November 2018

It’s been a busy week of tournaments for Miss Lewis and both teams this week with the girls team playing on Monday at Sedgemere Road and the boys team in action on Wednesday at Castle Vale. Our girls team dominated their group, winning all of their matches and have now qualified for the final on Monday 3 December. The boys managed a win and two draws to finish third overall in their group. Well done to both teams and to Miss Lewis.

Girls: LFP 9 vs Elms Farm 0 LFP 5 vs Elms Farm 0 LFP 3 vs St Bernadettes 2 LFP 7 vs Cedars 0 LFP 3 vs Yardley 0

Boys: LFP 0 vs Brookfield 0 LFP 5 vs Gossey Lane 0 LFP 0 vs Audley 0 LFP 1 vs SS Peter & Paul 2

We’ve had a great week focusing on Road Safety at Lea Forest.

Our Parking Patrol has awarded over 300 stickers for walking, cycling or using the bus to come to school. We’ve also spoken to drivers and reminded them to park away from the school gates in a safe way that doesn’t block the pavement.

Paul, from the Road Safety Action team at Birmingham City council visited us on Monday and talked in assembly about being safe on the road by wearing something bright at night.

On Wednesday the camera car came along and helped us monitor the parking on Eddish Road again.

Thank you to all of our parents who are continuing to support our efforts to improve the safety of the roads around the school.

Our whole school overall attendance this week was a VERY DISAPPOINTING 92.48%. This is 3.52% BELOW our target of 96%. I understand that there has been chicken pox and sickness bugs going around, but please, let’s try to get back on track next week. We have done so well up to now - let’s not let this slip!

Only 4 classes achieved 96%+ this week:

4th place = 4WH with 96.21%

3rd place = NPH with 96.27%

2nd place = 5MW with 97.14%

1st place and this week’s WINNERS = 3ST with 97.65%

That’s it for another week as we draw closer to Christmas. The Christmas songs are already being heard throughout school as we prepare for our Christmas performances. There will be more news about these next week. Remember to follow us on Twitter, FaceBook and get connected with ClassDojo to keep up-to-date with all events.

It has been ROAD SAFETY WEEK and we have been working really hard to make it safer around school. There is more information about this on page 2, but I wanted to personally thank the PCAB and our children for their daily patrols which have proven to be most effective.

We held our first non-uniform day to collect items for our Christmas fayre and Christmas hampers. Thank you so much for the donations and thank you also to Stacey and Amanda, from our PCAB, for spending some of their time in school sorting through the collections. We have another two non-uniform days next week on Tuesday and Thursday in return for more collections. Look out for further information on ClassDojo and Facebook!

I found time on Monday evening to go along to support our girls’ football team, who put on a tremendous performance and represented our school to the highest standard - they didn’t lose a single match! I was particularly impressed with their teamwork and encouragement towards themselves and other teams.

Last weekend, six of our wonderful pupils participated in the Birmingham Military Tattoo where 32 dancers from Philippa’s school of dance, along with 9 other Midlands dance schools, were invited to take part in performing at the Birmingham military tattoo event at the NIA arena. The United Kingdom disco display troupe provided the audience with an uplifting routine, celebrating the 70 year anniversary of the NHS. The Military tattoo takes place every year and is a very well respected event. The Queen’s Troops also participated alongside the Army and the Navy. A BIG well done to our girls that participated: Tiaani, Kareema, Suvera, Leah, Maisie and Aimie-Leigh.

Year 4 were in for a treat on Monday when Liz from ‘Traders, Raiders & Invaders’ delivered a wonderful workshop on ‘The Romans’. We were given the chance to explore Roman artefacts and made leather drawstring purses and masks. As an extra treat, Liz gave everyone their own silver Roman coin to keep! The costumes children wore to school were amazing, thank you parents! Take a look at some of our Roman children.

