newsletter no 17 - beaconsfield primary

We have our parent hotline number 08447 707 576 in place and we will be using this more over the

coming months to add school messages regarding adverse weather conditions. When you dial 08447 707

576 you need to then dial our school ID Number: 71486 to hear our school messages.

Parent Hotline

Dear Parents/Carers

We have already completed seven weeks of the new school year and we will shortly put the clocks

backward bringing the shorter days of winter upon us. In school, the days continue to be bright

as pupils and staff work as hard as ever. I hope that everyone enjoys the half-term break and we

look forward to seeing all pupils back on school on Monday, 31st October at 8:50 am.

I want to share with you the pleasing improvement in our school attendance figures, though we

still need to make further improvements. All schools are expected to achieve 95% atten-

dance. Last year we achieved above 94% for the first time since 2005. This is great news for our

pupils as they make the best progress with learning when they are in school. Now we are aiming

to achieve 95% this year. Jessica Dark (Parent Support Advisor) will continue to work with fami-

lies having difficulties with school attendance through letters, meetings and attendance contracts.

During the next half-term it is highly likely that school will be forced to close due to industrial ac-

tion by ALL school staff over government plans to change pension entitlements. Please be as-

sured that staff never decide to take industrial action lightly. We all work in school because we

want to support children‟s learning. Unions have been attempting to negotiate over this matter for

more than 10 months. At present we expect that Wednesday, 30th November will be a national

public sector strike day. I will write to you with more information as this day gets closer.

During this week we have been completing work as part of „Cultural History Week‟. Classes have

been able to take part in story-telling and music workshops. During the week children have re-

searched and been learning about athletes, Olympians and others from a wide variety of ethnic

backgrounds and cultures. It was pleasing to see the excitement and delight of many children

during the workshops.

We have spent this half-term covering and cataloguing almost 1,500 new books which will be available on our class and school library shelves. I would like to especially thank my support staff and the big band of volunteer parents who have assisted us with this huge task over the past weeks. Please help us to keep our books in a good condition by looking after books at home when your child brings them home for reading.

Mr Dave Woods Head Teacher

Message from Mr Woods Newsletter No 17—

October 2011

Newsletter No 17—October 2011

Curriculum

News

Over the past weeks

staff have focused

their training sessions

on teaching writing

and teaching reading,

including phonics.

We were notified this week by the

British Council that we have now

achieved the „Foundation‟ level of

the International Schools Awards.

This is a terrific reflection of the

great international links made

with schools in China and France

and of our commitment to devel-

oping an „International‟ curricu-

lum.

We are already planning for our

6th annual Citizenship Fortnight

which will take place in January

and February. This time we will

be working with staff and pupils

from Hambrough and North Pri-

mary School to complete an excit-

ing range of activities and learn-

ing opportunities. Our main

theme will be linked to the Lon-

don 2012 Olympic Games taking

place next July.

Staff have also used staff meeting sessions to explore a range of ICT

software and hardware and we have also looked at how we teach

music across the school.

Premises

News You will have

noticed that over

the summer

holiday period

we had some

additional canopies installed

to cover the exit doors to the

playground and the entry

doors to the dining room.

These are to assist us during

periods of wet weather as

children enter and exit the

building. Please help us by

not ‗blocking‘ the doors at the

end of the school day.

We have also had work com-

pleted to our garden areas at

the front of the school, the

pond area, Nursery play-

ground, Reception playground

and in the ARP play area.

Some planting has already

been completed, but we look

forward to next Spring to see

our new gardens flourish.

The nursery have also had

some decking installed to

provide them with a better

covered area to use for learn-

ing on wet weather days.

Adult Learning

We are hoping to be able to

run some additional adult

learning courses over the

coming months. The funding

to provide courses such as

ESOL (English for Speakers of

Other Languages) is no

longer available to schools.

Mrs Poonai has been working

with adult learning to adapt

some courses to include some

―English‖ learning elements.

Courses that we hope to offer

include: ―Family Maths‖,

―Family Links‖, ―Nurturing‖

and possibly ―Keeping Up

With the Children—English‖.

