Welcome to this week’s bulletin and news round-up…
It’s been a remarkably busy week in school, with all sorts going on – the events have been coming so thick and fast that we’ve not been able to keep up on the website! We’ll do our best to summarise here. In no particular order…
A busy and fun week in Year Six.
On Monday, the children performed to the rest of the school in a dress rehearsal of their stage production, Aladdin Trouble. On Wednesday evening, they performed ‘for real’ to a packed house in the Hall. What a great night of fun – the children showed lots of talent, willingness to go out of their comfort zones and remarkably well developed senses of humour – there were moving bits and bits of pure comic genius! The performance received a well earned standing ovation and glowing reviews at the time, since and wider online.
On Thursday, we hosted Year Sixes from 4 the other Transform Schools in our locality partnership for a social, complete with DJ and bouncy castles.
Cinema Trip
On Thursday afternoon, we took the top 100 house points winners for the year to the Savoy Cinema to see Despicable Me 4. School provided popcorn and we all enjoyed the action and silliness of the latest in the Minions franchise. A shout out here for the Savoy, who were great hosts and this recently renovated traditional, big cinema is a great place to watch a film.
Children’s Awards
This afternoon (Friday), four of our children will be attending the Transform Trust Children’s Awards at Colwick Hall. This is a very fancy ‘do’, hosted in a marquee, with a DJ, speeches and a glittering awards ceremony. The children have been nominated by their peers for demonstration of the values of Kindness, Equity, Respect and Creativity.
Sports Days
After some re-scheduling due to the recent unseasonable weather, all year groups have now had their Sports Days – again, thanks to all who attended to cheer the children on and thanks for the lovely feedback about the organisation and atmosphere. As ever, the super-competitive grown-ups races were a highlight – who knew responsible adults could get so excited about a wheelbarrow race! 😉
Swimming
If you’ve been on or around school this week, you’ll have spotted that the swimming pool is back. It will be here for next week too and, such a success has this been, that we have already booked for next year.
Digital Shop Window
For the umpteenth time this year, we have hosted a shop window event to demonstrate to visitors from interested schools just what can be achieved by way of digital enhancement of education. A particular thanks and well done to our two brilliant Digital Leaders, who took on the very responsible job of presenting to the visiting adults and did an incredible job, praised by all.
Busy Bees and Hive Visit to Tesco
Staff took a group of children from our additional supportive provisions down to Tescos to have a look behind the scenes this week. The children had a very exciting time there and made a very positive impression on the staff and general public that they met. What a brilliant bunch they are!
Behaviour – thank you
Just an extra pat on the back for the children – your children! The common thread in all of the above events – and all the others this year – has been the amazing behaviour and values shown by your children. Everyone who encounters them, in school or out, is bowled over by their manners, kindness and particularly their ability to be sociable and communicate confidently. We’ve been on lots of joint events with other schools this year too and it has to be said that your children are very definitely the envy of those! We’ve recently been asked by the Trust to share just how we get such amazing behaviour and such socially confident children – they wanted us to run training and workshops – but we had to decline as we genuinely don’t quite know how it happens. We work hard on it, try to model it, try to support where it’s not quite happening as we or you would hope (it’s not perfect!), but ultimately it is your brilliant children. Thank you.
Euros
Disappointment (mostly) on Monday morning as it’s not come home yet again. That said, the best team won and we do have some Spain supporters in our school, so “felicidades” to them. The blow of England’s defeat was softened for 1 Palm, who had been backing the winners all the way. Thanks to all for the kind comments and positive feedback about the way we engaged with the Euros. It’s been a lot of fun. We’ll do it all again, bigger and better, for the 2026 World Cup, shall we? You’d suspect the children currently in 1 Palm, who will be in Y3 by then, will be wanting to claim Spain again – they’ve got to be favourites, surely…
Survey
If you’ve not yet completed our end-of-year survey, please do. This is an important thing for us – results go to Governors, Transform Trust and are shared with the community. In the past, the survey really has helped us shape our offer and look at things to improve or otherwise focus on. Even if you have a very ‘neutral’ view of us, please respond, as that is just as valid as negative or positive feedback. In fact, it’s perhaps the most important as the other two ends of the spectrum tend to skew the results with people with very strong opinions – particularly at the negative end – naturally replying more than people who aren’t so fussed either way!
https://uk.surveymonkey.com/r/RJ3ZQC7
New Classes
Children have found out and visited their new classes for September today. This is always very exciting, but we appreciate that it can present some short-term anxiety. Some classes have stayed much as they are, others have been more jumbled up. The priority is a well-balanced class, accounting for many factors but largely centred around the classes being balanced in terms of academic outcomes and need for support. All of our provision is at least Ofsted Good and in practice considerably better than that. Children’s personal development and behaviour across the school is officially Outstanding and the same management and pastoral support systems apply in every class. Disruption to learning is rare, unheard of in most classrooms. We monitor the feedback from the children’s end of year survey very closely and are assured that all classes are happy places where children are well taught and cared for. All classes are routinely monitored and quality assured by senior leaders and there are no pockets of concern. There are no ‘bad deals’ in terms of class or teacher. Our staff comprises a range of characters and personalities, each with their own style and children need to experience this range as part of growing up and preparing for secondary school and the real world beyond that. If children are not with their current very, very best friend, they will get to see them at breaks just as they do now and classes in each year group do lots of things together. A positive angle is the opportunity to make new, additional friends and extend their friendship group!
Teacher Movement
Relating to the above, there has been some movement of teachers, largely to accommodate professional development, but also just because sometimes a change is refreshing. For next year, our class structure is, changes in bold:
Nursery- Miss Parkin – no change
Reception – Mrs Ward and Miss Hutsby/Miss Desborough – a return to Reception for Mrs Ward and Miss Desborough, our Early Years Lead, class sharing with Miss Hutsby
Year One – Miss Harris and Mrs Rippon – the latter moving from Reception, also appointed to the role of Key Stage One Lead
Year Two – Mrs Troop and Mrs Garrett/Mrs Mason – no change
Year Three – Mrs Cooper and Mrs Chalmers – a move into key Stage Two for Mrs Chalmers
Year Four – Mrs Carlisle and Mrs Stafford – no change
Year Five – Mrs Miller-Orme and Mrs Carter – a move from Y6 to Y5 for Mrs Carter, also appointed to the role of Key Stage Two Lead
Year Six – Mrs James/Mrs Hayes and Miss Blatherwick – a move from Y5 to Y6 for Miss Blatherwick
Cover, PPA and interventions – Mrs Selby – a new and important role in school, allocated to Mrs Selby for the coming year
Clubs next week – Multi-sports clubs are on throughout next week and so are cricket (the usual Tuesday downpour of rain notwithstanding) and Thursday football training. Dance affinity is also due to run on Monday.
Diary
We break up on Friday the 26th. All children are expected in until that day!
Monday 22nd – Nursery have their re-scheduled Sports Day
Monday 22nd – 3:30-5pm – Open Evening – come and see your child’s work, speak to their current and/or new teacher
Wednesday 24th – proposed day for party (in school time) for the winning house – Clumber – details to follow on Monday.
Wednesday 24th 5pm – Year Six Leavers’ Party
Thursday 25th – afternoon in school time – The Great Water Fight! – see here: https://parkdale-primary.co.uk/water-fight-golden-time-2/