May2024

It has been another brilliant week at Lea Forest, bringing this half-term to an end on an almighty high as we recap all the wonderful trips and visits our children enjoyed. While Mr. Clarke-Castello traveled to Switzerland to visit a school and offer his expertise in curriculum design, we have been busy here at Lea Forest, continuing to learn and engage in numerous fun activities.

Trips and Visits 

This week, Years 4, 5, and 6 learned crucial first aid skills, a group of Year 6 students visited Birmingham University to explore their future possibilities, and Year 3 attended Sarehole Mill Museum, which was both enjoyable and insightful. Additionally, Year 2 toured Birmingham and visited the library, while Nursery and Reception enjoyed a fun-filled day with the Animal Man, meeting various unique animals. Lastly, to end the week, the Gruffalos had an amazing time horseback riding.

Providing the children with opportunities to learn beyond the classroom is something we do very well here at Lea Forest and your contributions to these experiences are essential. Therefore, we wish to extend our sincere gratitude to parents and carers for their continued support in helping cover the costs of these fantastic experiences, ensuring these enjoyable events can go ahead.

Primary Science Quality Mark (PSQM Gilt)

We are delighted to announce that we have achieved the Primary Science Quality Mark, Thanks to the outstanding leadership of Ms. Richards and Mrs. Hartwell.  We are truly proud of the excellent science education our children receive, and having it recognised is the cherry on top. A huge well done to the team and children in attaining this accreditation.

Upcoming Assessments after half term

Next half-term, various assessments will be taking place, including the Phonics Screening Check for Year 1, the Multiplication Tables Check for Year 4, as well as reading, maths and english assessments for Years 2-5. 

We understand that the term 'assessment' can seem daunting, but we want to reassure you that we never want the children to feel intimidated by this process. We view assessments as an opportunity for the children to showcase what they have learned over the academic year.

We are confident in how well prepared the children are for these tests. They work hard every day, and we have an outstanding team of teachers and teaching assistants who tirelessly provide the best education possible. With their dedication and the children's effort, we are certain they will excel.

As a parent or carer, you always want the absolute best for your children growing up. Having a good education is a great head start in life and crucial in creating more opportunities in adult life. Did you know that a child who is absent for a day of school per week misses an equivalent of two years over the course of their school life. Over 90% of young people with attendance rates below 85% fail to achieve well in exams and as they get older, around one third achieve no GCSEs grades at all! This may seem a long way off for our primary age pupils, but it is certainly worth noting.

Our attendance dropped this week as lots of families have taken holidays in term time and lots of children have had chicken pox. We need to work hard to get our attendance back up to our normal levels  after the half term.

Our attendance for 

the week is

93.5%

Our attendance for 

the year to date

96.3%

Careers Day at Lea Forest Primary Academy

Wednesday 19 June 2024 

9.30am - 12.30pm

We are holding our annual Careers Day this year and we need your help. We are looking for volunteers to come in and speak to children about their career journey. Research has shown that children who have meaningful encounters are more likely to have a positive educational and employment outlook. Over the last two events, children are finding out and exploring jobs they haven’t even heard of and their feedback was incredibly positive. We had many parent volunteers last year, and we are hoping to have some more!

Please register your interest by 

completing the Google Form here: https://tinyurl.com/LFPCareersDay2024

RSHE Statutory Guidance Review

On the 15th May, the DfE announced a review of the RSHE curriculum.The consultation has been launched and the closing date for responses is the 11th July 2024.  The draft guidance can be found on this link.  

Lea Forest Primary Academy will continue to teach the statutory guidance until the new guidance is published.

Welcome to our ‘Online Safety Tip of The Week’. On each newsletter, we will provide you with some useful hints, tips, guides and fact sheets from the National Online Safety (NOS) website that you as parents and carers will be able to use to help keep your child safe whilst online. This week's free online safety guide focuses on Rumble. A video-sharing platform designed as an alternative to YouTube, Rumble offers a familiar video experience for kids. While it boasts a wider content variety, including less filtered topics compared to YouTube, parental controls exist. Despite this, Rumble may require closer monitoring due to potentially looser content restrictions.  Consider Rumble for variety, but prioritize online safety by using parental controls and actively supervising your children's viewing choices.