If you are interested in apply-

ing for places on any of these

courses you need to speak to

Mrs Poonai to register your

name. Places will be offered

to parents/carers who have

shown a commitment to the

school by volunteering time

to support the school with

help in classes.

All about

TAMHS Again this is a busy time for

TaMHS! This term I am run-

ning circle time lessons with

children in years 5 and 6,

which is helping them to

think about talk about their

feelings and make good

choices about their behav-

iour. I‘m also doing a group

with some children around

behaviour and continue to

see children individually as

well. Also this term and next

term I am joined by Holly,

who is training to be a Clini-

cal Psychologist and who will

be working under my super-

vision doing the same kinds

of activities in classes.

For those who are new to

the school, TaMHS is a pro-

ject which works with chil-

dren and families who need

help and advice with chil-

dren‘s social and emotional

needs. I am Ellie Atkins, a

Clinical Psychologist working

in Beaconsfield every Thurs-

day for the whole day. The

kinds of things I can help

with include emotional diffi-

culties, so if your child is

sad, worried or cross I might

be able to help. I also help

children who don‘t feel good

about themselves or children

who are struggling to get

along with others. If behav-

iour is a problem then I may

be able to help and I can

also offer support if a child

has suffered a bereavement

or if there are difficulties at

home.

If you are worried about

your child or would like

some help with an issue

than you can speak to

someone in the school (such

as Mr Woods, Mrs Poonai or

Jessica Dark) who will pass

your concerns on to me.

Reception have been settling in well this term and getting to know each other. We have been learning about our bodies and taking part in lots of fun activities. Here is some of the work we did about our

sense of touch ........

Nursery Nursery have a new garden area and we

have enjoyed planting and looking after

our new plants. We have to remember to

give them water.

We have also been taking our own photos

of our favourite plants.


Classroom News

Reception

We took part in messy play and talked about how the mixtures felt.

We were blindfolded and had to trace letters and guess what they were.

We wrote about what we could feel inside a feely bag.

Additional Resource Provision (ARP) Classes

In starfish class (ARP 1) we have been very busy

reading and writing every day. We enjoyed read-

ing the story „Whatever next‟ by Jill Murphy. We

made our own rockets out of big cardboard boxes

and went on an imaginary journey to the moon.

Just like in the story.

The children in Dolphin class have been joining

in with the exciting events in Years 3, 4 and 5.

We went to the cinema and enjoyed the Big

Breakfast. In class we have been busy learning

about Food and Farming. We‟ve become quite

good cooks too!

Year 1


Year 2

We have been learning joined-

up writing this term.

We have also been learning how

to use „Wow‟ words.

This half term, Year 2 have been enjoying reading and listening to the adventures of Katie Morag. They

have written letters to Katie and her Grandma, learnt about the Struay Island Show, learnt how to wash a sheep and written their own Isle of Struay stories. When writing their stories, children thought carefully

about the structure of their stories and used adjectives and wow words to make their writing interesting and exciting for the reader. Mr Pearson has loved reading their stories and has been amazed at their fun

and exciting ideas.

By Hassan Ahmed

By Fairooz

By Momina

By Hanan

Newsletter No 17— October 2011

Year 3

This term the school saw the

enormous lime tree branches get

cut down. Year 3 was there to

take a look and be part of the

historic day. Once we witnessed

the event we then wrote a re-

count about what happened and

also wrote some acrostic poems.

We also did some research on

Lime trees.

As part of our food and farming

topic, we had a big breakfast!

Year 3 and 4 took part and we

had so many contributions from

parents. We learnt that eating

breakfast is very important be-

cause it gives us energy and

helps us concentrate a lot more.

With Year 4 we also went to the

National Portrait Gallery and had

lunch at St James‟s Park in Lon-

don. The Gallery had some amaz-

ing and beautiful paintings. We

looked at some paintings based on

food and farming. We took note of

when the paintings were taken and

also who painted them. You can

find them on the internet- Peter

Paul, Autumn landscape and Luis

Melendez- Still life with oranges

and walnuts.

