PDO 

School  Newsletter

  20th March 2024

Dear Parents,

We have had a very busy week of maths workshops, Ms Claire and I have had the pleasure of seeing the progression across the school from Early Years to Y6. Many thanks to all the teachers who presented and the preparation in advance of the event.  Thanks to all the parents who attended and finally thanks to all the students for their confidence in guiding their parents through the learning process.

As a school, we have several objectives with the maths workshops.


HSSE

Can I please draw your attention to the notice at the foot of this newsletter. We are observing several children arrive in school very early ( 7.10 am). Please note that we do not have teachers on duty at this time and therefore children are unsupervised. We expect the children to arrive at 7.40. Thanks for your support.

A reminder that next Wednesday is the last day of Term 2, the school will close at 12.00; please collect your children at this time.


Tim Robinson

Headteacher

Parents Maths Workshops

Thank you to all the parents who joined their children for the Parents Maths Workshops this week. The children enjoyed sharing their learning with you. I hope you have a better understanding of the idea of Concrete, Pictoral and Abstract and how important this is to aid the understanding of new strategies the children are learning. It was wonderful to see the children confidently explaining the strategies they are able to use to solve different calculations. If you ever have any questions regarding the strategies being taught, please contact your class teacher. 

Miss Liz

Early Years

Milepost 1

Milepost 2

Milepost 3

GL Assessment Online Parent Workshop

Parent Presentation - PDO.pdf

Thank you to all parents that attended the online session today with our GL data representative, Charlotte Sloan. It was a very informative session with a high parent turn out. If you were unable to attend, please find the slides here. 

CAT 4 reports for students in Years 3 and 5 will be sent tomorrow.

Parent Teacher Conferences

Please find below the link to our parent teacher conference booking system for both class teachers and specialists. 

Class Teachers: https://www.schoolbookings.net/code/7mqgk

Specialist Teachers: https://www.schoolbookings.net/code/22xbn

Please note that meetings held on Monday 25th March will be face to face meetings held in school from 2.30pm - 4.00pm

All meetings booked for Tuesday 26th March will be a google meeting online from 3.30pm - 5.30pm

The sign up will close on Thursday 21st March at 12pm to ensure teachers have time to plan their schedule and share links for meetings.

Road Safety

Know the facts, protect yourself and your family!

Car seat

A child car seat puts a child in the right position so that an adult seat belt gives most protection.  Most child seats are intended to be used with an adult diagonal and lap seat belt. A high-backed booster will provide support for the child and will give a measure of protection from whiplash injury.  It is safest to use a child car seat seat until your  child is approximately 150 centimetres tall. 

Booster seat

The booster seat is designed to raise a child so that the adult seat belt can be used safely. It must be used as instructed by the manufacturer.

 It is safer to use a high back child car seat until the child no longer needs a seat. 

Did you know? If you are sitting in the back of a car without a seat belt and you crash at 30mph, you will hit the front seat – and anyone in it – with a force of 30 to 60 times your own body weight. Know the facts, protect yourself and your family. 

find out more about how to keep your child safe on the road here: 

https://www.think.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/DfT_SeatBeltBooklet.pdf 

Early Years

Early Years children had a fantastic time celebrating Maths Day!

Thank you to all of the parents who joined it and helped to make the day lots of fun! Throughout the morning children engaged in lots of hands-on maths activities. Starting with concrete resources, like counting objects or using manipulatives helps children to understand maths by seeing and doing.  

We had various activities, from pressing Numicons into playdough and counting the bumps, to measuring different worm lengths and guessing which Numicon is hidden under the tinfoil. 

Beanbags challenge: throwing 6 to 7 beanbags into the bucket, then counting how many are left outside. 

Engaging in messy play to find numbers, shouting out each number, and attempting to create marks on the foam. 

Milepost 1

IPC in Year 2 is all about plants and their importance in terms of how they grow and why we should look after them, because they look after us! We have been reading a book in our English lessons called Greta and the Giants based on the actions of Greta Thunberg, a young woman who wants to protect the earth's plants and flowers.  The children looked at persuasive texts and created their own placards to persuade us all to look after the environment.

MP1 Maths Workshop


Thank you for your presence during our recent maths workshop. Children relished in the opportunity to be ‘mini-teachers’ and explain the strategies we use to solve maths problems. We used cubes, base ten and numicon as a building block and then progressed to solving questions used pictorial strategies.  

Milepost 2

IPC: Island Life 

In IPC on Monday, Ghaniya from the Environmental Society of Oman came to talk to the Year 3s about marine life in the Arabian Sea and particularly around the Damaniyat Islands. The children were shocked to learn that whale sharks are endangered and the hawksbill sea turtle is critically endangered. Her presentation helped the children to understand the positive impact that people can have on the environment but she also shared some of the negative effects of human activity, such as plastic pollution. Inspired by what we've learned, the children will be thinking about how to take action to help protect the marine wildlife that call the islands in Oman their home. 

Miss Naomi and Miss Maalia

Milepost 3 

Do animals have feelings? This is the question children in Milepost 3 have been trying to answer as part of their IPC unit. We know how humans express their emotions and how to identify people's feelings based on facial expressions and body language. But what about animals? Children have been using their own observations alongside independent research to create presentations to answer this intruiging question. They learnt about chimpanzees and African elephants showing empathy, and dogs using their 'puppy-dog eyes' to evoke emotion in humans.   

Art - Monet's Water Lilies

Have you been hearing about water lilies at home?

Well, this term, our students have engaged in an inspiring collaborative art project, each contributing their unique touch to a collective masterpiece. Drawing inspiration from Monet's iconic Water Lilies painting, they embarked on crafting individual lily pads. 

Milepost 1 students used oil pastel blending techniques, infusing their lily pads with vibrant colours. Meanwhile, Milepost 2 experimented with watercolour, exploring various techniques to create both texture and an array of shades, achieved through meticulous color mixing. As for our Year 5 cohort, they embraced the challenge of experimenting with both watercolour and acrylic paints, choosing the most suitable medium to bring their envisioned effects to life. Year 6 students, aiming for realism, focused on mastering gradients, meticulously crafting shades and tones while balancing hard and soft lines.

Collectively, these efforts have put a new spin on a timeless masterpiece, which can be viewed in our learning souq. The children should be very proud of their achievements, having breathed new life into a revered work of art. 

Well done everyone!

Outside Achievement 

Savannah in Year 3 has been very busy lately taking part in numerous Tennis tournaments developing her skills and last week she won the Under 9 Orange ball Tournament at PDO. Only her 3rd time playing on a full court and also playing in the age group above her actual age. A fantastic achievement! Well done Savannah keep it up. 

Please remember to send your outside of school achievements so we can share and celebrate your successes! 

Morning Arrival Years 1-6

Your child's health and safety is of upmost importance and we would like to remind parents that school is open from 7:40am for drop off (7:45am Early Years). 

Children in Years 4-6 (who have permission to walk or cycle to school) should leave their house so that their arrival time is from 7:40am. This is to ensure that there is an adult on duty to greet them as they arrive. Children in Year 3 and below should be accompanied by an adult onto school grounds whether it is walking, cycling or dropped off by car. 

The car park in the mornings can get very busy. Can we please ask parents to park their cars whilst the children get out. Please do not stop your car in the middle of the road for children to disembark as this is a safety hazard. 

Thank you for your continued support. 

From the PTA

Please follow the link to sign up for the PDO School Quiz Night.

Dates for your Diary

Wishing you a pleasant weekend,

The PDO School Team