November2021

Parents of children due to start Reception in September 2022 (Born between 01-09-2017 and 31-08-2018) can now apply for a Reception Place via their council portal.

Birmingham Residents must apply via https://eadmissions.birmingham.gov.uk/prefs.php

Solihull Residents must apply via

https://eservices.solihull.gov.uk/Synergy/Live/SynergyWeb/Parents/default.aspx

Mr Croxon will be running parent drop in sessions from 9:00-9:30 (Mon - Thurs) to support parents with completing their applications.

If you would like to arrange a tour or visit to see our wonderful Early Years provision, please contact the school office and we can arrange a conversation or tour with Mrs Gonzales.

The deadline for all

Reception applications is:

December 31st 2021

#TeamLeaForest were back in action at Nechells Sports Centre this week participating in the Primary Indoor Athletics Tournament. We had a fantastic time and finished second overall! Well done to our remarkable athletes!

I am so proud of everything we achieve here at Lea Forest and this week has been another one of those weeks where we have had success after success! Bikeability has continued this week and it’s been great to see our Year 5 children learning to ride their bikes safely on the roads. We also did amazingly on the field this week, with our boys’ football team representing us brilliantly. Check out the rest of the newsletter for more details...

Visitors to our school

We have had quite a few visitors to school this week. Being a successful and aspirational school, many other educationalists ask to visit and see what makes Lea Forest so special. On Tuesday, we were visited by Mr Bridges, the Headteacher of Cockshut Hill. After visiting classes and speaking with children, his parting words were, “This is the BEST primary school I have visited.” Yesterday, we were visited by 5 other Headteachers from Academies Enterprise Trust (AET) and our Regional Education Director. Again, they were blown away by our high standards and particularly the fabulous learning behaviours of our children. Next week we are excited to welcome our CEO, Rebecca Boomer-Clark.

Attendance

I’ll keep it simple: Please make sure children are in school everyday! If your child is not in school and has a persistent absence, please expect to be called into school for a meeting to discuss this.

Punctuality Spot Checks

At Lea Forest we are constantly looking for ways to address and improve attendance and punctuality. As you may be aware, the law treats some persistent lateness in the same way as irregular attendance. All lateness is recorded and monitored by school and our Education Casework Officer. Where punctuality is a cause of concern letters will be sent out to parents and you may be called or asked into school for a meeting if there is no improvement. The school gates open at 8.45 and children are expected to be in school by 9 o'clock ready to start lessons. The Senior Leadership Team and Attendance Officers will be carrying out spot checks on punctuality throughout next week.

Consequences of repeated lateness may include a child receiving a negative dojo point or having to catch up on work missed during breaks or lunch time. Please continue to work with us to ensure that all children are able to fulfill their potential by making the most of all time in school.

Votes For Schools

Next week we will be discussing the questions: "Has the pandemic made us more aware of disabilities?" (KS2) and "Do you know about different disabilities?" (KS1). In the KS2 lesson, children will look at some of the facts and figures surrounding disabilities in the UK, as well as reflecting on whether the universal experience of lockdown and other restrictions has prompted us to be more mindful of what everyday life can be like for many people living with disabilities. Meanwhile in KS1, children will explore some of the different signs and symbols associated with disabilities and the approaches we should take when talking about this topic, before deciding whether they know enough about disabilities in general.

We are aware of the increasing number of complaints regarding dog fouling around the school. This is reported to Birmingham City Council daily. Parents can also support our staff by reporting the issue directly to Birmingham City Council via this link: https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/xfp/form/589.

Our local dog warden team will also be patrolling the area and adding additional signage to the lamp posts to remind dog owners to be responsible.

Another week has passed and, as always, the children have been hard at work. I have enjoyed visiting classes and speaking to the children about their learning - they are always so proud of their achievements and love sharing facts and information. Over the coming weeks, we have lots to look forward to and it may only be November, but Christmas songs are already being rehearsed in preparation for our performances which will be taking pace in the last week of term. We have ended the week with rainbow colours throughout the school for Children in Need. Thank you to everyone that has donated.

Anti-bullying week

The isolation of the last year has underlined how little acts of consideration can break down barriers and brighten the lives of the people around us. This is one of the reasons, that ‘One Kind Word’ has been chosen as the theme of Anti-Bullying Week taking place this week at Lea Forest Academy. Our school council suggested a wonderful selection of kindness activities and their classes have had great fun trying these activities out.

Speak Out, Stay Safe

This week the children took part in the ‘Speak Out, Stay Safe’ assemblies organised by the NSPCC. The assemblies covered topics like bullying and abuse - without using any scary words or adult language. The children learned about different kinds of abuse in a child friendly and age appropriate way and found out about how to get help if or when they need it. They identified trusted adults they could talk to if they were ever worried about themselves or a friend and learned about Childline and how it can support them.