Water Safety

Most of us enjoy spending time by the water, but people often put themselves in danger because of a lack of awareness of the dangers there can be. Rivers can be fast, flowing, deep and have very cold water which can take your breath away. Canals can also be dangerous, with slippery bricks or steep banks with uneven edges that could cause a fall.There may be hidden rubbish or sharp objects in the water, or pollution that could make you ill. Follow these rules to stay safe near water: children should not go near water without an adult; stay away from the edge; if you fall into the water unexpectedly, float until you can control your breathing; if you see someone fall into the water, or see someone in difficulty, call 999.

https://www.rlss.org.uk/pages/category/water-safety-information

It has been amazing to see so many of you practising your fluency of your number facts and times tables in school and at home. 

Here are this week’s Numbots stars:

Year 1 - Hamdan Jaleel

Year 2 - Rehan Ali

Gruffalos - Aadam Nawaz

This week’s Rock Legends are:

Year 3 - Lennon-Rogue Cook

Year 4 - Rebecca Bishop

Year 5 - Devor Martin

Year 6 - Aliyah Diirane

Gruffalos - Connor Hopkins

As a parent or carer, you always want the absolute best for your children growing up. Having a good education is a great head start in life and crucial in creating more opportunities in adult life. Did you know that a child who is absent for a day of school per week misses an equivalent of two years over the course of their school life. Over 90% of young people with attendance rates below 85% fail to achieve well in exams and as they get older, around one third achieve no GCSEs grades at all! This may seem a long way off for our primary age pupils, but it is certainly worth noting.

Our attendance is continuing to rise this term. Six classes managed to beat our 97% target this week. Can we do even better next week? 

Our attendance for 

the week is

96.4%

Our attendance for 

the year to date

96.4%

Keep up the great work!

Last week our school consumed 2640 kWh of electricity, that's 21% less than this time last year. We also used 1,110 kWh of Gas last week a huge 61% reduction. 

Our Solar Roof generated 1814 kWh of power this week roughly 69% of our energy for the week!  Our top tip of the week is to switch off lights and use LED bulbs they are much more energy efficient and will save you money on your energy bill.

At Lea Forest we aim to develop our pupils’ character through the growth of relationships that define us as humans. 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 on the Character Curriculum page of the LFP Website. 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 complete one of the ‘50 Things To Do Before You're 11¾’ tasks by ‘Exploring On Wheels’.  So grab a bike, scooter, wheelchair or skateboard and explore your local area. You’ll explore further and faster on your wheels at a place near you. Remember to share your discoveries with Mr Croxon or your class teacher (either on Class Dojo or social media) and the best ones will be evidenced in the ‘Character Curriculum (evidence) Book’ for your class! 

Welcome to our ‘Online Safety Tip of The Week’. On each newsletter, we will provide you with some useful hints, tips, guides and fact sheets from the National Online Safety (NOS) website that you as parents and carers will be able to use to help keep your child safe whilst online. This week's free online safety guide focuses on Squid Games. With themes of horror and violence, it’s important for parents and carers to understand the potential risks posed to young audiences by the nine-episode Netflix-exclusive TV show. The series, rated 15+, is about a world where contestants, who are deeply in debt, play children's games in order to win cash prizes. The show’s popularity has meant that it has spread in various guises across online platforms, with a heightened risk of children and young people viewing unsuitable content.

It has been amazing to see so many of you practising your fluency of your number facts and times tables in school and at home. 

Here are this week’s Numbots stars:

Year 1 - Hamdan Jaleel

Year 2 - Yassine Ali Mohammadi

Gruffalos - Aadam Nawaz

This week’s Rock Legends are:

Year 3 - Rayhan Ali Mohammadi

Year 4 - Selassi-I Berry

Year 5 - Lurquone Berry

Year 6 - Kamara Berry

Gruffalos - Aadam Nawaz

Safety in the Sun

This week our safeguarding focus is on staying safe when out in the sun. As the weather starts to warm up and the sun is shining, it is important that we protect our skin and our health in general. Here are some top tips for being safe in the sun:

• Use a sunscreen with a minimum SPF 50 and at least 4 stars for UVA protection

• Reapply sunscreen if you have been in the water 

• Wear sunglasses with UV protection 

• Wear a sunhat and loose clothing made of breathable material 

• Stay in the shade during the middle of the day when the sun is at its strongest

• Drink lots of water to stay hydrated

Year 6 SATS

Year 6 SATS tests will begin on Monday 13 May - Thursday 16 May.  Children will need to be in school by 8:00am.  We will provide them with a breakfast, time to be with their friends and also to discuss any worries or concerns that they have.  This is an extremely important week in the children’s academic life and they MUST attend school everyday, with no exceptions. The children and staff have all been working so hard in the run up to these tests. I’m sure you will all join me in wishing them all the BEST OF LUCK.