It was national schools film week,

so went to see the Lion King in 3D!

It was terrific, we had an amazing

time and when we got back to

school we wrote about our favour-

ite characters.

Year 4

National Gallery recount

On Friday 7th of October we went

to the National Gallery in Trafal-

gar Square (Central London) be-

cause it was a part of our IPC

topic – Food and Farming.

We were waiting for a train at

Southall station for about 5 min-

utes and then we took a train to

Paddington. At Paddington sta-

tion we took the Bakerloo line to

Charing Cross. It took us about

an hour to get to the gallery from

school. The journey was magnifi-

cent because we found out that

there are 14 tube lines in London

and they are all different from

each other. When we were going

to the gallery we stopped by

fountains to feel the water and

have some fun at Trafalgar

Square.

Later on we went inside and met

our guide – Jo. She told us that we

are going to look at some paintings

that were related to our IPC sub-

ject. We saw 4 paintings and Mr

Bocian and Mr Goodall spotted

some paintings that were really

lovely and fascinating. We found

out that the paintings were all real

from the different artists. We saw a

famous painting called

“Sunflowers” by Vincent Van Gogh

and Jo was telling us more about

this work of art. We spent about 1

hour and 20 minutes in the gallery.

It was very exciting because it was

my first time in such a wonderful

place and I would definitely like to

go there again.

Afterwards we went to St. James‟s

Park to have our lunch. We also got

to play with the ball that we

took from the P.E. cupboard. It

was fun to play with my friends

because I adore football. On the

way back we were supposed to

feed ducks but instead of that

we saw four soldiers and two

black horses!

Finally we took a tube to Pad-

dington and train to Southall.

We were at school about 3

o'clock.

I think our excursion to the Na-

tional Gallery was a huge suc-

cess. We found out many inter-

esting things and I had a fantas-

tic day out with my friends and

teachers.

By Muad Year 4

Year 5

Year 6

We started Year 5, being wor-

ried about hard work and get-

ting used to the new teacher

and Mrs. Bhachu. In IPC, we

are learning about „Forces and

Motions‟, and started to make

various models based on Fun

Fair.

In Numeracy, we studied differ-

ent ways to calculate and now

we are learning about different

graphs and measurements.

Literacy was fun with „Poems‟ writ-

ten by Pie Corbett and Valerie

Bloom. Michael Foreman‟s stories

were interesting and now we are

studying about Instructional Writ-

ing.

The best part of this term was to

see the film „African Cats‟, which

made all of us cry. The story was

about how cubs survived all the

dangers because of their loving

mother. It also told us the

mother‟s sacrifices to make sure

that her cubs would be safe. We all

wrote a review on this and gave

points and stars to others can view

this film. We would recommend this

film as the scenery was fabulous

and the story was fantastic. The

sad part was when the lions were

hunting and hurting other animals.

We start our half term with more

research work on Light and Sound.


Inside a girl’s head

Inside a girl’s head there are

Castles floating in glittering pink clouds,

With purple ponies flying around.

Princesses and fairies strolling about,

Strawberries and plums

With cakes and sour gums.

Fairy tales and books

Piled up high.

A butterfly flying,

A bird singing,

A river dancing whilst flowing.

Vegetables locked in

cages,

With Brussels sprouts wages

Ice cream sundaes with sprinkles on top

Wardrobes full of dancing frocks

But girls head as full as can be,

And that girl’s head is me!

BY Zulakha

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://barbslife.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/princess-castle.jpg&imgrefurl=http://barbslife.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/the-princess-has-found-her-palace/&usg=__mx0VRL7xXY1h7lY-1cFPBIz5c0I=&h=456&w=491&sz=85&hl=en&start=7&zo

Parents/carers are re-

minded that it is your re-

sponsibility to inform Har-

rison Catering when your

child is absent from

school. If you do not inform

them you will be charged for

a meal. School meal debts

may be referred to a debt col-

lection agency.

Parents/Carers should also

give one week‘s notice to

Harrison Catering if they

want to cancel school

meals.

