Dear
Parents/Carers,
Hard
to believe that we are days away from the end of another year! The weather has
made for a sensational end to the year, frankly – from snow at Easter to the
tropics in July it certainly has been a year of extremities. Life in school has
been positively buoyant during 2012-13, the staff team have positively
blossomed and the children have done you proud every single day…. I couldn’t be
more pleased with the way that my second year at Cookridge has panned out, and
I genuinely look forward to sharing our growth with Ofsted when the time does
come: it is time to celebrate a community effort and mark our achievements.
Message from Chair of
Governors
This
has been an extraordinary year for our children and staff at Cookridge Primary
School. Our school is going from strength to strength and we have seen that our
children are successfully climbing their own personal academic mountain each
day at school. Each and every parent and guardian has fantastic reasons to be
proud of their child at Cookridge Primary School. The children are to be
congratulated on what has been a truly fabulous year for them. It has to be
said that seeing a whole school of children doing well for themselves is an
unrivalled privilege to experience.
During
this year, your school governing body had to implement some tough decisions to
ensure the long term sustainability of the way our school operates. The
uncertainty is behind us now, but I want to put on record my appreciation for
every staff member at the School. Throughout the uncertain times a strong
degree of professionalism was maintained by the staff and I am very proud of
all of the staff we have at the school. In our role as parents we should
rightfully expect the best we can get for our children and I believe we all do
get an excellent school every day from all the staff at Cookridge.
Congratulations to all our staff: we are very proud of you and the summer break
is well deserved!
The
new academic year will bring new challenges and exciting opportunities for
children, staff and school governors. There will be some parent governor
vacancies released to join our school governing body early in the Autumn term.
I want as many parents as possible to consider these vacancies now in readiness
for when they are advertised. It is a rare chance to be involved in something
big and to shape your child's school. As a parent and a governor myself I can
answer questions on what it means to be a governor. Please feel free to speak
to me in the Autumn if you would like to explore the idea further.
Vijay
Sharma
Reports
Thank
you to parents who have taken the time to fill in the feedback slips following
the reports last week. It has been wonderful for teachers to read your very
positive comments – it really does make a difference!
Y6 events: Bugsy Malone,
Prom and Leavers assembly
On
Monday, after a dramatic setback Bugsy finally went ahead. It was worth the
wait, as the children put on a great show with confident, assured and
professional performances, heavily punctuated with a whole lot of FUN!
Wednesday evening also saw our first ever Leavers ‘Prom’. The children have
worked really hard to plan and resource their end of year celebration event,
and roped in plenty of help to make their seaside theme come to life. Special
mention and thanks must be made to Mr
Chris Tate (our man from Pinnacle who ALWAYS says ‘yes!’ who provided a
delicious range of cakes, buns, biscuits and ice cream), Mrs Rebecca Herbert and Mrs Barbara Nixon (our PTA princesses who
supported both the planning of the event and the organisation on the night), Mr Martin Walker (talented photographer
who manned the photo booth and took some great shots of the kids) and Mr Michael Land (who sourced the fish
& chips at a good price, and delivered them on the night). Y6 now have one
momentous occasion to mark the end of their time at Cookridge – the Leavers
assembly is at 2pm on Tuesday and all are invited!
Special, enormous, gigantic
thanks must be extended to Miss
Fowler, who has done a phenomenal job in organising all of these aspects of
Y6’s final weeks with us and ensuring that 40 kids really have loved every
minute of their post-SATS projects. Miss Fowler – you are amazing: it’s as
simple as that.
Get involved – Come to
Zumba!!!
Don’t
forget - Miss Glendinning and Miss Carroll are leading a Zumba aerobic session
for all parents on Monday from 2-3pm. If you fancy a go, please enter the
grounds from the school gate and hot foot it straight into the hall. All you
need is comfortable clothing, trainers and a little unspent energy…
Attendance
On
Monday, 37 pupils climbed aboard the movie bus to celebrate their 100%
attendance for the entire year. This is a great achievement as that figure has
increased from just 18 last year, and 13 the year before that. It would be
wonderful if we were able to double that number again in 2014 – so keep up the
good work! Attendance this week is once
again lower than we would hope.. Please come to school on Monday and Tuesday
next week – there is still much fun to be had!
|
National Minimum ‘Good’ Expectation
|
Target
2012-13
|
Attendance this week
|
Year to date
|
||||||||
|
95%
|
96%
|
90.1%
|
95.1%
|
||||||||
|
Class attendance figures for this week are:-
|
|||||||||||
|
Rec
|
Class 1
|
Class 2
|
Class 3
|
Class 4
|
Class 5
|
Class 6
|
Class 7
|
Class 8
|
Class 9
|
||
|
A 85.2%
B 89.6
|
88.2%
|
94.5%
|
92.5%
|
86.2%
|
82.9%
|
95.3%
|
89.3%
|
91.3%
|
94.6
|
||
Training Days 2013-14
Next
year, in a bid to further accelerate our school improvements towards
outstanding provision in every aspect of school life, we will be working in
partnership with Beecroft Primary School, an outstanding school in Kirkstall.
As part of the partnership, teaching staff have the opportunity to spend a full
day at Beecroft, observing a normal working day. I am sure you can appreciate
what a fantastic opportunity this is, as the opportunities to see other
teachers teach are all too rare in the teaching world! In order to make this
happen, I do need to change the date of the training days as previously
notified. Apologies for the inconvenience – but this really is too good an
opportunity to miss! Please note – training days for the year ahead are now:
Monday
September 2nd 2013
Tuesday
September 3rd 2013
Friday October 25th 2013
– now cancelled
Thursday 14th November
2013 – new date at Beecroft
Monday
April 22nd 2014
Monday July 7th 2014
And
so, we mark the end of another school year. It has been a good year with much
to celebrate and I very much look forward to what we can achieve together next
year – the world is our oyster!
Farewell
to all our leavers and the very, very best of luck in all that you do next!
Have a wonderful summer
holiday and I will see you all bright and early on Wednesday 4th
September.
Sam
Bailey
