Mon 2nd Mar | 3.30pmOpen Classrooms

Tues 3rd Mar | 3.30pm – 5.30pmReception Parents Evening

Wed 4th Mar | 4.30pm – 7pmReception Parents Evening

Thurs 5th MarY6 Class Assembly

Thurs 5th MarWorld Book Day

Fri 6th Mar | 3.20pmBook Swap

Fri 6th MarFOPHS Film Night

Thurs 12th MarSIP Governor Committee

Fri 13th MarComic Relief

Thurs 19th MarY5 Class Assembly

Tues 24th MarPupil Progress Meetings

Tues 24th MarFull Governor Committee

Thurs 26th Mar | 5pmCurriculum Evening

Value of the monthHaving gone through all the values in the last two years, we begin again with Empathy. I have been working with the school council to review our list of values so look out for some policy tweaks in October. We would also love to hear from parents if you feel any values are missing from our list.

We had a lot of fun swapping shoes, listening to some of the muppet characters explaining empathy and doing some practical activities to test how good our own empathy skills are. Following on from this, and in light of recent news events, we tied empathy to the problems of racism and the children saw, through listening to other children, how we can use this value to understand the richness of the world around them.

Martin Smith, Headteacher

Upcoming events

ISSUE 27 | February 2015

Cycling Proficiency Come rain or shine, older children are always given cycling proficiency lessons from our friendly instructors. Their expertise helps children to know how to ride a bike safely on the road. This year, they have practiced navigating a junction, using the correct hand signals and turning left and right into adjacent roads.

Harman in Y5 commented that he felt the course had been really useful and that he felt he was safer riding a bike on the roads as a result of his adventures this week.

Don’t forget that we have a cycle park in school. If your child is in Y5 or Y6 and we have parental consent, they may use the park to ride to and from school each day!

E-Safety Workshop

Thank you to all who attended the E-Safety workshop.

We had a good evening thinking through cyberbullying, grooming and inappropriate websites using the CEOPs materials.

If you missed this event but would like a copy of the materials used, you can find them in the entrance lobby in one of the racks.

Thank you for the great feedback – we will update the quiz next time we run the event!

Put yourself insomeone else's shoes

Young VoicesWe have worked very hard to improve the quality of music across the school and really want to inspire a love of this subject. I’m sure you’ll agree from this selection of photos that the children really enjoyed their time at the O2 arena. They were joined by choirs from all around the country and it is lovely to see the pride they had in their performance and representing the school. A big thank you to all staff and parents who gave time to ensuring this extremely long day was a successful one!

Week of 09/01/15

Reception: Abigail HookYear 1: Finley CorcoranYear 2: Hayden MarshYear 3: Lewis WelfareYear 4: Ryan PearceYear 5: Libbe HoulihanYear 6: Holly Prosser Week of 16/01/15

Reception: Dominic ReynoldsYear 1: Isla AldermanYear 2: Lincoln HylandYear 3: Ryan BarnesYear 4: Bobby WrightYear 5: Ella BroadbentYear 6: Liana Statie Week of 27/02/15

Reception: Louie EdmundYear 1: Zohha AlviYear 2: Lila RanceYear 3: Harrison LeeksYear 4: Elliot ClarksonYear 5: Harman WaliaYear 6: Nicholas Martinez-Wise

Stars ofthe week

to everyone!Well done

Books, books, books…To celebrate world book day, we have several events happening this year.

Monday 2nd March will see the launch of our sponsored reading challenge and an assembly by Usborne books.

On Thurs 5th March, we would like children to dress as their favourite book character. We will have a programme of fun activities running throughout the day.

The final event on Friday 6th March will be a book swap taking place in the school hall from 3.20pm where children have the chance to bring an old book and swap it for another one.

Parent ForumThank you to those who have agreed to be a class representative on the parent forum – which will be in touch shortly with a date and time for our first meeting. However, we are still looking for representation in Y1, Y4, Y5 and Y6. This is a chance as parents to give views and opinions which will shape future policies and decisions in homework, behaviour, etc.

Please refer to the recent letter sent out or view it on our website under the letters section.

Front EntrancePlease could I ask all parents to ensure they bring their children into the playground on a morning via the side gate. We have recently had a number of parents dropping off via the front entrance and this is making it difficult for teachers to spot who is here to register. If for any reason you are late, your child should go via the front entrance so we can log attendance appropriately.

As an inclusive school, we are richer and better for the experience of having a number of children at school with a diagnosis of autism. If you’ve ever wondered what this is or what this means, come and join Mrs Fitzgerald and some of our parents who will be speaking about their own personal experiences. The event will be taking place on Thursday 2nd April at 5.30pm and will last for approximately an hour. We have designed this course around parents of non-autistic children.

Curriculum Showcase EveningJoin Mr Smith, Mrs Thingsaker and the teaching staff on Thursday 26th March at 5pm for a evening on the new curriculum. We will explain our journey of how we developed our new national curriculum to be exciting and engaging whilst meeting new government standards. On show will be some behind the scenes information on how we plan and prepare and what it looks like for each class in practice. We will also discuss the future of assessment as the school prepares for life without national curriculum levels.

It has been a very busy year of government reforms, the likes of which have not seen in over 30 years. Come along and find out what this looks like in practice!

Autism Awareness Evening

Year 3 and 4 battled the weather and had a wonderful day out at Celtic Harmony to support their stone age topic. The children learnt about the early methods of creating fire with flint. They also learnt how, as Celts, they would’ve created their own encampment in the woods, hunted for food and how early trade started to evolve.

NB. All trips on our new curriculum have been planned to best suit a topic and the feedback from the children is that they are certainly enjoying the outings with a tighter focus towards what they are learning. (See below for more details)

Celtic Harmony Trip