SPECAL MENUS

Our caterer often provides

‗special menu‘ days for the

children. We‘d encourage you

to take part in these days.

School Dinners

Our school is a healthy

school. All food eaten in

school is covered by our

‗Food Policy‘ guidelines. We

want to remind parents that

children who have a packed

lunch are only allowed to

have healthy items. Items

such as crisps, biscuits, small

chocolate are only allowed

on a Friday as part of chil-

dren‘s lunch. This is part of

encouraging responsible

healthy eating practices.

School Meals Money

School meals must be paid

for before the meals are

eaten. The price of school

meals is £2.10 per meal

(£10.50 per week).

Payments should be made

using the internet payment

service at

www.ealingmeals.com or by

phoning Harrison Catering on

020 8280 0318. Cash pay-

ments can be made using the

envelopes in the payment

box in school. The cost for

the next ½ term will be

£71.40 (31st October—16

December = 34 days @

£2.10 daily). Any children

who owe more than £8 will

have their meals stopped.

Uniform

We expect children to always

be wearing the correct school

uniform at all times. Our uni-

form includes black shoes

(NOT BOOTS OR TRAIN-

ERS).

It is very important that

shoes have ―grip‖ on the

soles to help prevent acci-

dents. Please check your

child‘s shoes before the win-

ter weather arrives.

Please ensure that your

child‘s name is on all clothing

items. It is very important to

put names on gloves, hats

and scarves.

We have had to increase the

price of PE shirts to £4.00

and the embroidered polo-

shirts to £5.25 as a result of

increased cotton prices.

School Information/Procedures


Lost Property

As parents you

spend a lot of

money on your

child‘s uniform.

Unfortunately we

continue to have large

amounts of lost property,

most of which has no names.

The lost property is located

just inside the door from the

playground. We cannot keep

large amounts of lost clothing.

Please look through for any

lost items as the box is cleared

every six weeks.

http://www.ealingmeals.com/

Free School Meals

Many children

should be able

to apply for and

claim ‗Free

School Meals‘.

This saving is worth £399 per

child each year. If you are

receiving benefits/working tax

credit or jobseekers allowance

you may be entitled to claim.

Please ask for an application

form at the school office. Our

Parent Support Advisor, Jes-

sica, can help you with ‗Free

Meal Applications.‘

Food Menus Our menu for school dinner

is designed to provide as

many children as possible

with access to a hot lunch.

Meat dishes

are served

from Monday –

Thursday and

vegetarian

dishes are available every

day.

‗Stay and Play‘

Activity

Group

The group runs on Monday

and Friday mornings from

9:00 to 11.30 am in the

school canteen. Please pop

along for a cup of tea and

some fun activities. All after-

noon nursery children are

welcome. This is an opportu-

nity for you to play with your

child and support their learn-

ing—all parents must stay

during these sessions.

Activities include free play,

sand play, making music,

arts and crafts. Every week

we have singing and story

time with fruit, biscuit snacks

and tea and coffee for par-

ents. If you are able to make

a small contribution towards

the cost of tea/coffee it would

be appreciated (The collection

box is in the canteen—

recommended contribution of

50p a week).


Monday Non-halal meat + vegetarian

Tuesday Halal meat + vegetarian

Wednesday Non-halal meat + vegetarian

Thursday Halal meat + vegetarian

Friday No meat served only vegetarian

We introduced a halal op-

tion to ensure that as many

children as possible could

have access to hot meat

dishes on some days.

Unless our meal numbers

increase we will have to

review our catering costs

and menus, which may re-

sult in the catering com-

pany withdrawing the ‗halal‘

option.

Parent Support

Advisor (PSA)

Our parent support advisor,

Jessica Dark is available in

school each day from 8:30

am – 12:00 noon. Jessica is

here to assist and work with

parents to support and im-

prove children‘s learning.

The easiest way to see Jes-

sica is to make an appoint-

ment at the office or to catch

her on the playground before

school.

A number of parent support

and advice groups take

place in school regularly.

