April 2021

Bikeability

posted Apr 30 , 19:11 by J Croxon

Well done to the children in Years 3 and 4 for their fantastic cycling skills! They have been assessed at Level 1, showing a great knowledge of bike safety and control, learning how to be more aware of the situation around them. Year 6 are leading the way with Level 2, learning essential safety skills for getting out and about in the roads. They can perform more complicated manoeuvres, navigating T-junctions and crossroads using their enhanced observation and decision-making skills. Year 5 will start this next Tuesday. Keep sending pictures of your cycling adventures please!


Summer Competitions

posted Apr 30 , 19:11 by J Croxon

Competition for ages 5-7: Can you design an amazing backpack for the Summer Explorers to take on their outdoor adventures? What will make the backpack special? What colour will it be? Will it have any special features or secret pockets? Don’t forget to include space for them to pack their Wrap, Splat, Hat items so they can stay sun-safe while they’re exploring outdoors.


Competition for ages 7-11: All great explorers must capture their adventures on camera! Think of a creative way for your backpack (the one you take for adventures) to be the star of a photo in your favourite outdoor summer location. Include Wrap, Splat, Hat items, either poking out or positioned artistically around it. We want to see the most inventive places for your backpack to pose for a photo – up a tree, on a beach, playing on the swings in your local park – the more fun the better! (But don’t forget to respect local Covid guidelines). Make sure you include this completed sentence starter: This is my favourite place to Wrap, Splat, Hat because…


NSPCC Number Day

posted Apr 30 , 19:11 by J Croxon

To celebrate NSPCC Number Day, we have planned a fun and engaging day in which you will have a chance to win a range of prizes. The children can dress up in ‘Number’ based costumes (with the most creative costumes winning a prize), have opportunities to play a range of maths games, solve maths puzzles and even create their own maths board game! The best board games in KS1 and KS2 will also have their designs sent to a professional board game design company to create the masterpieces. The afternoon sessions will give all of the children an opportunity to explore ‘Maths in Art’ and create some amazing maths based artwork. Throughout the day there will also be a range of Times Table Rockstars competitions, both nationally and within school with the opportunity to win a variety of individual and class prizes. As well as these amazing number based activities, every child in school on this day will be in with a chance of winning a brand new iPad!


https://www.artfulmaths.com/mathematical-art-lessons.html


Prizes

KS1 - Best Dressed (Amazon voucher)

KS2 - Best Dressed (Amazon voucher)

KS1 - Game Design (chocolates / sweets + game being made)

KS2 - Game Design (chocolates / sweets + game being made)


TTRS Top Three (x3) (Certificates + TTRS keyring and pencil)


Attendance Challenge

posted Apr 30 , 19:11 by J Croxon

Come to school everyday from Monday 19 April until Friday 28 May and have the chance to win a fantastic £10 voucher.


What do you need to do?

Come to school every day for 29 days, from the 19th April until 28th May. If you have to self isolate, complete online learning instead.


How can you win?

Those that complete the 29 day challenge will have their name put in a prize draw to be carried out on Friday 28th May. There will be a prize draw per year group

(eight £10 voucher prizes in total) so a pupil in every year group has the chance to win.






Mr Clarke's Message

posted Apr 30 , 19:11 by J Croxon

Thank you for all your support over the past couple of weeks. I think we have had a really successful start to the term with much to look forward to over the next few weeks.


This week has been fun-packed with so many innovative and exciting events taking place. Hopefully the children have been coming home and telling you all about their learning experiences. This week has involved activities such as: an alien crash landing in Year 1, heart dissection in Year 6, Tudor Day in Year 5 and orienteering in Year 3 as well as many more!


Our Curriculum

The most important underlying principle of our curriculum is to develop a love of learning. We believe that a successful curriculum is brought to life by high quality teaching, inspirational learning activities and memorable opportunities. We have developed a broad and balanced creative curriculum that is both rich in knowledge and also skills based. It incorporates a wide range of topics in order to promote independence, collaboration, creativity and expression. We expose the children to immersive environments, school visits, school visitors, media use and celebrations of success as well as giving them opportunities to learn about being active, healthy and engaged citizens. Our aim is to equip the children with lifelong skills and to give them experiences that they will remember forever and go on to live remarkable lives.

