Dear Mums and Dads,
A warm welcome to the 2014- 2015 school year. We hope you have had a good summer break and that you have been able to spend some quality time with your children. A particular warm welcome to our new reception children and their families.
We are excited about some significant changes that came into force this September, including
– A new National Curriculum;
– A new code of practice for children with special educational needs and disabilities;
– free school meals for all children in Reception and Years 1 and 2.
We are also excited about some of the changes we have made including:
– a new approach to homework;
– our new exciting curriculum that incorporates the National Curriculum;
– introducing PATHS (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies) programme across the school.
‘Find out about the changes’ parent meetings
You are invited to meet your child’s new year group staff team so that we can go through some of these changes with you and share the expectations for the year ahead. I would urge you to attend these meetings so that you are up to date with all the changes.
| Reception | Friday 12th September,
9am – 10am |
Year 4 | Tuesday 16th September,
2.30pm – 3.15pm |
|
| Year 1 | Wednesday 17th September,
9am – 10am |
Year 5 | Tuesday 23rd September,
2.30pm – 3.15pm |
|
| Year 2 | Thursday 18th September,
2.30pm – 3.15pm |
Year 6 | Wednesday 24th September, 2.30pm – 3.15pm | |
| Year 3 | Wednesday 17th September,
2.30pm – 3.15pm |
Training day for staff
We have been working towards these changes for a while, but the real work begins now, with the teachers and support staff in the classrooms working hard to ensure that we can offer the best possible experiences and support for your children. There is a lot to do! In order to get off to the best start we are utilising another of our available training days early on in the school year. Therefore, we will be closed to children on Monday 22nd September for staff to further develop the new curriculum and receive additional support to deliver this.
PATHS®
PATHS® stands for Promoting Alternative THinking Strategies. The programmeis a universal, classroom based curriculum that teaches social and emotional learning to primary school children. It involves helping children to:
- recognise emotions and values;
- make constructive choices about personal and social behaviour; and
- show understanding and empathy for others.
The programme teaches children how to label their feelings and apply self-control strategies, leading to improvements in classroom behaviour, resilience and verbal fluency.
All staff received a day’s training on PATHS® on Tuesday, and all classes will begin the programme in the next few days.
Behaviour
At Colebourne, pupils behave well and have positive attitudes towards their learning. For a number of years we have used a traffic light system to help support behaviour in school. We are making a slight change to this as the PATHS® programme we have started introduces the use of a traffic light process to help children deal with situations and we do not wish to cause confusion with this. Instead of amber and red we will use a counting system to identify to children if their behaviour is not appropriate. Further clarification will be given in the Parents’ Meetings.
French
Children across the school will be learning French this year. Children in Reception and KS1 will have the opportunity to learn French words and phrases linked into their other work – such as greetings, numbers, days of the week and colours. Children in KS2 will follow a scheme of work that will build on their language skills as they progress through the school. As part of this we will be having a French Day (date to be confirmed) to have a whole school focus day learning about all things French.
Music Services
As part of the new National Curriculum, Birmingham Music Services will be providing children with some specialist teaching in music. The aim is to enable every class to have some specialist teaching in music at some point during the year. We hope to invite you in to see what the children have been learning.
Self Awareness and Protective Behaviours lessons
Last year we asked you for your thoughts on what we should be teaching as part of the new curriculum. One of the ideas that came up a number of times was the idea of teaching children effective protective behaviours. We thought this was a really good idea and from next week we will have Mr. Anthony Brennan teaching our Year 6 children the skills of self-awareness and protective behaviours – primarily learning how to use their voices and body position to avoid conflict and protect themselves. If this is successful we hope to be able expand this into other year groups.
Punctuality and attendance
The school gates open at 8.45am and children get to work as soon as they come in. The gates close at 8.55am and children arriving after this time are late.
A reminder that school closes at 3.15pm for all children. Please ensure that you have arrived to collect your children by 3.15pm so that staff can dismiss children promptly. If you are not there to collect your child after the rest of the class has been dismissed they will be brought back into school and recorded as having been picked up late.
