Term 1, No 3 Friday, 9th October 2015

The Parkland

Press! Parkland Junior School Newsletter

Also available online at: www.parklandjunior.co.uk

TERM 2 PARENTS’ MEETING

This year our Term 2 Parents’ evenings will be held on Wednesday 11th and Wednesday 18th November from 3:30 pm – 6:30 pm, the same days and times as Parkland Infant School. This will allow you to co-ordinate your appointments if you have children at both schools. The format for the Open Evening will be the same as for last year in that your child’s work will be laid out in the school hall for you to peruse, either before or after your appointment time. When your appointment time is due, please make your way to your child’s classroom, the class teacher will meet you there. The consultations will take place in the classrooms as usual and will, therefore, be an opportunity for both you and your child to have a confidential discussion with the class teacher. An appointments chart for each class will be displayed in Reception from Monday, 19th to Friday, 23rd October. It is very important, if you would prefer a specific time, that you add your name to the chart as soon as possible. You will receive confirmation of your appointment time from your child’s class teacher(s) on Friday 6

th November.

For these particular Open Evenings, entrance to the school will be via the playground entrance doors.

The purpose of this Consultation Evening is: To view your child’s work; To share a consultation with both your child and the class teacher about

progress made so far and discuss the most recent assessments; To have the opportunity to discuss targets for improvement; For the parents of children in Year, 3 there will be the opportunity to

discuss and agree the Home/School Contract that is contained in the Home/School Reading Log.

There will also be an opportunity to sign up to ‘Parent Pay’ during the evening with our office staff on hand to help you and to meet with our Governors about any issues you may have relating to school. Vicki Wilson

BUILDING LEARNING POWERS We have been focusing on ‘Resilience’ so far this term and encouraging the children to try new challenges, even if they can’t do it – yet! It is just important to have a go and if you make a mistake, it doesn’t matter, as learning from mistakes is really powerful and effective and sometimes helps us be even better at something. We are now going to introduce ‘Resourcefulness’ as our next Learning Power. This encourages us to try and find things out for ourselves and to make good use of resources to support our learning. We will also be showing the children how to make connections with prior learning to help them with new learning and how to have a step by step approach to their learning. Both of these, together with Reciprocity, Risk Taking and Reflectiveness, all help us to be independent and successful learners. We will be introducing Reciprocity, Risk Taking and Reflectiveness over the rest of this term in class and in assemblies. Hopefully, the children will be talking to you about ‘Super Heroes’ this week too. We are trying to find suitable ‘Heroes’ to represent each of the Learning Powers. I can only remember Batman, Bat Women, Spiderman, Wonder Woman, etc – can you help us find Super Heroes that reflect ‘Resilience, Resourcefulness, Reciprocity, Risk Taking and Reflectiveness?’ We can then display these in the classrooms to help the children remember what each Learning Power is and means so that they can apply these skills to their work.

SCHOOL PHOTOGRAPHS

We have booked the school photographer for Monday, 2nd November to come and take photos of the children, including photos with their siblings at Parkland Junior School. Please ensure your children are in the correct school uniform, with sweatshirts/fleeces, hair brushed and their brightest smile practised to perfection! The Infants will have their photos taken on 3rd November.

CAR PARKING OFFENDERS Please can you ensure that when you drop off and collect your children from school, that you park appropriately and safely. Several cars have been parking carelessly and the police have been informed. I am sure that no-one would deliberately want to injure a child or an adult; however I hope that no-one does get hurt or killed before we all start to drive around the immediate school grounds with greater caution and care.

Please let me know if you see anyone parking illegally or inappropriately, near the front and rear gates, so we can put them in our next newsletter and inform the local police. Thank you for your support!

SCHOOL GATES LOCK DOWN TIMES

The school gates are now locked for your children’s safety between the

following times:

8:30 - 9:10am

12:00 - 1:15pm

2:50 - 3:30pm

Playground Doors For Safeguarding reasons, please can we ask that parents/carers do not enter the school by the playground doors at the beginning of the school day. If you need to speak to your child’s class teacher, please go round to the main entrance and speak to Mrs Giles or Mrs Berhane, who will be happy to help you. Thank you for your co-operation with this.

REMINDERS

Please remember to ring the School Office every day by 9.15am that your child is absent from school. There is a 24 hour answerphone service available. This is important for the Safeguarding of our pupils. We have already started to accumulate a collection of sweatshirts, fleeces and other items of school uniform – please come and check the lost property bin. PLEASE also ensure that all items of clothing are clearly named so that we can return them to their rightful owner as soon as possible. Thank you!