To find out more about this term’s focus, click on the link to our website: https://sites.google.com/aetinet.org/lea-forest-primary-academy/curriculum/wider-curriculum/curriculum-maps-2020-21

You can also follow our curriculum feed on twitter by searching for @lea_forest_curr.



Wishing you all a fabulous bank holiday weekend! See you all again on Tuesday 4th May.






Keep Our Area Litter Free

posted Apr 23 , 09:11 by J Croxon

We have noticed LOTS and LOTS of litter around the perimeter of the school and this seems to be getting worse lately. Please make sure that you do your bit too and don’t add to the problem!



A group of children from Lea Forest will be working with local residents to carry out regular litter picks to keep our school environment clean, tidy and safe.




Feeling Safe

posted Apr 23 , 09:11 by J Croxon

In our school, it is very important that we care for and look after each other. We work hard to encourage all of the children to be a really good friend. At Lea Forest Primary Academy this means:


  • Being kind to everyone

  • Never asking anyone to do something they don't want to

  • Encouraging the children to tell a teacher if they one their friends at school is doing something that is not right

  • Asking children to be honest if they have made a mistake or done something wrong

  • Making sure all children understand that is is not right to ask friends to keep secrets if they have done something wrong

  • Teaching children the importance of respecting everyone in your class and in the school


We want everyone at Lea Forest Primary Academy to come to school feeling safe and happy and you can help us by talking to your children about how they know they are a good friend and how they show the values of the school. We will be talking to all of the children about what it means to be a good friend over the next few weeks. We will talk about it in class and in assemblies because we care about each and every one of our pupils and we want them to have the very best time at school and have the confidence to speak up and share any worries they may have.




Local Elections

posted Apr 23 , 09:11 by J Croxon

Lea Forest is being used as a polling station on Thursday 6th May. School will therefore be CLOSED to all pupils and staff on this day to ensure everyone’s safety. For this day we will be setting Character Curriculum tasks to complete.





District Football Update

posted Apr 23 , 09:11 by J Croxon


On Saturday 17th April, the district footballers of Erdington and Saltley were crowned champions of Birmingham, beating South Birmingham Primary Schools' FA 4-0, they completed a 100% league campaign and once against showcased the immense talent in our schools. Well done to Jack for representing Lea Forest as the team's goalkeeper.


District football is a huge honour for those selected. It offers them the chance to play schools' district football the length and breadth of the country, to play at Premier League stadiums, to make memories for life and all of this is free.






Reading for the Curriculum

posted Apr 23 , 09:11 by J Croxon

This week has seen the launch of our 'Reading for the curriculum' initiative. During these weeks, all learning stems from one high-quality text that our teachers have selected to showcase and use as a stimulus for fun, engaging and memorable experiences! It is yet another opportunity for us to encapsulate books into our curriculum and and do what we love to do - READ!


All year groups have had great fun engaging in book-related activities, from glossary work, to drama and role play. From historical clay making structures to storytelling puppet shows. Children and staff alike have throughly enjoyed the week and look forward to it returning again in the near future! The only question is, which book's world will we enter next?...




Remarkable World

posted Apr 23 , 09:11 by J Croxon

At the end of last year, all of the schools in AET came together both at home and at school to celebrate Remarkable Lives and the day was a huge success.


Building on the success of the AET's popular Remarkable World Programme of competitions, which challenge our children to find their remarkable, we decided to discover what's possible with a new set of competitions this year! We will be setting more competitions throughout the next half term and look forward to seeing all of your entries! Take a look at what Remarkable World 2021 will look like: AET Remarkable World 2021



Attendance Update

posted Apr 23 , 09:11 by J Croxon

We've had a remarkable first week of attendance! Well done to everyone for making such a great start… Our attendance for the week has smashed our 96% target this week! Congratulation to this week's champions! 6CF and 4TH are the champions overall this week with an incredible 99.19%

2BS are the champions of Key Stage 1 with 98.33%

RCG are the winners in Early Years with 98.65%

Competition Time

posted Apr 23 , 09:11 by J Croxon

We love a good competition at Lea Forest and this week we are excited to announce three amazing competitions.