Brilliant Bikeability

We are very fortunate to have The Active Well-being Society (TAWS) back at Lea Forest to further develop our cycling skills. This week, Year 3 have started their journey and Year 4 have been improving on their skills from last year. Over the next two weeks year 5 & 6 will be building skills and confidence to cycle on the roads around school, give them a wave (and plenty of space) if you see them, just don’t expect them to wave back!

Outdoor Learning Week

To celebrate the best of our creative curriculum at Lea Forest we are having a week of special lessons to experience all that the great outdoors can offer. Children will be leaving their work books inside and learning in a range of ways. Keep a look out on Class Dojo for our experiences. To support with this, please make sure your children have coats, scarves and gloves in school with them every day.

Tree Planting

We are launching a very special project during Outdoor Learning Week - A Tree for Every Child. To highlight the critical condition of our planet, we will be doing our part to increase the natural benefits of our natural environment. Please send your child’s wellies (if they have any) on the following afternoons next week: Tuesday: Years 2 & 5; Wednesday: Years 3 & 6; Thursday: Reception & Year 4. Nursery and Year 1 will plant their trees during their Forest School sessions. If you are available to help on any of the afternoons and have a spade, please message Mr Haw on Class Dojo.

Mr Clarke-Castello

Parents of children due to start Reception in September 2022 (Born between 01-09-2017 and 31-08-2018) can now apply for a Reception Place via their council portal.

Birmingham Residents must apply via https://eadmissions.birmingham.gov.uk/prefs.php

Solihull Residents must apply via

https://eservices.solihull.gov.uk/Synergy/Live/SynergyWeb/Parents/default.aspx

Mr Croxon will be running parent drop in sessions from 9:00-9:30 (Mon - Thurs) to support parents with completing their applications.

If you would like to arrange a tour or visit to see our wonderful Early Years provision, please contact the school office and we can arrange a conversation or tour with Mrs Gonzales.

The deadline for all

Reception applications is:

December 31st 2021

Encourage your child to Log onto TTRS weekly to earn coins and battle against their friends for their chance be crowned the Times Table Champion fo. Prizes and Certificates will be awarded to the Top 3 Rockstars.

Look out for Battle Of The Bands Competitions that will be running throughout the half term.

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 plan and cook a healthy meal for your family. Some fantastic (free) recipes / meal ideas can be found on the BBC Good Food website. The website offers nutritious, triple-tested recipes for vegetarian, vegan and meat diets, so will you plan and cook a home comfort or try something new? Remember to share pictures with your teachers via Class Dojo, Twitter and Facebook.

I hope that you all had a great week half term off and managed to enjoy yourselves. It was certainly a busy week for me as you can see above with my name change! I got married in Cyprus and had a wonderful week with friends and family. I won’t be asking children to call me Mr Clarke-Castello as it is a bit long winded, but I will be using my full surname on documentation, including letters.

Before half term, we asked parents/carers to complete our online survey. The results were fabulous:

This week, it has been business as normal...It was great to welcome all of the children back on Tuesday and as always we have all been really impressed with how they’ve settled into school-life and routines. We were joined in school by our governors on Wednesday for a monitoring day. Our governing board consists of: Mr Tim Bassett (Chair of Governors), Mrs Ruth Murad (Regional Education Director), Mrs Nichola Smith (peer principal), Mrs Lynsey Hedley (peer principal), Michelle Kee (Headteacher), Chris Martin (IT Business Partner) and Ian Lowe (Education specialist and previous Executive Headteacher of Lea Forest). These days are a wonderful opportunity for governors to get into classrooms, speak with children and staff and to scrutinise work and data. I am delighted to report that governors were highly impressed by the excellent standards throughout the school and the whole day was a truly positive experience.

We have been carefully planning our recovery programme, using funding from the DfE. This funding has been provided following school closures and lost learning due to COVID. Our plans include:

• The employment of an additional teacher (Mrs Hanvey) working 2 days a week across Early Years and Key Stage 1, focusing on Early Reading and Phonics;

• The employment of an additional teacher (Mr Ahmed) working 4 days a week across Key Stage 2, focusing on improving basic skills (multiplication facts, spelling, reading comprehension...);

• Additional reading TAs (Mrs Ward and Miss Radigan) working across our Years 1 -3.

These recovery programmes are designed to close any gaps your child has and will help them to stay on track for age related expectations.

This half term is always a busy one as we approach Christmas! Please check out the diary dates on our website to keep up-to-date. Unfortunately, our attendance this week has failed to reach our 96.5% target. Attendance will remain to be a huge focus and those causing concern will be contacted by our attendance team.

I hope that you all have a fabulous weekend! See you all again on Monday for another fun-packed week.

Mr Clarke-Castello