We now have two Assessment Without Levels Meetings for parents, as requested, they are both on Thursday 22

nd October, one at

9am in the Infant school hall and the other at 2:30pm in the Infant school hall.

Please ensure your child arrives by 8:50am in the morning as after this time they are recorded as being ‘late’. This is monitored close-ly by the Attendance Team and if there is a pattern of a child regu-larly being late, parents will be invited to an attendance meeting to discuss what can be done to improve the situation. Thank you!

COATS We have been so lucky with the weather so far this term. However, it is definitely becoming cooler and there is more rain forecast unfortunately. Please can you ensure that your children start bringing a coat to school so we are prepared for all eventualities!

HARVEST CONTRIBUTIONS

YEAR 3 HARVEST ASSEMBLY

We will be organising a collection for Eastbourne Food bank as part of our Harvest performance. We would welcome your support . All items should be non per-ishable. Food Bank are particularly short of pasta sauces, tinned peas or carrots, tinned meat and toiletries so please consider supporting this worthwhile cause. Contributions can be brought in as soon as possible and will be collected by the Eastbourne Food Bank after the assembly on Thursday, 22nd October at 9.20am.

Dear Parents/Carers, The children in Year 3 will be taking part in a special harvest assembly on Thursday 22nd October. We are collecting for the Eastbourne Foodbank. This is a charity that provides emergency food for local families in crisis. These families desperately need essential items such as: tinned fruit, tinned rice pudding, pasta sauces, tinned vegetables and meat and toiletries. The charity has requested these particular items as a matter of urgency. Please bring any contributions to school on or before Thursday 22nd October. Many thanks for your generosity. Year 3 team

Do you remember last year when we reinstated our wild life area? Here is a reminder……

WHAT A FANTASTIC LEARNING ENVIRONMENT WE HAVE AT PARKLAND

SCHOOL!

WILD LIFE AREA

During the summer holiday we had a significant re-design of our Wildlife Garden, including the creation of a new pond. All of this was to support the children in their outside learning. Unfortunately, this if beginning to get over-grown again and so we need to act quickly!

ALLOTMENTS

Our allotments have also benefitted from some ‘TLC’ with the beds being cleared so that we can get prepared for planting winter veg. However this area requires regular maintenance as it can easily get overgrown with weeds. Therefore would you please consider joining a Working Party of parents who can take on this responsibility for the benefit of our children. A reply slip is provided at the bottom of this page for you to complete and return to the school. Well, as with all things that grow – both areas have grown and grown and are in desperate need of some love and care, alongside the general outside of the school. We are calling all keen and even not so keen gardeners who would be able to volunteer to get our outside areas looking pristine again and then maintaining this throughout the year, a couple of hours a month. If you are willing, please complete the slip below and hand in to the school office as soon as possible – the whole Parkland community would really appreciate your support. THANK YOU!

___________________________________________________________ GARDENING TASK FORCE WORKING PARTY

Reply Slip

I would love to support the educational learning experiences for my child and other pupils at Parkland Junior School. Therefore I am more than willing to offer my services by enlisting on the Parkland outside area task force. Parents/Grandparents/Family/Friends Name:_______________________________________________________ Child’s Name:________________________________________________

Class_______________________________________________________

YEAR 6 SECONDARY SCHOOL CHOICES We are aware that many of our Year 6 children have been visiting prospective secondary schools over the last couple of weeks. The process of applying now takes place on-line, although a paper copy may be ordered. If there are any parents who would like support with the actual on-line procedure or need the use of a computer, we would like to offer our help. If you require any assistance, please contact the office or one of the Year 6 teachers. Depending on demand, we will organise one-to-one sessions or an after school slot where parents can come in together to complete the process on our various computers.

Congratulations to our Star Attenders:

Week Commencing: 21.09.15

99.3% - Lewis Class

Week Commencing: 28.09.15

98.6% - Lewis Class

Well done everyone, please keep up these great results

PARENT COUNCIL

The Parent Council met this week and had a really positive meeting. Lots of suggestions were put forward and points raised concerning how we can improve our schools. Our next meeting is on Wednesday 25

th November. If you have any

items that you would like discussed, please hand them to a member of the council at least 48 hours before the meeting so they can be added to the agenda. Thank you! One issue raised last term – a ‘whole year calendar’ – has been organised. This will be on the school’s website by the end of this term with dates for the whole year – including year group productions, trips, sports day, SATs week etc. We hope you find this really useful. It will be updated as the year progresses.