Friends of Lea Forest

We will be holding our next ‘Friends of Lea Forest’ meeting with Mrs Wakelam and Mrs Gonzales on Monday 20 May at 9am. Every parent, grandparent and carer is invited. This is an opportunity to come along and ask questions, provide suggestions and to also shape future events. We want to get our Summer Fair planned and need your help!  If you have any questions about ‘Friends of Lea Forest’, pop into the office and have a chat with Mrs Wakelam.  

School Council Update

This week, we launched our exciting "Bright Sparks Initiative.” Our dedicated School Councillors have taken on the important role of "Bright Sparks," leading the charge to save money, energy, and our planet!  Several Bright Sparks have already risen to the challenge, crafting persuasive presentations to encourage the entire school to embrace energy-saving habits. We are sure our ‘Bright Sparks’ will make a positive impact. Keep an eye out for our energy usage updates on our newsletters, or track our energy usage here. 

Attendance

Regular attendance is crucial for academic and social success. Missing school can disrupt learning and make it difficult to catch up. At Lea Forest, we encourage all pupils to strive for excellent attendance. Parents and carers, please support your child by ensuring they arrive at school on time and prepared each day. If your child is unable to attend, please notify the school office as soon as possible. Let's work together to create a learning environment where every student thrives.  Our attendance over the last few weeks has slipped due to families taking unauthorised leave in term term (holidays). In these cases, fines will be issued from Birmingham Local Authority. Unfortunately, there has been quite a few of our families issued with fines.  

As we come to the end of another successful week at Lea Forest, I would like to wish you all a fabulous weekend (keeping my fingers crossed for some more lovely weather).

See you all on Monday for another busy week ahead…    

Mr Clarke-Castello

Regular attendance is crucial for academic and social success. Missing school can disrupt learning and make it difficult to catch up. At Lea Forest, we encourage all pupils to strive for excellent attendance. Parents and carers, please support your child by ensuring they arrive at school on time and prepared each day. If your child is unable to attend, please notify the school office as soon as possible. Let's work together to create a learning environment where every student thrives.

Our attendance is continuing to rise this term. Six classes managed to beat our 97% target this week. Can we do even better next week? 

Our attendance for 

the week is

96%

Our attendance for 

the year to date

96.4%

Keep up the great work!

Well done to Elmers, 6CH and 6SR for 100% attendance this week!

Careers Day at Lea Forest Primary Academy

Wednesday 19 June 2024 

9.30am - 12.30pm

We are holding our annual Careers Day this year and we need your help. We are looking for volunteers to come in and speak to children about their career journey. Research has shown that children who have meaningful encounters are more likely to have a positive educational and employment outlook. Over the last two events, children are finding out and exploring jobs they haven’t even heard of and their feedback was incredibly positive. We had many parent volunteers last year, and we are hoping to have some more!

Please register your interest by 

completing the Google Form here: https://tinyurl.com/LFPCareersDay2024

This week the children in Year 4 had the exciting opportunity to take part in a drama based storytelling workshop, centering on the Windrush Empire. They explored what they already knew about Windrush, what happened as the Windrush generation came to Britain, the prejudice they encountered on their arrival and how this movement has impacted Britain today. The workshop was delivered by The Play House Theatre and storyteller practitioner Grace Bennett and the children immersed themselves in the subject through role play and drama. We would like to thank all of the parents who were able to attend the workshop. We hope you found it an enjoyable experience. 

Our remarkable bright sparks have been busy this week helping save energy in our building. By being energy smart we've reduced our electric usage by 16% and decreased our gas usage by an amazing 61%. Our solar roof has generated 23% of our electricity this week an amazing 1392 Kilowatt Hours of free clean energy.

When's the right time to talk PANTS?

Every family is different, and when and where you have these conversations may depend on your child's age, or how grown up they are - it's all about whatever feels natural for you and them.

