Dear Gainsborough families,

Welcome to our new look monthly newsletter. We are a Google school, trialling different aspects of the platform to improve how we work and teach.

We have already been super busy; enjoy reading about all the learning we've already done. Thank you for joining us for the Welcome Meetings - but if you were unable to attend your child's class teacher or any of the Senior Leaders are always here to help.

You have been sent an Events calendar for the term, so you plan ahead over the next few months. Please refer to the revised version, as we tweaked some of the dates.

Some of our year 4 have already camped on the school field. What a magical time they had, even though it was a little cold this year. Year 6 are getting ready to head off to France for the year and Year 5 are getting ready for their residential at Fairplay House.

Just to remind you that I lead at Kaizen Primary School and split my week across the 2 schools, as well as some of the Senior Leaders at both schools working across the 2 sites. This is a very exciting year for us, with collaboration and development for us all.

Link to parent and pupil surveys June 2024

Gainsborough Primary School

September 2024 Newsletter

Attendance

It has been a great start to the school year for all classes but especially Journey Class (Year 1) who have a current attendance figure of 99.39%

WELL DONE JOURNEY CLASS, YOU ARE ALL AMAZING 👏👏👏

Unfortunately there are too many children arriving at school late. Please remember that the playground gates open at 8.45 and children should be in line ready to go up to class at 8.50am.

The government have set an attendance target of at least 95% but It is our school's aim for pupils to have as close to 100% attendance as possible. During our regular monitoring of pupil attendance, we identify pupils whose attendance causes concern. The parents of those children will be contacted.

Please be aware that we will not authorise any term time leave regardless of the circumstances.

All unauthorised absences due to term time leave being taken are referred to Newham Council who will issue you with a Penalty Notice. The Penalty notice will be for £80 per child per parent. This will be raised to £160 if not paid within 21 days.

The Department for Education have made significant changes to the legislation regarding school attendance. Please click on the link to familiarise yourself with these Working together to improve school attendance

Pastoral Support

MacMillan Coffee Morning

A MASSIVE Thank You to everyone that supported our MacMillan Coffee morning ☕🧁

We raised a total of £98 through your kind donations of cakes and cash! 😀

Every single penny that you helped to raise at the Gainsborough Primary School MacMillan Coffee Morning is going towards helping people living with cancer.

We are really excited to be running our charitable events again. We have such great community spirit here at Gainsborough, lets use it to make a positive difference in the world! ♥️🌏

Gainsborough School Values

Community Aspiration Resilience Equity

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Nursery

What a fantastic start we've had to the new school year! The past few weeks have been filled with joy as the children have settled back into school life and are getting into the rhythm of our daily routines. Our classrooms have been buzzing with giggles and engaging learning, especially during our literacy activities focused on our key text, Owl Babies. In maths, we have been enjoying activities like matching, sorting, and learning to recite numbers up to 3. We also held some delightful 'Stay and Play' sessions for the children joining us soon. It was a wonderful chance for the children and their parents to experience school life – and everyone had a great time! We’re excited for the year ahead, filled with even more fun and learning adventures!

Reception

Venture class have had a fantastic start to the school year full of fun and learning. It has been wonderful to see how quickly the children have settled into the routines of the class and how well they are making relationships with each other. We have read our class book 'Incredible me' and have been exploring all of the things that make us incredible. In maths, we have been learning skills such as sorting, matching and more/fewer in maths and learning ways in which we can express what we know. We have also explored our school environment, ordering the places we have visited and talking about what we do there. It has been a very busy start to what is going to be an amazing year of learning.

Year 1

Journey class have started this term with confidence and resilience. They have been representing objects in Maths and identifying greater than, less than and equal too. In English, they have read the book, The Kindest Red and have been role playing different scenes in the story as well as being able to sequence the story in chronological order. They have been learning about belonging in RW and how Christians belong to their religion and exploring different celebrations. Year 1 have also been exploring 2D and 3D maps and creating their own maps of their classroom. In Computing we have been looking at online safety and exploring what the internet, website and passworfds are. It is going to be such an amazing journey filled with lots of learning!