FRIENDS OF PARKLAND SCHOOLS’ NEWS Please can we thank everyone who attended the Emergency General meeting of the FOPS Committee last week. FOPS are now able to continue to operate and to run events to raise money for our schools. Please note the exciting FOPS events coming up this term:-

POP UP BOOK SALE

Please note the FOPS Committee have arranged for a Book Sale to take place on Tuesday, 20th October after school, under the pergolas in the playgrounds at both schools. They have lots of brand new adult books and are looking for donations of children's books (new or in excellent condition). Unwanted books can be donated in advance or swapped on the day. So please come along and support.

NEXT FOPS MEETING

The next FOPS Committee meeting is taking place on Tuesday, 20th October in the Cuckoo Cottage at 2pm. Everyone is welcome. Remember, you don’t have to commit to helping at every event—just the ones you can. Any help will be really appreciated. Please contact Jo Hilder for further details.

FIREWORKS AT PARKLANDS

- 5th November 2015

Please don’t forget the FOPS Firework Night on Thursday 5th November! Make sure you buy your tickets soon as the event is proving to be extremely popular! Please call into the school reception to collect a form from the carousel. The FOPS Committee are looking for the following

volunteers:- Stewards people to man the food and drink stalls glowstick sellers Ticket checkers (at the school gates) If you are interested in volunteering for any of these roles, please can you make yourselves known to Jo Hilder, Jennifer Neale, Michelle Bernard or Sally Jupp asap Thank you

READING CIRCLE

A huge thank you to the FOPs for the wonderful Reading Circle now situated on the school field for both schools to use. If you haven’t seen it, go and have a look. Teachers can take their classes over to read together in a beautiful setting. Thank you to everyone who contributed to purchasing this exciting structure!

PLEASE SEE THE FOLLOWING PHOTOS OF ALL THE CHILDREN (AND STAFF) WHO RECEIVED HARD WORK CERTIFICATES

PLEASE SEE OUR STARS OF THE WEEK

WELL DONE EVERYONE

Calendar for October and November 2015

October 2015

November 2015

Other Significant Dates for 2015:

Half Term Break: 26th October - 30th October 2015

Start of Term 2: 2nd November 2015

Santa’s Grotto: 17th December 2015

Easter Fair: 19th March 2016

Year 6 Taster Day 5th July 2016

Summer Fun Day: 21st July 2016

If you need to know school term dates further in advance then please visit the East Sussex County Council website,

www.eastsussex.gov.uk

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

12th Swimming -

5 King-Smith 13:30 - 14:30

Governors Policy Review Group @ 15:15 - Juniors

Governors FGB meeting @ 16:15 - Infant Hall

13th

Session 2 - Parent Gym @ 9:00 - Cuckoo Cottage

14th 15th 16th

Year 5 Workhouse Day

19th Swimming -

5 King-Smith 13:30 - 14:30

Year 6 Newhaven Fort trip

20th

Session 3 - Parent Gym @ 9:00 - Cuckoo Cottage

FOPS meeting @ 14:00 - Cuckoo Cottage

Book Sale - after school (under the pergolas)

21st 22nd

Assessment without Levels meetings @ 9:00 & 14:30 —

Infant Hall Year 3 - Harvest Assembly

@ 9:20 for Year 3 parents/carers

23rd

26th

HALF TERM BREAK

27th

28th 29th 30th

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

2nd

START OF TERM 2 School Photographer

(Juniors) Swimming 5 King-Smith 13:15 - 14:15

3rd

School Photographer (Infants)

Session 4 - Parent Gym @ 9:00 - Cuckoo Cottage

4th 5th

FIREWORKS EVENT

6th

9th

Swimming 5 King-Smith 13:15 - 14:15

10th Session 5 - Parent Gym @

9:00 - Cuckoo Cottage

11th

Parents’ evenings @ 15:30—18:30

12th

Blackland Farm meeting for parents/carers @ 18:00

13th

16th

Swimming 5 Lewis 13:15 - 14:15

17th

Session 6 - Parent Gym @ 9:00 - Cuckoo Cottage

18th

Parents’ evenings @ 15:30—18:30

19th 20th

23rd

Swimming 5 Lewis 13:15 - 14:15

24th 25th

Parent Council Meeting: 14:00 - 15:00 - Family Room

26th 27th

30th

Swimming 5 Lewis 13:15 - 14:15