Marden Lodge Primary School & Nursery End of Autumn Term Update

Christmas Card.pdf

Dear Families,

My first term as Head of School has flown by and what a term it has been! It has been lovely to welcome many new families to our school this term and we look forward to welcoming many more in the new year.

I have been very proud seeing the Christmas Performances this year. Lots of children were performing for the first time and the confidence and enthusiasm they showed was amazing. Thank you so much to all the families who joined us to watch a performance, I am sure you enjoyed them as much as we did.

You will see below in the curriculum section that the children have been learning a lot this term. It has been a real pleasure being in lessons and seeing the learning taking place and the children have worked very hard. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the staff for their hard work and commitment this term and giving the children such fantastic opportunities.

A big thank you to the PTA for organising all the events such as the Firework Night, the Christmas Disco and for working hard all-day last Thursday to give the children a great Marden Christmas Day!

School is closed from today and our Family Support Workers will be on their Christmas break too, so if you require any help for your family whilst we are closed, the following numbers may be of use:

Childline 0800 1111

https://www.childline.org.uk

NSPCC 24/7 helpline: 0808 800 5000

Surrey Children's Services 0300 4709100

Caterham Foodbank 01883 348385

The Samaritans 116123

The children are due back on Tuesday 3rd January 2023 after the Christmas break. Thank you so much for all your support this term. I hope that you have a restful Christmas break with your families, stay safe and we look forward to seeing you all in 2023.

Malinda Young

Head of School

Star Values

This term, we have focused on demonstrating the following values:

Caring - September

Fair - October

Respectful - November

Responsible- December

Children are awarded certificates from Class Teachers in our Celebration Assembly every Thursday and also earn individual Dojo points from staff whenever they are seen to demonstrate the values. Our children are becoming more and more confident in articulating the meaning of each value and recognise where they feature in every day life.

Marden's Marvellous Learning Behaviours

This term, we have focused on the following learning behaviours:

September - Challenge

October- Collaboration

November - Concentration

December - Curiosity

Children are awarded certificates from Class Teachers in our Celebration Assembly every Thursday and also earn individual Dojo points from staff whenever they are seen to demonstrating the learning behaviours. Our teachers make reference to them whenever they are relevant to the children's learning.

Our Curriculum

We have had a brilliant term. The children have worked so hard and deserve a big rest over the Christmas break. See below to see what each year group has been up to.

Nursery- Caterpillars & Butterflies

The Nursery children have blown us away this half term with their listening, excitement to learn and with just how settled they are into their Nursery routines. This half term in particular has centred around the topic “Let’s Celebrate”, which encompasses Halloween, Bonfire Night, Seasonal Changes and Christmas traditions around the World. The very unpredictable weather we have been faced with has played into our hands in Nursery, creating lots of inviting opportunities for the children to observe and engage with seasonal changes first hand. From watching the leaves changing colour and falling to the ground to arriving in a Nursery of crunchy, frosty grass and frozen over tuff trays. The children have shown great interest in observing changes in their surroundings, which all started with an Autumn treasure hunt in Funky Forest. The children were tasked with finding signs of Autumn and showed great responsibility by ticking them off their own checklist. Since then we have been collecting Autumn treasures (pinecones, acorns, leaves) to make pictures, experiment with printing and investigate up close! We also hit a major milestone this half term, reaching 500 Dojo points! To celebrate, the children voted for a pajama day and they did not disappoint! We had a Nursery full of brightly coloured PJs as we snuggled down for hot chocolate and a story.

As we head towards Christmas, we have been very busy rehearsing our Early Years Christmas Show for the year – Nursery were very excited to be able to share this with you. We have also used this time to watch the weather as it changes towards windy, cold and sometimes icy. We have been discussing our own memories and traditions of Christmas time, comparing them to Christmas traditions around the world. A special visitor… Percy the Elf… has also visited Marden Nursery and has been causing all sorts of mischief! Check our Nursery Dojo page for the recent updates of his antics. It has been wonderful to watch the magic on the children’s faces each morning as they come in to see what he has been up to. Between crafts, cheeky elves, rehearsals, decorating and singing the children will be ready for a much needed break ahead of the New Year!

What a fantastic term we have had!

Reception- Gruffalo

News letter.docx.pdf

Year 1- Supertato

Supertato Autumn newsletter.docx.pdf

Year 2- Peter Rabbit

Autumn newsletter (1).docx.pdf

Year 3- Hodgeheg

What a term! Year 3 have been working so hard in all areas of their learning and really beginning to use the Marden's Marvellous Learning Behaviours more independently. In writing the children have completed a biography on a person of colour for Black History month and are currently preparing for their independent write for The Secret of Black Rock. In maths we have been revisiting many of the concepts from Year 2 such as telling the time, basic fractions and 2d/3d shapes. Over the term, handwriting has improved dramatically and I am so impressed with how hard they have concentrated on forming and joining letters correctly. In DT, the children created a fixed point lever which they incorporated into a firework safety poster; while in music they have been learning 3 Little Birds by Bob Marley (and let’s not forget the upcoming Christmas Concert.) In science the children impressed with their questioning about the human body and now can name the different bones in their body using scientific language. Do you know the difference between your ulna and your tibia? And finally, this week the Year 3 class finished their 10 weeks of swimming lessons. They have all made such amazing progress over the weeks. Some children started off with basic skills and can now complete a full width with improved skills. Others had their first experience with swimming lessons and found they had to not only begin to learn how to swim, but also overcome their nervousness of trusting floatation devices. All the children, no matter their ability, worked on front crawl, breast stroke and jumping in safely. I am so proud of all that they achieved across this term.

