Weekly Update 203 March 2023 (by admin) |
Dear parents and carers,
Book Week has been a huge success with children really enjoying the finale today- dressing up as a book character. Thank you for all of the effort that went into the costumes. Thank you also to the adults in school who took part in the staff performance of ‘The Three Musketeers’.
Well done to all of the classes for working so hard on their reading areas. I am really impressed with the work of both the pupils and staff in creating these inspirational spaces in the school. These are now on the website, and we invite you to vote for your favourite three. Please click here to view them.
Guitar Assembly
Well done to all the children who took part in the performance on Wednesday morning. It takes so much dedication to learn an instrument and the children made us all so proud. The videos will be available next Tuesday on the website. We will email with the location once they are live.
Cold Weather Warning
We are due to have some extremely cold weather on Monday through to Tuesday. Please do make sure that you send your child into school with a coat and any other items to keep them warm. We will have options for children at breaktimes if it is too cold for them to go outside.
Penalty Notice Update
You may be aware that if a child is repeatedly absent from school parents may be given a penalty notice. This is a fine and is aimed at avoiding taking children out of school during term time. The money from the penalty notices is not given to the school. Instead, it is paid to Hampshire County Council. There is no incentive for the school to issue them other than to keep children in school so that they can learn.
We are increasingly concerned about the families who take children out of school for a number of weeks, especially when there are children in our locality who are not in school due to a lack of spaces. We continue to have several pupils on the waiting list for a place in the school and when a pupils is absent for a month, it does seem unfair on families where there are children desperate to come to school but can’t. Please take this into consideration when requesting to take your child out of school for an extended period.
Rugby News
Well done to the Year 4,5 and 6 pupils who took part in the Sparkling Rugby tournament on Tuesday. The team played incredibly well and showed increasingly brilliant skills in all of their matches. The scores for the matches were:
Great Binfields 2 v 2 Fairfields
St John's 0 v 3 St Mary's
Great Binfields 4 v 3 St Mary's
Fairfields 1 v 1 St John's
Fairfields 1 v 3 St Mary's
St John's 0 v 3 Great Binfields
The next match is on the Tuesday 21st March on our field. If there are any other children (Years 4,5 and 6) wishing to join the weekly training sessions, please email the school office or speak to them. Training sessions are every Thursday between 3:15 – 4pm.
Parenting Update
Research around the impact of the lockdown suggests that children missed out on life experiences and on learning vocabulary. I spoke to the children this week in assembly and shared with them the need for us all to catch-up the lost words through regular reading.
Here are the statistics:
If a child reads for 1 minute a day, they will learn 8000 new words a year.
If a child reads for 20 minutes a day, they will learn 1,800,000 new words a year.
The difference is staggering and there is evidence to show that pupils perform better in tests due to regular reading.
The big questions to consider:
How often do you read or share a book with your child?
When was the last time you read as an adult and what new words have you learnt as a result?
Primary Behaviour Support will be running a session for parents on Monday 6th March from 8:40am – 10:30am. Please do come along to the cabin if you have time as the sessions are always well received.
Finally, have a wonderful weekend and keep warm.
Miss Kelly Dillon
Headteacher