Keep Lea Forest Tidy - Can you create an amazing poster that tells our neighbours not to litter the streets around our school.

Closing Date - May 7th


Royal Mail - Royal Mail is creating a new set of Hero Themed stamps to honour key workers, local heroes and people that have helped their community during the pandemic. Closing Date May 26th


Travel Tracker WOW Badges 2021 - Can you create an amazing travel tracker badge based on the theme of Walk for the World. Closing Date May 28th


Entry forms can be collected from Mr Croxon's office.




Character Curriculum

posted Apr 23 , 09:11 by J Croxon

At Lea Forest we aim to develop our pupils’ character through the growth of relationships that define us as human. Through our curriculum, we develop a set of competencies (behaviours) which enable each and every one of our pupils to lead a remarkable life. These competencies can be found at:

https://sites.google.com/aetinet.org/lea-forest-primary-academy/curriculum/aets-character-curriculum.

In addition to the tasks provided by individual class teachers, a ‘Character Curriculum Challenge’ will be set fortnightly on the newsletter.



On this occasion, we would like you to plant some bulbs or seeds either in your garden or plant pot. Remember that, just like people, seeds and bulbs have needs that must be met in order for them to thrive and grow. (For more information about taking care of your plants, visit: http://www.thekidsgarden.co.uk/teachkidsaboutplantingwithseedsandbulbs.html) It would be amazing if you could then observe the growth of your plants and draw pictures of them as they grow.





A Message From Mr Clarke

posted Apr 23 , 09:11 by J Croxon

I hope you had a good and restful Easter break. I am looking forward to this term enormously; full of hope that we will continue to ease out of lockdown and get back to an increasing sense of normality. Everyone has been utterly remarkable and to have the school full of children with the energy and enthusiasm they bring is a pure delight. The children have settled back brilliantly this week and have fully embraced our ‘Reading for the Curriculum’ themed week where all of our learning has been based around high quality texts.


We surprised our Year 6 children this week with the first of many planned treats for them. Each and every child (and staff) received their very own personalised Lea Forest leavers’ hoodie.


Year 3, Year 4 and Year 6 also took to the pedal this week with their bikeability training sessions. Check out some of the photographs from this week on the back page of this newsletter.

I would like to continue with the pulse surveys this term but instead of them being weekly there will be three bursts each two weeks long: the start of this term, the run into half term and the end of term. This will allow me to continue to hear your thoughts and respond to your feedback, but also through an evolving set of questions, consider the future more. Here is this week’s survey - https://edurio.com/poll/TftLxP - which will only take 3 minutes to complete and I would love to hear from you before Saturday at 3pm when the survey will close.

We continue to develop our vision for a Remarkable Education in 2025 with our trust, AET. We would welcome your thoughts and comments on our Golden Ideas we have initially selected from the hundreds of ideas submitted by staff, pupils and parents/carers at the end of the Autumn and beginning of Spring terms. Please click here (http://bit.ly/AETVoiceParent) to access AET Voice, register an account and add your thoughts to the ideas so we can shape the future of our childrens' education together.

There is so much to look forward to this term with our Remarkable World competitions, our Festival of Remarkable lives on Tuesday 13th July and much more. In the meantime and as always, should you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to me or a member of my remarkable team.


Wishing you all a fabulous weekend - fingers crossed for some more lovely weather!


Mr Clarke



School Dinner Reminders

posted Apr 03 , 09:11 by J Croxon

We would like to remind parents regarding changing their child from dinners to sandwiches and sandwiches to dinners. This is supposed to be half termly with notification to the office. If you have any questions about this, please contact Mrs Ruff in the main office.



STEM Challenges

posted Apr 03 , 09:11 by J Croxon

With Easter fast approaching, Dr Spartacus thought that it would be an eggcellent time to try some of his Easter STEM Challenges, which can be accessed using:

https://www.science-sparks.com/easter-stem-challenges/.


He would LOVE to see your experiments and creations if you try any, so please share photos with him on Class Dojo, Facebook, or Twitter. There will be some eggstra special prizes for the best experiments when you return to school too.



Remarkable World Update

posted Apr 03 , 09:11 by J Croxon

At the end of last year, all of the schools in AET came together both at home and at school to celebrate Remarkable Lives and the day was a huge success.


