25th November
Update from Mr. McGrath
Dear families,
another week has come and gone in this busy term!
As a whole school we have been working really hard on coming to school on time, ready for learning. Each week in assembly the classes with the highest attendance and punctuality are celebrated. The class who wins these awards the most each term then wins a special trip to commend them for their hard work.
To ensure a smooth start to each day you may have noticed a few changes in the mornings in KS1. As a reminder, no children are able to play on the playground equipment before school because it is distracting and does not promote a calm start to the day. It is also important that all families in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 say goodbye to their children before dropping them to the line, and certainly before the first bell has rung at 8.50am. This helps you to be able to speak to the teachers more readily and also allows a very positive, learning focused start to the day for our young learners. When the second bell sounds at 8.55am the teacher will promptly bring the children into school, so please help the children by ensuring they are here on time.
In KS2 we really appreciate parents support in dropping their children at the school gates and it has had a fantastic impact on the children's start to the day. We have moved the table tennis tables from the Year 3 and Year 4 collection area to make sure that KS2 families can access the school more freely at pick up times. If you have any questions about the arrangements for dropping off or picking up the children do not hesitate to chat to me in the playground.
This Thursday is Parent Consultations. If you have not already booked your appointment then please do so by Wednesday. You can do this online or by coming into the school office. Parent Consultations is a great time to talk about the year so far and also to set some targets with your child's teacher for the upcoming academic term.
Looking forward to seeing you all on Thursday evening,
Rory
Key Dates
Tuesday 26th November - 6W trip to British library
Wednesday 27th November - EYFS story sacks at 9am
Thursday 28th November - Parent consultations
Friday 29th November - 3W Sharing assembly at 10.00am
Tuesday 3rd December - 5S trip to British Library
Wednesday 4th December - 5W trip to British Library
Thursday 5th December - Year 5 Come Learn With Me- 9.00am
Friday 6th December - Dentist in for Reception and Year 1
Friday 6th December - 1S and 1W Sharing Assembly at 10am
Friday 6th December - Christmas Fair at 3.45pm
Tuesday 10th December - Pantomime for Nursery and Reception
Tuesday 10th December - Christmas lunch
Wednesday 11th December - Year 2 Multi Skills festival at 12pm
Thursday 12th December - After School Clubs finish
Friday 13th December - Christmas Jumper Day
Friday 13th December - Years 1 to 6 to Pantomime
Friday 13th December - Reception Christmas Show- 2.30pm
Monday 16th December- Pre School Christmas performances- 9.00am and 2.30pm
Tuesday 17th December - Christmas Performance
Thursday 19th December - School closes at 2pm for Christmas holidays
Monday 6th January - INSET day - School closed
Tuesday 7th January - School opens
English
Last week lots of the children noticed the brilliant new additions that have arrived in our library. These came thanks to the success of the travelling book fair. With all the purchases our families made we were able to buy a fantastic selection of picture books, non-fiction and chapter books to fill the shelves of our library. The librarians are busy making posters to recommend these reads across the school.
Our Year 6 classes have been enriching their English curriculum with a trips to The British Library. These visits have included workshops where children have the opportunity to develop their creative thinking, visual and verbal literacy skills and research skills. The children from 6S really enjoyed their trip and 6W are super excited to be going this week.
We are fortunate to still have a dedicated session at Dalston library every Monday afternoon that each class is taking in turns to attend. This session is a great way to enable children to explore and talk about different types of books. Within our own library we are also running book clubs with Miss Townend beginning a new KS1 book club this half term. The time we allocate in our libraries gives the children excellent opportunities to talk about the books they have read and to hear from their peers and adults about other stories they might enjoy too.
In KS1 and KS2 next week, our RWI and SFA reading lessons take a break and we come together in our classes for 'writing weeks'. Each year group will be using a high quality text to deliver their English lessons. This time many of the books are children's classics such as Judith Kerr's 'The Tiger Who Came to Tea' and Anthony Browne's 'The Tunnel'. We also have some great thought provoking novels such as 'A Boy Called Hope' and 'The Otherside of Truth' in our older classes. The 'writing week' lessons are always a great success because the children learn so much from analysing story structure of the books that we read. Often, children have read books with a similar theme or other books by the same author and we would welcome the children to bring any of these in to share with they class if they wish to.
Finally, a big thank you to those of you that have emailed the office to register your interest in helping us with our first ever festival of reading. We will be in touch with further details and welcome any more responses.
Shacklewell Families
We hope you are all looking forward to the Winter Wonderland Christmas Fair on Friday 6th December 3.45-5.45! There will be games, activities, delicious food, the Raffle of Awesomeness and, of course, The Grotto! Father Christmas and his Elves shall be paying us a visit, and we have a fabulous team of parents busy creating, building, and painting a very special Grotto for him!
We will be selling raffle tickets and Grotto tickets in advance. There will be an opportunity to buy them on the day at the Christmas Fair too. Please be aware that we have a limited amount of tickets for the Grotto. You will be able to buy tickets at drop off and pick up from Monday 2nd December.
We really need volunteers to help set up in the hall from 1pm on 6th December, and to help supervise crafts or games, or help sell food at the fair.
We appreciate it can be hard to help out if you have your little ones with you so you might like to buddy up with another parent at Shacklewell and take it in turns. If you are worried that you will be tied to helping for the entirety of the fair please don’t be! We don’t want you to miss out on enjoying the event with your children so if you would like to help for just a short amount time that would be great.
If you would like to be involved or would like more information please email info@shacklewellfamilies.com or grab our Co Chairs Emily and Anna for a chat at pick up or drop off in KS1 playground.
If you would like to donate any food, mince pies, cakes or baked goodies for us to sell that would be fantastic. Please drop all donations the Community room by 2pm on the day of the fair. *please be aware that any food must not contain any nuts or sesame seeds*
Our next Shacklewell Families meeting is on Friday 29th November at 9.00am. We would love to see you there!
As always, thank you so much to you all for your continued support and help.