14th January 2026

Dear Parents,

At PDO school, fostering resilience is a primary learning goal. We believe that developing the ability to persevere through challenges and bounce back from setbacks is essential for a child’s long-term success. While these concepts are taught within the classroom, they are often most effectively forged through physical education, and specifically, through our swimming lessons.

Swimming is a vital life saving skill that serves as a unique classroom for character development. For many children, the water presents a series of physical and mental hurdles, from managing the initial discomfort of the environment to mastering complex strokes or overcoming a fear of the deep end. When children face these challenges directly, they build a sense of self and self-regulation that translates to every other area of their education, including academic persistence and social confidence.

We have recently noted a trend of inconsistent attendance during our scheduled swimming sessions. While we fully understand that children may be incapacitated by illness or injury from time to time, our records indicate a pattern of mixed attendance that suggests many students are missing out on these essential lessons. We kindly ask for your support in prioritising these sessions. By ensuring your child has their kit and is encouraged to participate, you are helping them understand that showing up and facing a challenge is a key part of growth.

The skills learned in the pool—discipline, persistence, and the courage to try again after a failure—provide a blueprint for navigating the complexities of life. We appreciate your partnership in helping us ensure that every student develops the resilience needed to succeed both in and out of the water.

Thank you for your continued cooperation and support.

Please note the school is closed for a short holiday today, we will be open again on Monday. Hope you enjoy your break.

Tim Robinson

Headteacher

Our PLG Journey: Together as a Learning Community

We are excited to continue sharing our Personal Goals Padlet platform in our weekly newsletter to celebrate achievements together as a wider community.

We kindly ask for your support in capturing moments when your child demonstrates any of the Personal Learning Goals - whether at home, in the park, during outdoor play or in daily routines. For example, if your child shows collaboration while playing outside, you may upload one photo and select the appropriate Personal Goal folder (e.g., “Collaboration”).

Families are welcome to share one photo per week if they wish, highlighting a Personal Goal your child has demonstrated.

Please click on the Padlet link below to share your child’s achievement with our community. This is a wonderful opportunity for children to celebrate their out-of-school achievements and for us to reinforce that their Personal Learning Goals are transferable skills beyond the classroom.

PLGs Padlet

Thank you for supporting the celebration of children’s achievements.

The IC Team

A Huge Congratulations to our Maths Passport Globetrotters!

Achieving the Globetrotters certificate is an exceptional accomplishment and represents the final stage of the Maths Passport programme. This award reflects years of dedication, perseverance and consistent mastery of key mathematical skills. Reaching this level requires determination, resilience and a genuine love of learning, and we are incredibly proud of the hard work and commitment shown by Ella and Hudson. Well done on this outstanding achievement!

Out of school achievement

Congratulations to Matias who competed in his first tennis tournament at the weekend, winning the Under 8 category.

Early Years

The Nursery children have enjoyed continuing their 'Busy Builders' learning journey this week, as they explored and investigated boats through hands-on experiences. To start with, the children discovered a range of different types of boats from around the world.

They went on to learn how people use boats for travel and even as places to live. They carefully observed the parts of a boat and their purposes, before creatively painting a large boat. The children were then introduced to the exciting scientific ideas of floating and sinking. They became confident young builders as they designed and constructed their own boats, made predictions about what might happen, and eagerly tested their ideas. The children also experimented with a range of materials, discovering how well they lasted in water. This led to them discovering that paper boats did not last as long as tin foil boats! The children loved sharing their thoughts and experimenting with friends.

Milepost 1

This week our Year 1 children excitedly began their new IPC learning unit The Stories People Tell. As their Entry Point to this learning unit, they received a mystery story box filled with a letter, characters, and clues. Working together as true collaborators (our Personal Goal focus), the children pieced the clues together and retold the classic fairytale The Enormous Turnip.

As part of our learning journey, we are exploring stories, fairy tales, and fables from around the world. The children have already enjoyed listening to a story in French and two stories in Russian—including The Enormous Turnip, which originated in Russia.

It has been wonderful to see the children’s curiosity, teamwork, and joy as they discover how stories connect us across cultures.

Milepost 2

In English, Year 4 have been reading How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell, and exploring the challenges faced by the main character, Hiccup. We discussed how he might overcome these difficulties and considered the decisions he makes throughout the story.

This naturally linked to the Personal Learning Goal Empathy, and the children reflected on what empathy means, how it feels, and why it matters. They also related Hiccup’s experiences to their own personal challenges and shared thoughtful examples of how they overcame them.

The text includes a wealth of new and ambitious vocabulary, so we have been practising our morphology skills to work out the meaning of unfamiliar words by looking at prefixes, suffixes and roots. We also drew on our retrieval, inference and prediction strategies to deepen our comprehension and understanding of character motivations and themes.

The unit has sparked rich discussion and helped the children develop not only as readers but also as reflective and empathetic learners.

Milepost 3

This week in Milepost 3, Year 5 (as part of our IPC unit Existing, Endangered, Extinct) have been learning about the world's biomes. Year 5 have been researching the features of each biome and investigating how the flora and fauna have adapted to their environment.

Using their recently learnt skills from their maths statistics lessons, children have also read and interpreted data relating to the threats and opportunities of climate and weather in the different biomes and eco systems.

Congratulations to our Learners of the Week!

A huge congratulations to our newest Learners of the Week! This award recognises the incredible effort they put into their learning and the excellent ways they are putting their personal goals into practice. It's fantastic to see them growing and becoming such dedicated and confident learners.

PDO School Class Photos

Please see below the dates for class photos.

For children in Reception - Year 2 - Year 3 - Year 6

Your child's class photo will take place on Sunday 25th January 2026.

For children in Nursery - Year 1 - Year 4 - Year 5

Your child's class photo will take place on Thursday 29th January 2026.

Please can children wear school uniforms on their allocated day as normal.

Thank you.

PDO School Team

Parent Calendar

The Parent Calendar can also be found on the school website About page.

Wishing you a pleasant long weekend,

The PDO School Team

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