Welcome to Bulletin #6
The weeks are flying by and we’ll soon be at half-term, which for us remains at just the one week, by far the most popular option in last year’s (re)consultation and, for us, by a country-mile the most effective pattern educationally. Lots of our peers and colleagues in other schools do tell us that they like the longer break from a personal point of view but point out to us how far it sets children back, especially the younger ones. We’ll keep doing what is best for learning for as long as we can.
It has been a nice week in school. The children are well settled into the year and the routines are established. This week, I’ve particularly enjoyed helping out with some PE in both year 4 classes. That cohort seem a very ‘on it’ bunch. They listened well, treated each other kindly, worked hard on some drills and managed their own games of Tag Rugby with a level of maturity much higher than I’d have expected. Put simply, they were amazing. And good at Tag Rugby!
We had a lovely Assembly on Monday, on the theme of diversity and how all are welcome in the Parkdale community. We used the fact that this is National Curry Week (really, so I shall make sure I get out for one tonight!) as a metaphor for a tasty cultural recipe. Much like the the theme of late, great Benjamin Zephaniah’s’ poem, The British. Our Year 5s do a study of BZ and this poem in particular as part of their Literacy, including doing their own re-write. The much-loved Mrs Dunn left us a fantastic framed copy of one of these by her class, which is on display in the main corridor. Maybe pause for a look at parents’ evening. it’s highly recommended and maybe more relevant than ever in these unsettled times. : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPOAQmZ7gHg
In other news, thanks to all who have already completed the language survey – this was prompted by an observation from a Trust executive in a quality assurance review last week that we don’t really have significant English as an Additional Language here. We know this to be untrue and suspect it was just greatly under-reported. So far, we’ve already identified an additional 41 children for whom English is not the only language in their lives, to give us 134 so far which already takes us to well above the national average. We’d anticipate identifying a fair few more before this survey is completed.
We hope you found the review of enrichment and extra-curricular activities informative. If you missed it, there’s a link below. This was at the request of Governors who were concerned at the outcome of our Summer survey in which a number of respondents commented that we did not make a satisfactory offer beyond the core curriculum, We hope we have reassured the community that we actually do rather a lot, are possibly unique in our approach to enrichment for all during the school day and that we offer a lot more ‘above and beyond’ besides. In this week’s bulletin alone we have reference to a Tudor Day, another football match, table tennis, an extended offer re homework, Bikeability, Harvest Festival, Languages Theme Day, Stay and Play sessions and a disco…
Wishing everyone a lovely weekend when it arrives…
Mr H