Some examples of times you can talk PANTS are:

After school - If they've had a lesson on personal relationships or Talk PANTS at school, ask them what they remember when they get home.

Bathtime - you could start a conversation when you're running your child's bath, or helping them get dressed.

Car journeys - this can be a great time to talk, and your child will have plenty of time to ask questions if they need.

Reading -  Read the new PANTS storybook together.

Singing - Sing along to our PANTS song with Pantosaurus!

Swimming - A great time to say that what's covered by swimwear is private.

Walking - Walking home from school, or a weekend walk to the shops.

We've been busy recording our trips to school this week and have recorded 2780 active journeys to school so far this month.  Our most active classes this week are: 

4NN, 5SJ and 2BE

Welcome to our ‘Online Safety Tip of The Week’. On each newsletter, we will provide you with some useful hints, tips, guides and fact sheets from the National Online Safety (NOS) website that you as parents and carers will be able to use to help keep your child safe whilst online. This week's free online safety guide focuses ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’. FNAF is a series of indie point-and-click horror games whose word-of-mouth success and widespread spin-off content on YouTube have helped each of the  nine instalments so far to sell almost five million copies on Steam (the PC gaming platform) alone. Set in various deserted locations at night, with creepy animatronic characters suddenly coming to life, the games are rated PEGI 12 for disturbing / violent content, mild profanity and horror themes.

Radicalisation

This week our safeguarding focus is on radicalisation                                           

Radicalisation refers to the process by which a person comes to support terrorism and extremist ideologies associated with terrorist groups. Signs to look out for: The signs to look out for can include; being overly secretive about online viewing, expressing a ‘them’ and ‘us’ mentality, showing an aggressive and argumentative nature that is out of character and questioning their own faith and identity.The Channel programme uses the Prevent Strategy to help young people to understand and reverse their thoughts and ideas. For more information please look at the following websites: https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/safeguarding-child-protection/radicalisation    https://www.educateagainsthate.com/

It has been amazing to see so many of you practising your fluency of your number facts and times tables in school and at home. 

Here are this week’s Numbots stars:

Year 1 - Abigail Adhanom

Year 2 - Rehan Ali

Gruffalos - Abdullah Hussain

This week’s Rock Legends are:

Year 3 - Riley Tighe

Year 4 - Denis Geblescu

Year 5 - Annalee Hughes

Year 6 - Skye Warr

Gruffalos - Aleem Yousaf

Leave The Fallen Leaves 

Leave those fallen leaves where they lie! Decomposing leaves are a fantastic way to boost your soil's natural fertility, giving your garden a free nutrient boost. They also become cosy havens for our insect buddies, providing vital shelter and insulation during the colder months. So, ditch the rake and let nature take its course!

It’s been yet another REMARKABLE week here at Lea Forest…

Year 6 SATS

Year 6 SATS tests will begin on Monday 13 May - Thursday 16 May.  Children will need to be in school by 8:00am.  We will provide them with a breakfast, time to be with their friends and also to discuss any worries or concerns that they have.  This is an extremely important week in the children’s academic life and they MUST attend school everyday, with no exceptions. The children and staff have all been working so hard in the run up to these tests. 

Upcoming Assessments

This term ahead is very busy, full of assessments to capture how much progress the children have made and to benchmark them nationally against other schools.  Children in Year 1 will also take part in the phonics screening assessments. Mrs Gonzales will be working with all of the children on a 1:1 basis for these assessments between Monday 10 June - Friday 14 June.  The last set of statutory assessments are for Year 4 who will be completing their multiplications tables check (MTC) between Monday 3 June - Friday 14 June. 

Leave in Term Time (LiTT) and Appointments

We continue to have many requests from parents for holidays in term time. Please be aware that family holidays in term time are not allowed in law and are highly unlikely to be authorised. Birmingham City Council strongly discourages pupil leave of absence during term time and you will be issued with a Penalty Notice if there are a sufficient number of days of absence. Penalty notices are issued per parent per child and can add up to a substantial amount of money. This year several parents have been issued with fines of over £400. Failure to pay the fines will result in court action. 

In addition, we have seen a real increase in children being collected early for various appointments/ reasons during the school day. This can be very disruptive for your child, for staff and for their class as a whole. Please make appointments for out of school hours wherever possible.  We will always ask to see a copy of the appointment letter / card for our records. We are mindful that some hospital appointments are difficult to change but these should be the exception.

