Netball club starts this week (each Thursday) and we’d like to get more children involved – it is open to boys and girls in Year 5 and 6 and you will get the chance to extend your skills and play in netball matches. Please drop us a note if you’d like your child to start next week. Cross country starts next Friday (18th September).
School Sport - Miss Rainey has organised for professional sports coaches to run the curriculum games sessions for Years 1 – 6 this year. We start this term with netball run by Mrs Yvonne Sampson and will be doing tennis run by coaches from Bramhall Lawn Tennis Club in the Spring. In the summer we will be doing gymnastics and cricket. There will also be some Lacrosse coaching sessions for Years 3 – 6 from Mr Peacock and dance teaching for the whole school delivered by dance coaches from Life Leisure. This provision is all in addition to our teacher-led P.E. sessions. All of this expert coaching should develop the children’s skills and fitness even further and allow us to be even more competitive!
Request from Reception – if anyone has any good quality toys (particularly action figures) which they no longer need/want please could you donate them to our Reception class for curriculum/Golden Time. Thank you!
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