Please enquire for more

information.

they will be referred to the

ESW (Education Social

Worker). The ESW service

can impose fines, court action

and prison sentences for un-

authorised school absence.

Our attendance levels have

improved during the last

year, but there is still a mi-

nority of children who miss

school. Children must be in

school for at least 95% of all

school sessions. Our school

attendance rate is still below

95% which is not good

enough.

Our first prize draw for a

‗bicycle‘ prize will take place

in December. Children who

maintain a 100% attendance

level each fortnight receive

an entry in the prize draw.

Our PSA (Jessica Dark) moni-

tors attendance each day and

those with poor levels of at-

tendance will be invited to

attend review meetings or


Punctuality

Please note that the school

starts at 8:50 am promptly.

We expect the children to be

in the playground by 8:45

am, Monday to Friday. It is

essential that all children

learn to ―be on time‖.

As many families live nearby,

it is unacceptable for these

children to be late.

All children marked late more

than once will be referred to

the ESW for fines and court

prosecutions.

We have conducted

‗punctuality checks‘ at the

gate and more of these will

follow.

Attendance

Request for Leave

There is no automatic

right to have leave from

school. All leave should be

taken during the 13 weeks

of the year when school is

closed.

The governing body has ap-

proved a strict policy of not

approving any requests

for leave during term time.

This policy is always strictly

enforced with referrals

made to the ESW

(Education Social Worker).

Fixed penalty fines will be

issued for unapproved

leave.

School places can and will

be withdrawn for pupils who

take unapproved leave. Use

the attached holiday dates

(until December 2012) to

plan all leave.


Date Event

Monday 31st October 2011 Pupils Return for Second Half of Autumn

Term

Thursday 3rd November 2011 ―Silly Hat Day‖ - School Council Event

Friday 4th November 2011 School Portrait Photos

Friday 11th November 2011 Year 5 & Year 6 Science Museum Trip

Monday 21st November 2011 Life Education Van Visits

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Life Education Parent Session at 8:50 am

Wednesday 30th November 2011 Expected Strike Action by all Public Sector

Staff (SCHOOL LIKELY TO BE CLOSED)

Monday 5th December 2011 INSET/TRAINING DAY

Thursday 15th December 2011 1:45 pm—Reception + KS1 Christmas

Assembly

Friday 16th December 2011 School Closes for End of Term (1:30 pm)

Tuesday 3rd January 2012 School Returns for Spring Term

Friday 6th January 2012 Year 6 Visit to Olympic Park

Monday 23rd January 2012 Citizenship Launch Assembly

Monday 23rd January—Friday 3rd

February 2012

Citizenship Fortnight

Friday 27th January 2012 INSET/TRAINING DAY

Important Dates For Your Diary


Below are our approved school holiday dates through until December 2012. Please note these dates and ensure that any holiday bookings are made outside of the school terms.

Autumn Term 2011

INSET Day— Monday 5th September 2011

Tuesday 6th September 2011—

Friday 21st October 2011

Half-term Monday 24th October—

Friday 28th October

Monday 31st October 2011— Friday 16th December 2011

INSET Day—

Monday 5th December 2011

Spring Term 2012

Tuesday 3rd January 2012- Friday 10th February 2012

INSET DAY —

Friday 27th January 2012

Half-term Monday 13th February – Friday 17th February 2012

Monday 20th February 2012—

Friday 30th March 2012

Summer Term 2012

Monday 16th April 2012- Friday 1st June 2012

BANK HOLIDAY—Monday 7th May

Half-term

Monday 4th June— Friday 8th June 2012

INSET DAY—Monday 11th June

Tuesday 12th June 2012—

Friday 20th July 2012

Autumn Term 2012

INSET DAY—Monday 3rd September

Tuesday 4th September 2012— Friday 26th October 2012

Half-term

Monday 29th October — Friday 2nd November 2012

Monday 5th November 2012—

Friday 21st December 2012

Friday, 27th July 2012

London Olympics Begin

newsletter no 17 - beaconsfield primary

Documents