6th January 2015
Dear Parents/Carers and children,
Welcome back to school, I hope you all had a good Christmas break and wish you all a very happy
new year.
Ofsted Report-I am very pleased to inform you that our successful Ofsted report and judgements can
now be shared and will be published on the Ofsted website on Monday 12th January. We are very
pleased that the inspectors judged us to be a good school in all areas inspected. The process was
extremely rigorous and we feel the report is a fair reflection of where we are currently as a school.
The inspection team agreed with our own self-evaluation of the school and our identified areas of
development. Mr Parkin and I observed lessons alongside the inspection team and were very
pleased that the inspectors judged that teaching is consistently good throughout school and also
outstanding in some cases. The development points give us a clear plan to move on to becoming an
outstanding school in all areas.
Attached to this letter is a summary of the key findings for parents and pupils, the full report is
available on the school website.
Wisdom-This half term the key value we are focussing on is wisdom. We started the term yesterday
with a collective worship when we talked and thought about two questions: ‘What is wisdom?’ and
‘Is being clever different to being wise?’ We talked about owls being a symbol of wisdom and I
launched a challenge to the children to create a wise owl.
Create an owl model, paint or draw an owl, knit an owl, sew an owl, junk model an owl, make a
wooden owl or perhaps a paper owl, how creative can you be?
Bring your owl to school on Monday 9th February and we will share the creativity and celebrate
wisdom in our collective worship. We will also find a way to display all the owls for parents and
carers to see.
Music-Our curriculum focus this half term is music. Each class will be exploring music linked to their
Cornerstones projects and we are also planning some whole school music events. Year 2 to Year 6
will enjoy a concert this Friday provided by the school music service.
Can you help us? Do you play a musical instrument? Could you come and play for the children and
talk about the instrument that you play? It would be great to introduce the children to a variety of
instruments and styles of music.
New clubs on offer-As part of our music focus we are launching 2 new clubs, a KS2 choir for Y4 to Y6
and a singing club for Y2 and Y3. The KS2 choir will be running each Monday from 3.15-4.15pm in the
Y2 classroom and will be led by Mr Whitrick and Mr Nutting and the Y2 and Y3 singing club will meet
from 12.30-1pm each Monday and will be led by Mrs Nutting. There is no charge for either of these
clubs. Look out for letters coming home.
Progress Reports-Children will bring home autumn term progress reports on Friday this week, if you
have any questions about these please speak to your child’s class teacher.
Class Newsletters-These will also come home at the end of the week and will inform you about
learning and activities this half term. The Spring 1 maths KIRFs (Key Instant Recall Facts) will also
come home this week.
Celebration Assembly-Friday 9th January-at this assembly we will present Star of the Autumn Term
awards, attendance certificates and the Peace Prize for the Autumn Term.
Year 1 Staffing- Today we welcomed Mrs Jayne Rix who will share the teaching in Year 1 with Miss
Vaughan. Mrs Rix will teach the class from Monday to Thursday lunchtime and Miss Vaughan will
teach on Thursday afternoon and Friday. They will have some overlap time on Thursday for planning
and handover. In this first week Miss Vaughan has kindly agreed to work alongside Mrs Rix on
Monday and Tuesday to help to get to know the class and settle the children. Please feel welcome to
pop in and say hello, both teachers are keen to get to know you all.
Exciting and fun learning! -This week the children will start work on their exciting new learning
projects.
‘The school’s lively, rich curriculum engages pupils’ interests fully and they become absorbed in their
learning. Pupils agree that ‘learning is fun!’ Ofsted Dec 2014
Spring 1 Imaginative Learning Projects
* Year 1-Rio de Vida
* Year 2-Beat Band Boogie
* Year 3-Heroes and Villains
* Year 4-Playlist
* Year 5-Alchemy Island
* Year 6-Frozen Kingdom
Please take time to talk to your child about their learning and feel welcome to drop in at the
beginning or end of the day so that they can show you their classroom.
We are all looking forward to another exciting year, thank you for your ongoing support.
Kathrine Nutting
Headteacher