Please note: all children in Years 5 and 6 have the opportunity to walk home alone if we have your written permission. Please complete the slip on the letter that went home if you wish your child to be dismissed after school without an adult to collect them
If you would like any other arrangement for your child at the end of the day, please contact the school so this can be discussed.
Breakfast club and After School club
Breakfast club runs from 8am daily and remains free of charge. Children must use the pedestrian entrance and must arrive before 8.35am to make use of the breakfast club.
After school club runs from 3.15pm and there is a variety of charges – please see the parents section of the school website for details or contact the school office.
Summer results
Please see below a brief summary of the results for the national assessments that took place in Summer 2014. Please note there is always a context to any year group so any data must be treated with caution. With your help, we will continue to build on the achievements of our children.
Phonics in Year 1
We are pleased to say that our approach to teaching phonics – Read Write Inc – has enabled children to achieve well against the national benchmarks. 79% of our year 1 children achieved the required standard compared 69% nationally*
Key Stage 1 SATs
| Reading | Writing | Maths | |||||||
| 2C+ | 2B+ | 3+ | 2C+ | 2B+ | 3+ | 2C+ | 2B+ | 3+ | |
| National * | 89% | 79% | 29% | 85% | 67% | 15% | 91% | 78% | 23% |
| School 13/14 | 90% | 82% | 20% | 83% | 58% | 7% | 97% | 83% | 13% |
Key Stage 2 SATs
| School | National* | |
| Level 4+ in Reading | 87% | 86% |
| Level 4+ in Writing | 77% | 83% |
| Level 4+ in Maths | 77% | 85% |
| Level 4+ in Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling | 77% | 74% |
| Level 4 in Reading, writing and Maths | 68% | 75% |
| Expected progress in: | ||
| Reading | 93% | 88% |
| Writing | 90% | 91% |
| Maths | 85% | 88% |
| Reading, writing and Maths | 76% | 80%** |
*National results for 2013
** LA results for 2014
Termly Post OFTSED parent Meetings
We will continue to invite you to termly parents meetings with the leadership team where we can discuss our progress as a school and gain your views, ideas and opinions. These were very useful last year and helped us make decisions that directly affect your children.
Some of the decisions that have been shaped by these meetings include: changes to the curriculum; our new approach to homework; and the request for maths training for parents which we organised.
Phase Leaders
Please continue to talk to us about your ideas and if you have any concerns come and talk to us.
If you have any day to day concerns please talk to the appropriate person. Where possible, in the first instance, this should be class teacher and then the phase leader.
Phase Leaders this year are:
Reception: Miss Peckett s.peckett@colebourne.bham.sch.uk
Year 1 and 2: Mrs. Poulson s.poulson@colebourne.bham.sch.uk
Year 3 and 4: Mrs. Carter w.carter@colebourne.bham.sch.uk
Year 5: Mrs. Poole (AHT) r.poole@colebourne.bham.sch.uk
Year 6: Mrs. Flint l.flint@colebourne.bham.sch.uk
Key Dates
8th – 12th September – Poetry week
Poets, Valerie Bloom and Dreadlock Alien will be in school leading workshops with different year groups. We also have a Skype session with the poet Dawud Wharnsby where children will write poems and Dawud will put them to music then perform them again via Skype the following week.
25th September 9am – 10am – MacMillan Coffee Morning
Come and join other parents and members of the local community for a tea, coffee and cake to raise money for this charity.
26th September – Oliver Twist Production in school for all children
You may wish to talk to your children about this story before they see the performance.
2nd October – Eid Celebration Day
Children will have the opportunity to come to school in non-uniform and take part in a range of Eid related activities
We are looking forward to a very successful year at Colebourne. Please support your child and the staff as much as possible so that we can work together to best support the children and your family.
We hope to see you at some of our meetings and events this half term.
Mr. Guest
(Head Teacher)