Year 4- Champion

Year 4 Champion Class Newsletter.docx (1).pdf

Year 5- Aslan

Autumn Term.docx.pdf

Year 6- Potter

Aut newsletter Potter yr6.docx.pdf

Anti-Bullying Update

As part of our ongoing anti-bullying work, in every newsletter we will provide you with useful information about bullying, online safety and friendships.

We know that many children may be recieving devices for Christmas so see below for some guidance for parents about setting up apps, games and software to ensure they are safe for children to use.

Thrive Advent Calendar

This term we have had lots of families ask questions about our Thrive provision. Please see the attached leaflet for more information. We are very proud to offer Thrive at Marden Lodge and if you would like to find out more, please let us know and we can put you in touch with any of our Thrive practitioners.

There's still a few more weeks of this Thrive kindness advent calendar for you to use. Spread a little joy this Christmas by trying a different act of kindness each day!

Thrive-Kindness-Advent-Calendar.pdf

Homework

We have had lots of requests from parents for homework. Our policy has been reviewed by staff and Y3 have been trialling a new approach. Starting in the new year, homework will be accessible through children's profiles on Class Dojo. Each Monday, a digital reading record and a digital maths/spelling record will be uploaded. This can then be recorded on and submitted to the class teacher.

There are 2 ways to do this:

1. At the end of the week, mark the days children read or completed Numbots/TTRockstars or Spell Shed over the week and submit to the teacher;

2. Record on the digital record sheets daily and submit to the teacher. They will return it to you.

A video demonstrating how this works will be available to watch in the New Year.

Surrey Family Learning have courses for parents and carers. Their tutors are supportive and knowledgeable and classes are relaxed and informal. Currently, all classes are delivered online.

Family Learning courses are free for parents and carers to help you give your child a positive start in life, and to help support your child's learning and development at home and school.

If you are interested in finding out more, click here.

Christmas arrived at Marden!

We were delighted to host a Christmas at Marden day on 8th December with children dressed in Christmas jumpers. Every child had the opportunity to see Santa who read a story and gave out gifts. Santa also delivered a Christmas craft activity for all the children too which they had fun making during the day. We hope you are enjoying the decoration at home. Our catering staff cooked a yummy Christmas lunch and we pulled crackers and listened to Christmas music whilst eating.

The highlight of the day was Andy Boughtflower from www.schoolmagicshows.co.uk He did a fantastic Christmas magic show which the children loved.

It was a fantastic day and we would like to thank all the staff and PTA for making this day so brilliant and memorable for the children.

A huge thank you to Knights Garden Centre for donating our Christmas tree. The children made decorations for the tree and really enjoyed hanging it on one of the many branches.

A few reminders...

Morning Drop Off

Our gate opens and 8:40am and closes at 8:50am. Lots of children are being dropped off late to school which then prevents the gate from closing at the correct time. Please can you make sure that your child arrives by 8:50am so that they can be in class ready to start learning as quickly as possible.

PE Kits

It has come to our attention that quite a few of our children are not wearing the correct school PE kit.

Please ensure that they are in the correct PE kit in the new year.

Please see below for the correct PE KIT:

T-shirt in house colour
Navy or Black Shorts / Navy or black tracksuit bottoms for outdoor PE
Black or Navy zip up tracksuit top (for outdoor PE)
Black plimsolls / trainers

If there are any issues, please contact us.

Reception Primary School Applications

Primary school admissions applications are open for parents to apply for a primary school (Year Reception) place for September 2023.

The statutory national closing date for applications is 15 January 2023. If you do not apply by this date then your application will be considered as late and will not be processed until after all on-time applications. This means your child will be less likely to receive a place in your preferred school.

The easiest way to apply is online, by visiting https://www.surreycc.gov.uk/schools-and-learning/schools/admissions/primary-junior-and-infant/apply

Nursery Places- Little Lodge

If you are interested in a nursery place for your child, please call Mrs Kirkpatrick at the school office for information or alternatively complete the application form linked here.

Attendance Update

Marden Lodge Primary School and Nursery firmly believes that all children benefit from regular school attendance. A full and interrupted presence gives children the opportunity to fulfil their academic and social potential but also contributes significantly to establishing a positive leaning and work ethic.

Thank you for your support with making sure your child attends school. Here are our attendance winners from the last few weeks.

Autumn term winners- Reception Gruffalo Class

Congratulations!

Being late to school can have a considerable impact over the whole school year. The table below shows you just how much time can be missed over a year just by being 5 minutes late to school every day.

We understand that the school mornings can be hectic, but when your child is late for school they are missing out on vital parts of their education.

Our gate to the playground closes at 8:50am so please make sure your child arrives before this time. If you don't, you will need to take your child to the school office to enter the school.

If you have any queries or would like to talk to anyone about attendance and punctuality, please do not hesitate to contact our Senior Office Administrator on 01883 343014

Safeguarding

If you are concerned about the safety of a child, please use the contact below:

dsl@marden-lodge.surrey.sch.uk

The safeguarding leads at Marden Lodge Primary School & Nursery are Mr Williams, Mrs Young, Miss Staples, Mrs Bell, Miss Bullman, Ms Garratt, Mrs Copard, Mrs Kirkpatrick and Mrs Jelly.