Dear Parents/Carers,
Welcome back! I trust that you all had a wonderful Christmas break and enjoyed the rest.. On behalf of the staff team let me firstly wish you all a Happy New Year. The children have returned to school full of news about their most exciting of holidays and bubbling with enthusiasm for the new school term. There has been an exhilarating atmosphere in school this week with all of our children getting excited by new topics and new challenges, and getting to know the newest members of our teaching team. Miss Hobson and Mrs Caldecott have made a fabulous start in Classes 1 and 6 and I am sure that you will join with me in welcoming them to our community.
Staff training day
On Tuesday, teaching staff returned to school with a spring in their step. Not necessarily because it was the end of a much enjoyed Christmas holiday (!) but because it marked the launch point of our new reading materials in school. There was much enthusiasm for the fantastic books on offer and Miss Fowler did a tremendous job of inspiring a talented team to rise to the challenge of using the books to ensure EVERY child at Cookridge is passionate about reading. In a recent Ofsted publication entitled ‘How the best schools do it’ http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/reading-six-how-best-schools-do-it we noted that the single consistent factor in the ‘best’ schools in the country was an absolute, unshakeable commitment across the whole school community to children becoming readers. If we want it badly enough then it will happen... And we want it! We look forward to continuing to accrue the fabulous resources that will help us in our mission and sharing them - and our vision - with you.
Please continue to read with your child as often as you can and remember the joy of reading is a free, lifelong gift you give your child in 10-15 minutes a day.. There are few others like it!
Exciting times
As I’ve made my way around school this week, I’ve had some very exciting moments! DS’s are now being used in Class 4 to support maths learning.. I walked into Class 3 on Thursday to spot four children huddled around an Ipad.. again learning maths! Mr Gamble and Miss Cowles really are leading the way in these exciting methods of learning and both confess to investing some time to research (also known as playing games!) over the festive period – it’s hard work but somebody’s got to do it! The school website and class blogs are receiving hundreds of hits per day with many children leaving messages and playing games (also known as learning!) well beyond the school day. If you haven’t already – do have a look at the school website and the brilliant class based blogs that have popped up. http://www.cookridgeprimaryschool.org.uk/homepage/. We are still developing the resources on offer and will soon be sharing password details for an even greater range of ICT games based websites. A reminder that this newsletter is available to view via the ‘Mrs B’s Blog’ every Friday, so if ‘pupil post’ should fail you – you know where to find it! http://cookridgeprimaryschool.blogspot.com/ We are not now distributing emails via Parentmail as this service will primarily be used for texting in an emergency.
Team Champions
As a reward for accruing the highest number of team points last term, Yellow team this afternoon opted for a rewarding DVD, juice and popcorn treat.. What a delight to see so many young, high achieving people in one room! Well done you Yellows.. Good luck to all for next term!
Christmas Fundraising
You may remember that we were rattling collection buckets at the end of our Christmas productions this year. We were collecting loose change on behalf of Birmingham Children’s hospital in a joint venture with our partner school in Birmingham, who were simultaneously collecting on behalf of Leeds General Infirmary. In total, we raised just over £200 on this occasion – another mark of your generosity towards community projects. Yet again – thank you!
Walking Bus news
A reminder that there is a meeting next Thursday January 12th at 9.30am with Mark Sadler from Leeds City Council about the Walking Bus initiative. This initiative is one of the ways in which we can work together as a community to alleviate the problems we face with parking, with willing volunteers effectively taking it in turns to walk pupils into school from a nearby designated meeting point. If you are interested in finding out more about – and possibly being part of - this initiative please come along to the meeting.
Attendance
The attendance figure from Thursday 15th Dec to Wed 4th Jan is 93.5%. This is the fourth consecutive week in which our attendance figures have fallen below the National ‘satisfactory’ benchmark of 94%, a figure we have not achieved since the beginning of December. Not only is attendance a key factor underpinning Ofsted’s judgement of a school as ‘good’ or otherwise, it is also one of the key reasons why children’s learning falls behind that of their peers. Please bear this stark fact in mind when taking the decision to keep your child off school and help us to ensure we improve our attendance and, more importantly, help your child achieve their absolute best.
On a more positive note, 80 pupils received 100% attendance awards last term for being in school every day from September through to December. This is a fantastic achievement. Those children who manage to maintain 100% attendance all the way through to July WILL be receiving a very special reward this year in recognition of their achievement. Fingers crossed all 80 pupils manage to keep that ‘clean slate’!
Last term also saw the first of our weekly ‘chance’ awards. Those pupils who had come to school every day for the week were entered into a draw, from which one lucky person from each class chose a prize from our special selection.. We look forward to seeing who will secure those prizes on Monday!
Coffee Morning
Our next Coffee Morning is happening on Wednesday 18th January at 9.00am. We are looking forward to welcoming back some familiar faces and – hopefully – having the opportunity to listen to your ideas for our school. We are very keen to initiate some more parent groups during the course of this term and would love to hear the kinds of things you would come along to and possibly even enjoy... Weekly parent/toddler groups, toddler art/craft groups, adult learning clubs (maybe computers, art...?), shopping mornings (!) – whatever you fancy we will do our best to get it right for you... but we won’t know if you don’t tell us! If you haven’t already, please come along and meet Mrs Laycock and myself for this informal get together – we always make sure the biscuits are good!
Have a wonderful weekend,
Mrs Bailey
