Lane End Primary School

September - Newsletter 1 (3rd September 2013)

Welcome

A warm welcome back to all our children and parents and a warm welcome too to all our new children and parents. We hope that you enjoy your time with us.

Curriculum

We aim to plan an exciting and stimulating curriculum for your children with a lot of the work linking together in topics or themes. This makes the learning more meaningful for your children as they can make links between subjects. Knowing your child’s theme should help you talk to them about their work. Sometimes there is just one main theme for a term and sometimes two. The themes this term are:

Please remember that you can use the school website and our Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) to see some of the work your children have been doing and to link to fun and educational activities for each year group. VLE log-in details for Reception children will be coming home later this half term and all other children can use their existing username and password to log-on to the VLE for their new class. We will be updating each year group’s pages shortly but there is a lot of content and educational programmes available to link to on the front page of the VLE already. We will also be sending home a new VLE booklet to all children soon.

 We have updated our ‘Booklets for Parents’ and these will be coming home next week. The booklets act as a useful reference point throughout the year. Reception parents received their booklets at the new parents’ meeting.

Curriculum and Staff News

This year we are working in partnership with ‘The Language People’ (who also run our excellent French Club) to teach our French lessons. An exciting curriculum has been developed for the expert French teachers to deliver alongside our own teachers. Years 2 to 6 will be having dedicated French lessons and Reception and Year 1 will have opportunities to try out and have fun with the language.

We have invested in a class set of ipad minis for the children to use to enhance their learning across the curriculum. There are a multitude of exciting ways that the ipads can help bring learning to life including embedding videos in presentations, reading or creating an online book, using an App to help develop their phonic understanding or annotating a piece of text. But don’t worry, the children will still be reading and enjoying real books and developing their handwriting skills!

Matt Ward, who does a great job with Junior Sports Stars, is also going to be working directly for school. He will continue running the sports coaching sessions in school and will also have extra time to work with all classes and teachers on further developing sport in school as well as running sports competitions and developing sports activities at lunchtime. Junior Sports Stars Coaching will continue as normal after school on Tuesday and Thursday.

Mrs Lenaghan has now changed her name back to Miss Preskey.

As well as working as a mid-day assistant Miss Sarah Leary is now doing additional hours as teaching assistant throughout the school.

School Uniform and P.E Kit

Everyone looked very smart when they came to school today. Please help keep our school looking smart by making sure your children come in the correct school uniform and wear black shoes to school. Children should also wear the correct P.E. kit: plain white T-shirt and black or blue shorts. Tracksuits trousers and a tracksuit top/school fleece/spare school jumper and white T-shirt can be worn for outdoor P.E. in wet or cold weather.

A reminder that there should be no jewellery or make-up worn in school and only stud earrings are allowed (which must be removed for P.E.). Labelling school uniform and all clothes which come into school with your child’s name is very important – taking a few minutes to do this can save hours of hunting!

Arriving at School and School Security

Please remember that infant children (Reception, Year 1 and Year 2) can arrive at school between 8:50am and 9am and come straight into their class through the infant entrance. Please help your child to be independent and come in without you. Reception parents will be able to come in to the cloakroom with their children to drop them off (this is supervised by a teaching assistant) but we hope that they will become independent enough to come in on their own quite soon.

The playground is supervised for junior children (Years 3-6) from 8:50am and children should not arrive before this time. The whistle goes just before 9am and the children line up in their classes to come in.

All visitors need to sign in to school at the main entrance.

For all parents, if you need to talk to your child’s class teacher, please come to the main reception and sign in. The teacher will either be able to see you or, if they are not available, make an appointment to speak to you at a mutually convenient time. Please understand that when the children are coming in at the beginning of the day, it is a busy period and may be difficult for the teacher to speak to you properly. If you need to communicate something to your child’s class teacher right at the beginning of the day, a note to the teacher or message to Mrs Titterington at the office for her to pass on will often do the job well. Alternatively, if you phone school we can arrange an appointment for you with your child’s class teacher.

For security reasons, it is important that parents do not use the junior entrance to come into school but come into school via the main entrance.

Thank you for your help.

 Extra-curricular Activities

A separate letter will be sent to you soon outlining arrangements for this term’s extra-curricular activity programme.  When this does come home, please assume your child has a place in the clubs you have applied for unless we let you know otherwise. There are no clubs on after school this week.

Swimming

Swimming lessons start for Class 6 on Friday 13th September.

Swimming Timetable - Year 6 to October half term / Year 3 from October half term to February half term / Year 4 from February half term to Whit half term / Year 5 from Whit half term to end of Summer term. More details are contained on a separate letter and a reminder will be sent home closer to your child’s swimming sessions.

Walk on Wednesday

Walk on Wednesday was very well supported last year and we are starting again tomorrow! For those parents who are new to the school, ‘Walk on Wednesday’ is aimed at encouraging healthier and more environmentally friendly travel methods to school. Each Wednesday we encourage children (and parents) to walk to school. For those of you who live too far away you can use ‘Park and Stride’ from the Methodist Church - a permit is attached to the newsletter which you need to display in your windscreen (only valid on Wednesdays!). We had a great take up last year and some parents and children continued walking throughout the week. Children who have walked can write their name on a slip to put in a hat for a weekly prize draw. We will also be holding a ‘Walk to School Week’ later on this term – more details to follow soon.

School Dinners

School dinners offer a healthy and balanced meal each day. If you would like your child to start having school dinners this term please write a note to Mrs Titterington (our school secretary) giving 3 days notice and to start on a Monday. Reception children can have a school dinner from Monday September 23^rd (you will receive a letter about this the week before).

School dinners now cost £2.05 per day (£10.25 per week). Please can you help by making sure that we get your payment on a Monday morning. Dinner money should be sent to school in a “named” envelope—child’s name, class, and amount on the front please. Cheques should be made payable to Stockport MBC. Please could you give us 3 days notice of any changes to your child’s dinner arrangements.  

Healthy Snacks

A reminder that fruit is provided for Reception and Key Stage 1 children each day.  Please can we ask for your help to ensure that Key Stage 2 children (Year 3, 4, 5 and 6) only bring healthy snacks to school (e.g. fruit, dried fruit or a breakfast bar). The children have generally been very good at this and it is important that the ‘being healthy’ message is reinforced throughout school. Thank-you.

Guitar, Flute, Saxophone and Clarinet Lessons – Years 4, 5 and 6

Musical instrument lessons will start next week. A letter will be coming home for new starters this week.

Contact Details – If any of your contact details have changed, including your mobile phone number, then please write us a note to let us have the new information for our records – thank you.

PTA – our first meeting is on Wednesday 11^th September. Meetings are held in the school at 7:30-8:30pm and are there to help plan and organise the PTA events for the year to raise money to enhance the children’s school experience. We’d love to see new parents there and everyone is welcome.

Important Dates

A list of important dates for the year will come home next week - they will also always be available on the school website:  www.laneend.stockport.sch.uk (click on the ‘Parents’ section). The holiday dates are already shown in this section of the website.

At Lane End we are committed to working with parents and carers to get the best for your children.  It is an important partnership and I want you to feel happy to talk to us about any worries you may have or to get an update on progress. Rest assured, we will also contact you if we feel there is anything important you should know.

We look forward to a fun and rewarding year.

Yours sincerely,

 James Twigg