Building on the success of the AET's popular Remarkable World Programme of competitions, which challenge our children to find their remarkable, we decided to discover what's possible with a new set of competitions this year! We will be setting more competitions throughout the next half term and look forward to seeing all of your entries! Take a look at what Remarkable World 2021 will look like: AET Remarkable World 2021




Character Curriculum

posted Apr 03 , 09:11 by J Croxon

At Lea Forest we aim to develop our pupils’ character through the growth of relationships that define us as human. Through our curriculum, we develop a set of competencies (behaviours) which enable each and every one of our pupils to lead a remarkable life. These competencies can be found at:

https://sites.google.com/aetinet.org/lea-forest-primary-academy/curriculum/aets-character-curriculum.

In addition to the tasks provided by individual class teachers, a ‘Character Curriculum Challenge’ will be set fortnightly on the newsletter.


On this occasion, we would like you to get out into your garden or visit your local park in order to create a daisy chain or pick and press some flowers using the following website to help you: https://www.proflowers.com/blog/how-to-press-flowers. Remember, that when you are picking flowers, to only pick one flower for every 20 in the patch and to avoid privately owned or critically endangered flowers.


A Message from Mr Clarke

posted Apr 03 , 09:11 by J Croxon

As we head into the Easter break, I wanted to say a big thank you for all your support over the last few weeks. As I have said before, I am enormously proud of the way in which you, your children and our staff have worked together to provide the best possible safe return to school. Everyone has been remarkable.

Thank you to those who have completed the surveys this term as they have given valuable insight to how you and your child(ren) have been feeling and managing over the last few weeks. Thanks to your feedback we have been able to respond, adapt, improve and take care of everyone in the right way.

This week’s survey https://edurio.com/poll/v12Mwf will be the last before Easter when there will be a two week break before recommencing week of the 19 April - the focus that week will be on a strong start to the summer term. As we progress through the summer term the surveys will continue to evolve and the questions will increasingly focus on the future and how we can deliver a remarkable education.


Easter Competitions

We have been overwhelmed by our Early Years and Key Stage 1 Easter bonnets and Key Stage 2 Eggsellent Eggtravaganza entries! We have awarded Easter eggs as prizes and photographs of these can be found on Facebook, Class Dojo and Twitter.


Autism Awareness

One in every 100 UK school children is autistic and without the right support, school can be a confusing and difficult place. Lea Forest has joined many schools across the country to help improve children’s understanding of autism. We are raising awareness for autism this week by reading stories in class about children with autism, Mrs Clarke is also reading stories to her groups in the library and we are dressing in rainbow colours on Thursday to fundraise for the National Autistic Society.


School Uniform and PE Kit

I would like to remind parents that when we return after the Easter break, and retail opens up again, the children need to be back wearing their full school uniform, plain black school shoes and the correct team colour PE kit. Thank you for your support.


Red Nose Day

Thank you to everyone who donated to Comic Relief. Lea Forest raised over £400 for this fantastic charity.


Doodle English and Maths Challenge

Between the 1st April and the 30th April, Doodle will be running two Spring Challenges — the Doodle Maths Challenge and the Doodle English Challenge. The Challenge encourages children to use Doodle for a few minutes each day, helping them to rebuild their confidence and get back on track in their learning. Best of all, those who take part can earn a free pin badge and certificate!


How to take part: From the 1st April, visit parents.doodlemaths.com and press ‘Register’ next to your child's name. Then, encourage your child to earn 450 stars (or 350 stars if they were born on or after 01/09/13) and achieve a 7-day streak in Doodle Maths and/or Doodle English. Once they've reached their target, you'll be able to claim their reward by logging in to the Dashboard and pressing ‘Claim Reward’.


Happy Easter

I wish you all a wonderful Easter and our attention will now turn to ensuring that we have the best start to the summer term possible. There is much to look forward to next term with our Remarkable World competitions, our Festival or Remarkable lives on July 13th, our developing vision for a remarkable education by 2025 and of course better weather hopefully coupled with a continued easing of restrictions nationally.

Thanks again for all of your support and hard work.


Have a fabulous Easter break!