Head’s desk

Sandwiched between Storm Emma and The Beast from the East, Layston School powered

through and celebrated World Book Day with aplomb. The Queen of Hearts met King Kong in

a spectacular display of book themed costumes that brightened our day.

March 2018

Unfortunately…. our story teller Usifu Jalloh was trapped in his van on a Kentish motorway

….Fortunately….. we rescheduled for the following week and unleashed our own whirlwind of

storytelling music and dance lead by Usifu over the course of the whole day. The sun shone

and the joy of word, music and dance filled the school. A joyful end to our World Book Day

celebrations.

We have had a very productive second half of the summer term and thank you for your

support with the learning conferences last week which enabled your children to share their

learning with you. We have been overwhelmed by your wonderfully positive feedback and

thank you all for working with us to support your children at school.

Aside from our teaching and learning activities we have been busy recruiting for a reception

Teacher and job share Deputy Head teacher for September; see governor section for

further information.

Uniform

Following information to parents early in March the sale of Layston school uniform goes online

from Monday 16th April at www.mapac.com . The admin team write:

‘Mapac has been providing us with various parts of our uniform (joggers and bags) for many

years and they have now branched out into supplying all the uniform we need as a school. They

provide a convenient online service that is accessible 24 hours a day; (alternatively parents

can order by telephone) and offer free delivery over £50 or free delivery to the school’.

This does mean however that we will no longer be selling uniform from the office and we will

not be keeping any stock on site.

Attendance

We continue to prioritise attendance and are delighted to list all the children who have

achieved 100% attendance over the Spring term (up to 23rd March).

Reception – Betsy, Chloe, Pelin & Charlie.

Year 1 –Niamh, Kira, Bella, Kittie, Tristan, Olivia, Felix, Jack, Charlie.

Year 2 –Freya, Harry F, Ella, Lewis, Elizabeth, Toby, Maisy, Alexis, Pete, Ava, Daniel & Poppy.

Year 3- Millie, Cushaun, Macie, Annie, Henry, Jonnie & Isabella.

Year 4-Tumi, Kate, Tyler, Sebastian, Grace, Elise, Kyson, Chloe, Jack, Elliott & Oliver.

Certificates have been awarded as follows:

43 total Gold (100%)

25 total Silver (98%)

29 total Bronze (96%)

In total there are 97 awards for 96% attendance and above.

Overall percentage for children across whole school is 96.2%. Well done all!

Finally a reminder about our 100 years Votes for Women competition entries due in first day

of Summer term 16th April 2018 and to wish you all a restful and enjoyable Easter break.

Kind regards

Mrs Bloomfield

Reception

We ate noodles with chopsticks and

made our own version of egg fried rice

when we celebrated Chinese New year.

We loved trying both, as you can see

we were very

successful at

using chopsticks.

We have also

heard the story

of how the

animals raced across the river to have

a year named after them. We re-told

the story of the terrible monster Nian

and discovered how one clever old man

managed to change him.

We enjoyed making and decorating elder

bead jewellery in Forest school

Didn’t everyone look

amazing on World

Book day? We all

shared stories in

Reception class. It

was very sad that the

storyteller couldn’t make it on World

Book Day.

When he did visit however we went on

an amazing journey through Africa with

him and then we

got to dance to his drumming.

Year 1

This half term we have had a very busy

time! We dressed up for World Book Day

and the following week we had a story

teller from Sierra Leone visit us. He was

called Usef and used drums to tell

fantatsic stories. We LOVED it!

In RE we have also learnt about why

Easter is so important to Christians. We

made Easter story wreaths to help us

remember what happened, and then

retold the stories ourselves.

In maths we have worked hard on our

addition and subtraction and using

different ways of showing our work.

We have also found out about

Buntingford and went on a town trail.

We learnt about the type of shops, the

old coaching doorways and the lock up!

Year 2

It’s been another busy half term!

In literacy, we have been writing fairy tales,

including Rapunzel and the Princess and the Pea.

In maths, we have been adding and subtracting

2-digit numbers. To do this, the children have

been using strategies such as splitting the

numbers into tens and ones first (e.g. to work

out 43 + 26 we would do 40 + 20 and 3 + 6).

In PE, the children have been dodging, ducking, dipping and diving in our dodgeball

sessions. Having prepared routines for their homework, some of the children have led

the warm ups in recent weeks!

In science, we did a second experiment involving paper towels – this time trying to

find the one that was strongest when wet. The children were surprised how much

weight the wet paper towels could hold. The most expensive brand held an impressive

700g before breaking.

Last, but not least, the children had a great time on our Victorian trip last week.

Everyone looked fantastic in their costumes so thank you very much to everyone for

acquiring/making them. It definitely increased the children’s enjoyment on the day,

so it was worth it in the end.

When we got there, we made our way to the first session which was about Victorian

toys. There wasn’t an Xbox or tablet in sight (except the iPad I was using to take

photos…), but the children enjoyed playing with toys such as kaleidoscopes, dolls made

out of card and the simple but tricky cup and ball.

After that, we went on a Victorian holiday to the seaside. Phoebe and Colby got

dressed up in Victorian swimwear, and Ava tried on a corset (it wasn’t very

comfortable).

After lunch, it was time to get down to

work. In the workhouse, the children had

to scrub dirty shoes (this wasn’t popular

with everyone) and wash & dry dirty tea

towels.

Finally, we had a lesson in a Victorian classroom. The teacher was very strict so

everyone was on their best behaviour. We did a bit of reading, writing and arithmetic.

All in all, it was a great school trip!

Year 3

This half term has been as busy as a 19 month old toddler who has discovered the joy

of pull along toys.