Hubs

Both hubs have come back to school well regulated and have begun to learn their new timetable and routine for the day, with visual support. The children have been accessing a sensory story group where they get a chance to use roleplay, dressing up and use their senses to explore a story. They have then created a piece of art work relating to the story, which the children have loved.

Speech and language is always a huge focus for the children in the hubs and they have been working really hard at using core vocab boards to request and comment. It has been so lovely for all of the staff to watch more of the children use core boards to request. All of the children have also enjoyed playing with their mainstream peers during lunchtime, in the playground of their choice.

Year 2

Inquire class have really shown resilience this term. They have been partitioning numbers in Maths in different ways and are estimating where numbers are on number lines to 100. In English, they have read the book, The Snail and the Whale and are preparing to write a narrative based on the story. They have been learning about parables in RW sessions and have explored the meanings of them. The children have also created their own maps of the school grounds and have added symbols to represent key places. As part of their Health and Safety learning they have learned the importance of passwords and can explain what needs to be private and what can be shared online.

Year 3

I am so proud of how Year 3 have started this new year! Every chid is showing our school values, especially resillance. No one in Year 3 gets left behind and we are really working hard to support one another in our learning. In Year 3 we love reading and would love for our parents to come in on a Friday to see what we have been learning and read with us. We are getting ready to do our first independent write of the year, how to use noun phrases and set the scene in a story for our readers. In Maths we have been looking at numbers up to 1000 and showing different ways to represent them, including using dienes, counters and cubes. For topic, we have been looking at RW and thinking about how some religious stories can help us think about our behaviour in every day life. We are now studying Geography, looking at different climate zones.

Year 4

Year 4 have hit the ground running! They have been resilient and have shown a great sense of community. In maths they have been revising their place value knowledge and applying it to flexible partitioning by using place value counters. In English they are learning grammatical features and are looking forward to using their imagination in their big write. In topic we have been focusing on religion and world views and have been looking at hinduism. As a part of this, we visited the Sri Mahalakshmi temple in East ham which was a valuable and knowledgeable experience! Now we are studying North America in Geography.

Year 5

Dreamers’ have had a wonderful start to the year. We have been demonstrating all our values over the last few weeks. In English, we have done some amazing work linked to our core text ‘Skellig’. We have learnt some new grammar features that they are using in their work. Soon, we will be using them to do our Big Write. In Maths, we have been looking at place values. We have done some partitioning, comparing, ordering and some more or less. In RW, we have been exploring how our inner forces help shape our thoughts, beliefs, and actions. We have read different stories from different religions and reflected on how their beliefs had shaped them. In Science, we have been looking at forces and how forces can change movement. Now we are studying North America in Geography.

Year 6

Wealth class have made an amazing start to year 6. After a week of assessments and then two weeks of intensive swimming sessions they have shown great resilience and focus. We are now settling in to our regular timetable and working hard to catch up on our topic lessons. Next week, some of our pupils will be going on a 4 day residential trip to France, we are all looking forward to hearing all about it. To support this visit, our History Topic is World War II and in particular the D Day landings. Many of year 6 will also be going away for a 2 night stay at Fairplay House where they will be getting up to lots of adventures.

Sport and PE

All of the children at Gainsborough have been so excited for PE and have really been working on our school values, with the main focus being on community. This month, we have had 2 specialists coaches at Gainsborough deliver a variety of lessons and also lunchtime supervision which the whole school could enjoy. Children from Year 6 and 5 showed great leadership and were helping the coaches with games for Year 1 and 2. Next week some of our school competitions will start which they are all eagerly anticipating.

Safeguarding

For many of us, we see our online lives and offline lives as different, but children are growing up with technology and the internet and for them there isn’t a difference; online life and offline life is just life.

Technology can move at an extraordinarily fast pace and it can be difficult to know how to start talking to your child about what they’re doing online, who they might be speaking to or discussing the potential risks and issues.

Talking regularly with your child is the greatest tool to help keep them safe online. Talking regularly and making it part of daily conversation, like you would about their day at school, will help your child feel relaxed. It also means when they do have any worries, they’re more likely to come and speak to you.

NSPCC: Talking to your child about online safety