Thank you to everyone who came to our Reading Workshop in Nursery! We shared information about Resilient Reader with our youngest children, who will be learning about 'left-hand questions'. Please send in your photos of children practising reading skills at home, using the resource for questioning prompts, especially if they have sunglasses on! If you need more resources, please speak to any members of staff in our Nursery

On Tuesday we welcomed the team from Google Education to Lea Forest to talk to our children in Key Stage 2 about E-Safety and the Internet Legends project. You can find out more about the four aims, which are: Be Internet Kind, Be Internet Secure, Be Internet Alert and Be Internet Sharp on the E-safety section of our website. There are lots of great resources and games that you can use at home to help your family use technology safely.

Our fabulous footballers braved the rain and bitterly cold wind at Sedgemere Road to come away with 3rd Place and a 5-1 win against Lyndon Green Junior school in the East Birmingham FA Finals.

Full time scores:

Lea Forest 0 vs St Bernadettes 1

Lea Forest 0 vs Yardley 4

Lea Forest 5 vs Lyndon Green 1

We had a fantastic morning of sport on Wednesday at the Nechells Wellbeing Centre competing against our local schools in the Y5 and Y6 Athletics competition. Our children were amazing and finished 2nd overall in our district!

Mr Croxon will be supporting our Nursery parents with online applications up until Christmas. Our next workshop will be on:

Tuesday 27 November 2018 at 9:10 am.

All Nursery parents are invited to attend.

The PCAB, who continue to provide so many amazing opportunities for the children of Lea Forest all met on Wednesday.

Item one of the agenda was to discuss the fabulous achievements and fund raising. Any money raised goes directly back into the school to be spent on he children. It was agreed that the PCAB would fund Y6 revision books.

After all of the successes had been shared, it was onto more planning of future events. We are so lucky to have such an enthusiastic group of people who want to do so much for our school.

We now look forward to the Christmas Fayre which is being held on Friday 14 December at 3:30pm.

This week’s overall attendance is a disappointing 95.91% which was brought down by one class which was hit by illness Despite, this week’s average being below our 96% target, I am delighted to see so many classes smashing this! A big well done to the following classes with 96%+ …

6CF with 96.30% 4WH with 96.93% 2MC with 97.04% NPH with 97.69% 2SJ with 98.53% 3ST with 98.69% 4NN with 99.26%

5MW with 99.21%

Our WINNERS this week are: 6NO with 99.62%

A Summary of this week

This week started with a parent workshop for Nursery. It was a wonderful turn out and it’s great to see our Resilient Reader tool being used with our youngest of children. Parents were presented with a left hand to help them support reading at home by asking the who, what, where, when and why questions. If you weren’t able to make the workshop and would like some resources, speak to the Nursery team and they’ll help you out. On Monday, our Y4 had a Roman themed day and dressed the part (see picture above). Tuesday was busy too! I do apologise for not being on the gates in the mornings so often, but I’ve been busy either meeting parents, inducting new pupils or welcoming visitors. We had two groups of visitors on Tuesday. In the morning we had Teachers from another school, all the way from Chepstow, to see our wonderful teaching and learning. The other half of their staff also joined us on Friday morning. In the afternoon of Tuesday, we had visitors from Cornerstones who were amazed by our curriculum work. The children’s knowledge and book work has amazed everyone. On Wednesday, we had teachers from Loughborough to visit our Reception classes. They left feeling inspired and commented on the positive ethos at Lea Forest. We also held our second PCAB meeting for this academic year and what a successful meeting it was. - find out more on page 2. There was football action too from the boys who did themselves proud by beating my previous school 5-1.

We ended the week with a bit of unexpected drama! We had to unfortunately close school around lunchtime on Thursday due to a gas leak on the school grounds. Thank you to everyone for being so understanding. When making such decisions, we always have the children’s safety at the forefront. We were glad to open the doors as normal on Friday to finish off our week of learning and tests.

We’ve raised £627.54 for Children In Need this year.

Thank you to everyone that donated, dressed up and supported our fund raising by buying a Pudsey Pin Badge or Bracelet. All the money raised from our Children In Need events will go to support a range of worthwhile causes. You can find out more about Children In Need via their website www.bbcchildreninneed.co.uk/fundraisinghub

This week Miss Hadfield met with the school council to discuss some exciting news!