We have continued with our Roman topic and have produced all kinds of wonderful

work. Our brightest by far was our collaborative art piece of the Colosseum. We

experimented with colour to make them stand out. We’re fairly sure we achieved our

goal. See for yourself below.

During Literacy we have continued to use ‘Escape from Pompeii’ as a source of

inspiration. We successfully managed to turn the story into a range of play scripts

that were competently performed in class.

Our maths work has been very practical and we have been using measuring equipment

a lot to help us calculate and mark out perimeters.

We had a visit from Waste Aware and were encouraged to think carefully about how

we disposed of our rubbish. As well as a whole school assembly, we took part in an

active workshop that made us really consider how we could reduce the amount of

rubbish we throw away into the environment.

Year 4

It only feels like five minutes since we put the last newsletter together!

Ancient Egypt topic

We have been embracing our Ancient Egyptians topic this term by doing loads of

great activities.

First, we made relief maps of Egypt…

Next we pretended to mummify ourselves and then wrote instructions on how to do it

(and learnt a hilarious song in the process!)…

We made a pyramid in different ways using different materials…

We designed our own death masks…

We also pretended we were the great explorer Howard Carter and wrote a diary

entry of the day we discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb!

World Book Day

I was amazed by all the incredible costumes that the children wore! There were some

costumes I didn’t think were even possible to recreate, but it just goes to show that

nothing is impossible.

PE

We have started practicing our tennis skills. I’m sure Andy Murray and Serena

Williams will be proud. Be sure to watch out for some future Wimbledon stars!

Science

Our Science topic this term has been all about sound. We have learned all about how

vibrations travel through the air to our ears so that we can hear the sound. This was

explored by putting rice on top of a drum and we could see that if we made a loud

noise, the rice jumped high in the air showing bigger vibrations. When we hit it gently

to make a quieter sound, the rice didn’t jump as high, showing smaller vibrations!

I’m sure the Apple and Samsung bosses will be after our string telephones that we

made to demonstrate this further! We even tested to see if they worked around a

corner with the string touching it.

We then explored pitch (whether a sound is low or high) and learned a bit about

amplitude too (whether a sound is loud or quiet).

Maths

We have been learning about converting different units of measure. Then, we

investigated comparing, estimating and measuring in different ways. Here we are

doing just that with mass and capacity!

We hope you have a very happy and restful Easter!

Governors

As parents will be aware, both Mrs Bloomfield and Mrs Smith are retiring at the end

of this Academic Year. Both have made an immeasurable contribution to Layston and

will be missed by the school community. The Governing Board is delighted to have

appointed Sonia Singh to the post of Headteacher and Debbie Penwill to Deputy Head

and Reception Teacher from September 2018. Both appointees bring extensive

experience and are aligned to the core values of Layston. We are very much looking

forward to a new and exciting chapter at Layston from September. A full handover

will be planned over the next term.

Focus on Sports Premium

Layston receives Sports Premium funding to develop or add to the PE and sport

activities that we already offer and to build capacity and capability within the school

to ensure that improvements made now will benefit pupils joining the school in future.

The impact of our £17,500 Sports Premium spend in 2017/18 was measured as

follows:

· Gold/silver/bronze awards in school game awards over past 3 years.

· Full competitive programme of interschool sports festivals through

collaboration with NE Herts sports partnership.

· Full programme of Forest School for each child each week supporting

healthy lifestyles and positive mental health outcomes.

· High quality teaching and learning in Sport and PE supported by expert

coaches who deliver on site CPD working alongside staff.

· Fit for life club run with our Y4 children.

· All children achieve at least 1 hour a day exercise five days a week

frequently substantially more three days a week.

· Successful participation in Hertfordshire sponsored Athletes in School

Initiative.

FOLS NEWSLETTER SPRING TERM

Since the New Year we’ve had another busy term with lots of events and with everyone’s support

we have been able to raise lots of money for the school and children in these past few months.

In February we had the Year 3 Cake Bake, Ladies Night and Sweet Tombola together these have

raised almost £600. The Ladies Night was a great success with lots of pampering (and drinking!), a

huge thank you to Gemma Rogers for organising the night.

At the start of March we held the quiz night, and once again this was a very popular event. It was

great fun and there were 80 quizzers!! A massive thank you to Sarah Coutts for her organisational

skills and her very kind brother who was our Quiz Master and did an absolutely fantastic job! The

quiz night raised £1,175 and was a huge success, make sure you book a table at the next one!!

FOLS has been helping the school with lots of purchases too, this includes paying 50%, with the

school paying the further 50%, for new blinds to be installed in Year One. The children will tell you

that when the sun hits the Year One classroom it is very tricky to work with the sun shining in your

eyes, so this will be a very welcome improvement. FOLS gave the Forest School money to buy

outside cameras which the children can set up to record animals and bugs. And we’ve given Year

2 money to buy books to assist with SATs, and just recently FOLS have given money for the school

to purchase new football goal nets and balls.

At the start of March, FOLS paid for a story teller from Masai Cultural Arts organisation who came

and spent the day with the children. As you can see from the previous pictures, the children had a

great time and the experience was thoroughly enjoyed!!

Also at the end of this term, Labtots will be visiting the school for the day and giving the children a

fun science experience.

Lastly, we just wanted to say big thank you to Lauren Ivison, our Chairperson, who does a

monumental job of organising FOLS. Lauren recently wrote to local building firms on behalf of

FOLS asking for donations for the school. Lauren is very successful at persuading people to help

the school and has been able to get a donation from McCarthy & Stone for £1000!! Part of this

will be spent on the new football goal nets and footballs.

Thank you to everyone for your continued support of FOLS, we are looking forward to a busy

summer with more cake bakes and of course the Family Funday Sunday on July 15th.