4th November
Update from Mr. McGrath
Dear families,
I hope you all had an enjoyable weekend and were able to see some fireworks- I enjoyed the spectacular show on Saturday night at Clissold Park.
Of course the big event of the weekend was on Friday evening with our annual Fright Night. The event was an astounding success and the children had a great time hearing spooky stories and playing fun games. A huge thank you to Shacklewell Families for organising it. The event raised £950, a tremendous amount that will support all the children at school.
In addition to the generosity shown on Friday evening I am very proud to say that our harvest food donation was a great success. As a community we donated enough food to Hackney Foodbank to provide 304 meals. This will support the most disadvantaged families in our borough, so thank you for your kindness.
Next week is anti bullying week and as usual we will donning our odd socks on Tuesday 12th to empathise that different is good! We will also be taking part in a friendship lunch and a visiting theatre group will come to entertain us. Throughout the week the children will look at different types of friendship and will learn what 'Change Starts with Us', the theme of this year's event, means in everyday life.
Keep your eyes out for the maker mats, which will be coming home this week. These important documents showcase the creative work that the children can complete at home. As always there is no expectation that the children complete the whole sheet but a couple of pieces of creative home learning will enhance the curriculum on offer in the classroom. I am looking forward to seeing the corridors and classrooms bursting with the children's creative ideas very soon!
To avoid any disappointments, please do keep your eyes on the key dates each week as we may have to amend some as the term develops. This week we are looking forward to a maths parent session for year 4 and 5, our Year 4 reading breakfast and of course Friday is school photograph day, so make sure those uniforms are fresh and ready!
Have a great week,
Rory
Key Dates
Wednesday 6th November - EYFS story sacks at 9am
Wednesday 6th November - Publisher visiting Year 2
Thursday 7th November - Years 3 & 4 Maths parent workshop
Friday 8th November - Individual and sibling photos
Friday 8th November - 4W Sharing assembly at 10am
Friday 8th November - Year 4 Reading breakfast at 8.30am
Monday 11th November - Year 3 swimming starts for 2 weeks
Monday 11th November - Armistice day assembly
Tuesday 12th November - Odd Sock Day
Wednesday 13th November - EYFS story sacks at 9am
Wednesday 13th November - Reception parents maths info session
Thursday 14th November - Parent workshops - online safety
Friday 15th November - 2W Sharing assembly at 10am
Friday 15th November - 4S trip to Tate Britain
Friday 15th November - Friendship Friday lunch
Friday 15th November - Year 5 Reading Breakfast at 8.30am
Tuesday 19th November - 6S trip to British library
Wednesday 20th November - EYFS story sacks at 9am
Thursday 21st November - Year 6 Come Learn With Me at 9am
Friday 22nd November - 1W Sharing assembly at 10am
Friday 22nd November - 4W to Tate Britain
Friday 22nd November - Year 6 Reading Breakfast at 8.30am
Tuesday 26th November - 6S trip to British library
Wednesday 27th November - EYFS story sacks at 9am
Thursday 28th November - Parent consultations
Friday 29th November - 3W Sharing assembly at 10am
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 at 9am
Friday 6th December - Dentist in for Reception and Year 1
Friday 6th December - 1S 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 - Years 1 to 6 to Pantomime at 12.30 to 5pm
Friday 13th December - Christmas Jumper Day
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
Our Curriculum
The whole school started their new topics with great enthusiasm last week. It was wonderful to see how well the children engaged with their entry points and how excited they are about the half term ahead. Reception will be exploring animal habitats from around the world; year 1 will be looking at materials and finding out what everyday objects are made of. Year 2 will be building on this knowledge further by testing the properties of different materials whilst year 3 will be investigating forces including magnetic force and friction. Year 4 will be focusing on the human body including the digestive system and the importance of our teeth, meanwhile year 5 will be exploring space and the solar system and year 6 will be looking at light and shadows.
As you may have guessed, our curriculum focus for this half term is science. We are looking forward to building our skills and knowledge during our afternoon lessons and using the learning space to plan and carry out scientific investigations linked to our topics. Each year group has a 'working scientifically' target for this unit of work. This part of the science curriculum allows children to refine the academic skills of being a scientist, in conjunction with deepening their knowledge.
To support your child in their science learning, please take time to read your child's knowledge organiser that was sent home last week. It provides a summary of the knowledge and skills that the children will learn over the course of their topic as well as the related knowledge and skills that they should already know from prior science topics. Please talk to your children about what they already know about the topic, and see if this matches the information on the knowledge organiser. Use this to direct your child to related books or websites to help them revise their prior learning. Ask your child if they are able to talk through which points they have covered in so far in their lessons, your child should be able to confidently talk about their new learning as they cover the content in their classes. Find opportunities to talk to them about their science topic at home or when out and about as real life links are very powerful and can provide an important hook for a child to retain the new knowledge.
Reading
The calendar of reading events continue for the second half of autumn term and was kicked off by an incredibly well attended year three reading breakfast last Friday. Thank you to those of you that were able to attend; it was really great to see so many stories shared and to see siblings involved too. This week is the turn of year four and I know that many of the children are already looking forward to coming along!
Our regular slot to Dalston library has been a highlight of the week for each class that has attended so far. The session at the library gives us a great opportunity to select books relevant to our curriculum learning and enables children to learn how to choose a book. With over 10,000 children's books published every year it is a hard task to select stories for our Shacklewell library. Thankfully so many of you have helped by donating children's books you no longer want at home. The librarians are doing a brilliant job sorting through the books to ensure that we can rotate the stock throughout the year and put out new titles on a regular basis.
As we have mentioned before, reading at home with your child for just five minutes a day is incredibly beneficial. Many of you have been asking for ideas on how to help children with their reading at home and Wordsforlife.org.uk is a website created by The National Literacy Trust that can help with this. It has been set up to offer advice and ideas to parents on how to support children's communication and reading at home.
Shacklewell Families
Fright Night
Thank you so much to everyone who came to Fright Night, to all those who were involved and to all those who made, and donated food.
We raised a whopping £950!
Estate agent boards
If you would like to have an estate agent board outside your property advertising our Winter Wonderland Christmas Fair on 6th December please can you email your name and address to info@shacklewellfamilies.com by Friday 8th November.
They will be put up between 11th-15th November and will be taken down between 9th-11th December. The school will receive £17 per board. This year we are working with a family run, independent agents called Wild&Co in Lower Clapton. The owner and his family are from Hackney and are very keen to support our school, which is fantastic.
Please do get in touch on the email address above if you would like more information.
Shacklewell Families meeting
Please join us on 8th November at 2.30pm for our next meeting. We will get started on discussing our Christmas fair so please come along and help us start planning!
Thank you so much and have a wonderful week!
Key Dates
Friday 8 November - Shacklewell Families meeting 2.30pm
Friday 6 December- Christmas Fair 3.45 - 5.45pm
Friday 27 March - Spring Fair 3.45 - 5.30pm
17 May - Hackney Half. Launch Go Fund Me Campaign on 26 April
27 June - Summer Fair