Lea Forest have been chosen to receive a sophisticated diffusion kit to measure the air quality in the local area. Miss Hadfield and the school council placed the tube in the Reception playground. The tube will measure the levels of nitrogen oxide in the air. The tube will eventually be sent off for analysis in 3 weeks. Only a few schools were selected to receive the tubes, so we can’t wait to see what the results are!!!! Our councillors have also worked with Miss Hadfield to create ‘want’ and ‘need’ cards that every class will be using later in the year as part of UNiCEF Rights Respecting Schools project in our efforts to achieve a silver award in the summer term. Watch this space for more super work from our dedicated school councillors.

Please note that due to circumstances beyond our control the school photographer will be visiting Lea Forest on Friday 30 November 2018.

Over the coming year we will be focusing on the theme of Remarkable Lives as part of our trust’s new Vision, Mission and Values. Watch out for lots of exciting activities and competitions coming soon.

Our children in Y3 and Y4 have already helped to film and direct the first segment of our #RemarkableLives video which will be appearing soon on our website.

Our boys football team had a fantastic start to this half term with wins against Elms Farm, Cedars Academy and Blakenhale at Sedgemere Road this week. We’re through to the next round which will be played on Tuesday 20 November.

Lea Forest 7 vs Elms Farm 1

Lea Forest 1 vs St Bernadette's 3

Lea Forest 9 vs Cedars 1

Lea Forest 5 vs Blakenhale 4

Mrs Lewis will be running our family cooking course Y6, starting from Thursday 22 November.

Please make sure you return your slip as soon as possible as places are limited.

Mr Croxon will be supporting our Nursery parents with online applications this half term up until Christmas. Our next workshop will be on

Tuesday 20 November 2018 at 9:10 am.

A summary of this week:

The week started with a whole school assembly with Miss Hadfiield, which focused on ‘fair trade’. We also held our Remembrance Assembly at 11am on Monday where children in Y1-Y6 had the opportunity to pay their respects. The children’s behaviour was impeccable and respectful. Our children in Early Years also had the opportunity to hold a Remembrance event in their playground area. A big thank you to Charlie and Gabriella who both presented readings. As always, Mr Haw also played the Last Post on his trumpet to add further poignancy to the events. Mr Croxon has made videos which can be found on FaceBook, Twitter and the school website.

On Tuesday, I had the opportunity to meet with Paul, our local Vicar and we discussed lots of opportunities for the future. Miss Shread, our Chair of the PCAB also attended the meeting and we will work together with Paul to provide future experiences for our children. On Wednesday afternoon, Mrs Gonzales who leads Early Years, welcomed prospective parents in to see the wonderful facilities and learning opportunities we provide for the children in Nursery and Reception. We see Early Years as important years as this is when children start to learn and explore. If you’d like to find out more about our Early Years department, feel free to speak to Mrs Gonzales. We still have places in our current Nursery. School was covered in spots on Thursday for Children in Need. Find out how much we managed to raise on page 2. It was great to see our gardening club working really hard after school on Thursday. They’ve been preparing items to be sold at our Christmas Fayre which is being held at 3:30pm on Friday 14 December. If you’d like to get involved in joining our garden club, speak to Mrs Terry - the more the merrier!

Next week:

We have a busy week with STOP THE CLOCK tests being carried out in all classes from Y1-Y6. These tests will allow us to take a snapshot of where the children are now and measure what progress has already been made. They are very important assessments as it allows us to plan which children need further interventions, so please ensure that children are in school EVERY DAY. We also have our boys football team representing us on Tuesday next week, where they will be playing in the finals of a competition they qualified for this week. I’m sure you’ll join me in wishing them the best of luck and hopefully we can win another trophy to add to our already bursting cabinet. On Friday of next week, we have a large number of teachers joining us from another school to see how we teach maths at Lea Forest as our reputation continues to grow.

Attendance:

A BIG well done to everyone! Our attendance is looking great! Find out how great on page 2…. Keep-it-up!

From everyone at Lea Forest, we wish you a great weekend.

