Dear Families
What a week!
We started off the week with our second House assembly all about how we can earn our special tokens linked to our school values. It was great to celebrate our progress so far with our houses and tokens. Please encourage your child to wear their House Badge and I wonder if anyone has visited their House Forest yet? Did you see our Facebook post all about Salcey Forest and Everdon. The feedback from children about our houses is incredibly positive and we are very much looking forward to seeing this initiative continue to go from strength to strength.
The Beat Goes On
On Wednesday and Thursday this week, we were treated to a series of spectacular workshops and assemblies by Ollie at The Beat Goes On! Some of you may of heard of STOMP! Well The Beat Goes on is a STOMP style body percussion workshop. The sessions were led by the amazing Ollie who is a drummer, percussionist and educator. He is a former cast member of the London and European Tour casts of STOMP and their sister show: ‘The Lost & Found Orchestra,’ with whom he has performed internationally, including the Sydney Opera House. He is also a qualified teacher!
During his sessions, the school was filled with the most amazing sounds and every child came out singing, bopping and smiling from their workshop! What fun, and great musical learning, was had by all! Experiences like this are all part of our commitment to go beyond the curriculum for your children and provide them with the very best opportunities there are!
Talking of music… Young Voices
If a body percussion workshop wasn’t enough last week, our fabulous choir went to Birmingham to take part in the Young Voices concert. Young Voices is an amazing, large-scale singing event where children from across the country gather to sing in front of a huge audience at Resorts World Arena, Birmingham. The atmosphere is electric and our choir did us proud – they were simply brilliant! Did you see them on our Facebook page? Thank you to Mrs Landeman for organising everything and to all of the staff who supported the event but most of all, well done to our brilliant choir who represented the school amazingly!
Year 4 Multiplication Check and Key Instant Recall Facts (KiRFs)
On 18th January, Mrs Fenton led a parent workshop all about the Year 4 multiplication check. If you do not already know, children in Year 4 have to sit a times-table test, which checks their ability to recall all of their timetables from the 2’s to 12’s. They are asked 25 questions. Knowing your multiplication facts is really, really important (like reading) – they lay the foundations for many other areas of maths such as fractions and division. No matter what year group your child is in, please support them to learn their times tables. A song in the car or regular flashcards can really help. If you want any more information about the check or learning times tables, please do not hesitate to ask Mrs Fenton or Mrs Heavens, our maths leader. Similarly, your children have been receiving KiRFs (Key Instant Recall Facts). Like times tables, they are very important for them to learn and know. Please make time to help your child learn these as we do teach but also ‘test’ them in school. Again, please see your child’s class teacher or Mrs Heavens for more information regarding these.
Don’t forget…
- Don’t forget our Rags to Riches collection next Thursday (please only bring your bags in on the day and not before as we have nowhere to store them).
- Also, 26th – 28th January is the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch (our forest school is signed up to take part). For more information, please click here.
Please also check out our school dates which you can find at the back of the newsletter – we have planned many dates out very far in advance (lots since September) for your convenience, like our Easter Café and Summer Fete – please pop them in your diaries.
Ms Pennington