Friends of Lea Forest

We will be holding our next ‘Friends of Lea Forest’ meeting with Mrs Wakelam and Mrs Gonzales on Monday 20 May at 9am. Every parent, grandparent and carer is invited. This is an opportunity to come along and ask questions, provide suggestions and to also shape future events. We want to get our Summer Fair planned and need your help!  If you have any questions about ‘Friends of Lea Forest’, pop into the office and have a chat with Mrs Wakelam.  

Term Dates

Please check the term dates and the half term break.  Reminder: School will be closed on Monday 6 May as it is a bank holiday.  School will also be closed to pupils on Monday 17 June for a teacher training day.

Wishing you all a great weekend -  don’t forget that Monday 6 May is a BANK HOLIDAY and school will be closed. 

Mr Clarke-Castello

Statistics show that pupils with good attendance achieve well in school and that children with attendance over 96% make better progress socially and academically. In contrast, over the past few months you may have heard the term persistent absenteeism in the news. Persistent absentees are those children who have missed more than 10% of their school sessions. In a year there are 190 teaching days. If a child misses 19 days or more they will be persistently absent. Children who are persistently absent, for whatever reason, are much more likely to fail in school. The parents of these children will be referred to the local authority attendance team.

Our attendance is continuing to rise this term. Six classes managed to beat our 97% target this week. Can we do even better next week? 

Our attendance for 

the week is

95.2%

Our attendance for 

the year to date

96.4%

Keep up the great work!

We are very aware that the roads around our school can get busy at the start and end of the day! We all want to get our children to school as  quickly and safely as possible. We are asking all of our parents and carers to do the following to help ensure the safety of our children.

Don't block zig-zags! These yellow lines painted across the pavement are there for a reason. They allow children a safe space to see oncoming traffic before they cross. Parked cars on zig-zags block their view, increasing the risk of accidents.

Pavement parking is a no-go too! Parked cars on the pavement force pedestrians, including children, to walk into the road. This can be especially dangerous around busy junctions..

Let's work together to keep our children safe! 

Careers Day at Lea Forest Primary Academy

Wednesday 19 June 2024 

9.30am - 12.30pm

We are holding our annual Careers Day this year and we need your help. We are looking for volunteers to come in and speak to children about their career journey. Research has shown that children who have meaningful encounters are more likely to have a positive educational and employment outlook. Over the last two events, children are finding out and exploring jobs they haven’t even heard of and their feedback was incredibly positive. We had many parent volunteers last year, and we are hoping to have some more!

Please register your interest by 

completing the Google Form here: https://tinyurl.com/LFPCareersDay2024

This week it has all been about safety online.  Key Stage 1 have discussed “Do you know how to keep your information safe?” whilst Key Stage 2 have discussed “Do you know how to spot an online scam?” 

We've been busy recording our trips to school this week and have recorded 308 active journeys to school so far this month.  Our most active classes this week are: 

Elmers, 1ED and 5SJ.

Welcome to our ‘Online Safety Tip of The Week’. On each newsletter, we will provide you with some useful hints, tips, guides and fact sheets from the National Online Safety (NOS) website that you as parents and carers will be able to use to help keep your child safe whilst online. This week's free online safety guide focuses on Twitch. The game focussed live streaming service allows users to publicly broadcast their gameplay and commentary online for other users to watch. It's a community-driven platform where viewers can support their favourite streamers' channels through PayPal donations, "Bits" and more. Each streamer or group creates their own community for fans to interact with each other. Twitch, which allows anybody to create a channel, has more than 15 million daily active users and includes non-gaming topics such as music, cooking and art. 

Staying at home alone

This week, our safeguarding focus is on children being left alone at home. There is no legal age a child can be left at home alone, but it’s against the law to leave a child alone if it puts them at risk. Every child matures differently, and because of this, it would be almost impossible to have a "one size fits all" law. As your child gets older, talk to them about how they feel about being left home alone. If they're worried, work out what parts of being home alone worry them. Do they feel safe in the neighbourhood? Are they afraid of the dark? Talk about anything that’s bothering them and discuss a solution. Understanding why they don’t feel comfortable will give you an idea of how to help – or why they might not be ready to be left alone. Don’t do it if they are not comfortable. For more information visit the NSPCC.