Mr Clarke

We’re supporting Pudsey bear and Children In Need next week with lots of spotty fund raising taking place on Thursday 15th November 2018.

Children can come to school in their spottiest clothes and purchase a range of Pudsey themed items. All money raised will be sent directly to support Children In Need.

So show us those spots and let’s raise lots for Pudsey!

Written By Charlie and Millie

On Monday, Year 6 welcomed parents to our reading workshop . We covered some of the tools that we use in reading such as; skimming and scanning and using our right and left hand questions.

During the workshop, we were skimming and scanning our new class text ‘Street Child’ by Berlie Doherty.

We had a lot of fun showing our parents how we present and complete our work in reading.

We’d like to say a really big thank you to our parents. See you all again soon at our maths workshop.

We’re continuing to work towards our Modeshift STARS Award and have been supported by the local parking patrol wardens and the camera car from Birmingham City Council. Our children will be patrolling with the wardens this half term and advising parents on the safest ways to park.

Our parking pledge stickers are still available from the office. If you have signed our parking pledge, you can come into school to collect a sticker.

Make sure you display it in your car for a chance to win a prize!

Our ESOL classes are running this half term with Miss Jones in the EAL Hub. Parents who require support with speaking, reading and writing English are welcome to attend our fun-filled workshops that are running every Tuesday afternoon from 2pm-3pm until the end of the term. Come along and start your own learning journey!

Written by Darcie Rae and Maaz from 1RW

On Monday, an alien spaceship crash landed in the Nursery playground. We went out to investigate and we found lots of wires, a broken computer and lots of green alien slime. We asked Mr Croxon to look on the computer and we found lots of pictures that the alien had taken around our school.

We had a great time investigating the crash!

First of all, I would like to welcome everyone back to school after the half term break. It was lovely opening our doors and gates on Monday morning with lots of smiling faces and children running into school. The start of a new half term sees the launch of our new topics throughout school. You can find every year groups curriculum map on the website, ClassDojo, Facebook and Twitter, but here is a list of the main themes:

Nursery: Celebrations Reception: Light and Dark Year 1: Moon Zoom

Year 2: Towers, Tunnels and Turrets Year 3: Gods and Mortals Year 4: I Am Warrior

Year 5: Stargazers Year 6: Victorians

Some of our teachers set homework during the half term break and I’ve been so impressed with the models and pieces of work which have been sent into school. Our corridors are decorated with spaceships, castles and solar systems! During the holidays, I also set a pumpkin competition. Again, I was overwhelmed by the amount of photographs of carved pumpkins I received. Prizes have been awarded to winners in Early years, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2.

We were joined by our Governors for the whole day on Wednesday.

The members of our Governance Board are:

Mr Bassett - Chair of Governors

Ms Castello - AET Primary Director of Education

Mrs Smith - Peer Headteacher (Meadstead Primary Academy)

Mrs Bussell - Peer Headteacher (Beacon Primary Academy)

Mrs Hedley - Headteacher (Topcliffe Primary Academy)

Mr Wheeldon - AET representative (Governance team)

They had the opportunity to visit lessons, speak to the children about their learning experiences, looked at books and got an overall flavour of what we offer at Lea Forest. They were all highly impressed with what they experienced and agreed that Lea Forest really is AMAZING!

Mrs Hudson has been busy creating another beautiful display in school. Her ’Lest we forget…’ display will be added to further once classes have finished preparations. We have been selling poppies and will hold a two minutes silence on Monday at 11am to pay our respects. Mr Haw will also be playing his trumpet !

A polite reminder -

For trips and visits to go ahead, we rely on your payments. If we do not receive contributions from parents/carers, we will not be able to provide so many experiences and trips/visits will not be able to go ahead. If you are finding payments difficult, please come and speak to someone in school and we will see how we can help.

I will end this week by saying a huge thank you to all of you for making a continued special effort with attendance. You can find out which classes have managed to achieve 96%+ on page 2. This week’s winners are also revealed.

I hope you all have a great weekend! See you all again next week, ready to start all over again.

Mr Clarke