Dear Parents and Carers,

It has been a fantastic week in school! The highlight was certainly World Book Day yesterday. We held a parade on the playground at the beginning of the day and then spent the rest of the day delving into a book chosen by their teacher. Thank you to everyone for their support for this day. Enjoy spending your book tokens! The theme this year was ‘You are a reader’, this positive message links very closely to our awards for our ‘Reading Champions’ where the children are rewarded for their reading behaviours, for example inspiring others to read, learning and sharing new vocabulary, writing their own book and persevering with reading to name just a few examples.

As part of our work with Chichester Festival Theatre we took the children in Y6 to watch a performance of the Michael Morpurgo book called Private Peaceful. It was a thought provoking play and the children enjoyed the experience of visiting a theatre. the children’s behaviour was impeccable and their manners were commented on by one of the theatre staff.

 

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE LEARNING

I thought it would be helpful to understand the foundations of our curriculum. We aim to make the children’s learning as interesting and engaging as we can. Our curriculum is based on the principles of Engagement-Motivation-Thinking. In the youngest classes we use characters from the film ‘Toy Story’ to help the children understand these principles. Our planning then follows the process of Engage-Enquire & Explore-Evaluate & Express . This enables our children to have choice both in their learning and in the presentation of their work. I have attached some information for you.

 

WALKING TO AND FROM SCHOOL ALONE

Although there is no set age when children are ready to walk to school or home on their own, it is important that you as parents assess the risk for your child. You should look at any risks associated with the route they are going to take. It is also depends on the confidence and maturity of the child. Please work with your child to build up their independence while walking to school with you through route finding, road safety skills and general awareness. Children who are driven to school do not have the opportunity to develop road awareness and are therefore more vulnerable when they start to walk to school independently. I have attached some teaching points. I hope that you find them useful.

 

CHICHESTER CORPORATE CHALLENGE

Well done to our magnificent runners who completed the first of three road races in Chichester town centre on Wednesday evening. They showed resilience and courage when running in their races with approximately 150 other children!

Our Y5 runners were Dylan, Alys, Gracie and Evie.

Our Y6 runners were Oscar, Frazer, Ashton, Jayden, Ellie and Amy.

 

Have a fantastic weekend and we look forward to seeing everyone on Monday.

Take care

Kim Huggett