Newsletter 2023
January Week 1
Friday 6th January
Staffing!
We are happy to announce the return of Mrs Reynolds to Reception class. Mrs Vann will be working in Year 3 for the rest of the year. Mr Madle will be teaching in Year 3 on Fridays with Mrs Speed until Mrs Margetts (Ms Grant) returns from maternity leave in February.
Challenge Clubs
Year 6 Saturday School and Thursday after school Challenge Club have finished for this academic year.
Since the return to school after lockdown, we have found that the early mornings sessions have had more of an uptake and have been more impactful. Please look out for the letters that will be inviting children to attend in rotation. In addition, Mr Madle and Miss Papas will be providing extra support in classes.
Don't miss out! Apply for a Reception place before 15th January.
Reminder, parents/ carers with children eligible for Reception Class in September 2023 must apply for a place via Barnet School Admissions.
Admission to our Nursery does not give you access to a place in Reception even if you have a sibling in the school. Please hurry as the deadline is 15th January, which is next week. If you miss this date, you risk missing out on the school of your choice even if an older sibling attends the school.
Parent Champions and Home Start Coffee Morning
Join our Parent Champions for a coffee morning on January 13th from 8:40 am and have a chat with them and our special guests about local family services as well as a new service in Barnet called Home Start, who offer practical and emotional support to anyone who needs it. All parents/carers are invited, and the event will take place in The Cabin and will last about one hour.
PARENT REPRESENTATIVE MEETING 07.12.22
IN ATTENDANCE:
Giovanna Phelan- Headteacher
Megan Atkinson- Nursery
Jackie Scott- Reception
Austin Scott- Reception
Kate Orr- Year 4
APOLOGIES:
Carrie Lowin- Reception
Laura Blackaller- Year 1
Charlotte Gosling- Year 2
Melissa Gosling- Year 3
Lina Cavozzi- Year 5
'READ WITH ME' - Good news for our ‘Read with Me’ parents/ carers in Nursery. There will be an additional session after half term, starting on Friday 24th Feb at 2.30 pm. As this will allow more parents/carers a chance to come along, if they haven’t been able to so far.
Q. Some parents in Nursery have mentioned that the children going to Cabin at the end of the day have to wait outside with the other children who are being dismissed from school at 3.10pm. They have asked if it would be possible for them to wait inside as some children feel sad they’re not being picked up.
A. None of the members of staff want any child to feel upset but pupils cannot go into the CABIN due to there not being a staff member inside to supervise them. Mrs.Phelan reassures that the children are only outside for a few minutes but we are reviewing the arrangements to see if a member of staff can be used to cover the transition.
Q. Could Nursery pupils have hot meals at lunch time.
A. Unfortunately this isn’t possible as Nursery have a different lunch time to the rest of the school. The lunches would have to be prepared much earlier and we don’t have the resources to do this. In addition, children at this age can be very particular with their eating habits and parents/carers can provide meals tailored to their likes. If the pupils refused to eat the choices available, we would then have to ask the parents/carers to provide additional food and this could vary from day to day. We do have pupils who bring in hot meals in insulated containers and we suggest parents/carers use these to provide hot food.
Q. Information was requested about the ‘FIT BAGS’
A. The Fit Bag is fun! It is a bag each child will get to take home for a weekend at least once during the year.
It has fun games the children can use which develop physical, mental, cognitive skills and fun for all the family to join in too.
Information regarding the fit bag was presented in a meeting, with information handed out and provided in the newsletter too.
For anyone who missed this information, the teachers will make sure it is mentioned in the ‘Read with Me’ sessions, so nobody misses out.
Q. What time are 'Lone Walkers' admitted into school?
A. Children who walk to school on their own in the mornings should arrive in school at 8.40 unless they are doing morning challenge with a member of staff or attending breakfast club.
SWIMMING - Year 3 will be swimming after Christmas and Year 5 will be swimming later in the year.
CHRISTMAS FAIR - I think you will all agree that our Christmas fair was amazing this year! Full of fun and community spirit.
It takes a lot of time, effort and thought to put on an event like this. It relies heavily on volunteers, both parents/carers and teachers, working together and giving up their spare time to make it happen. We are always looking for people to help out. Please speak to your class rep if you would like to help at one of our next events.
Q. It was brought to our attention in the meeting that some parents felt the gift the children received when they went to see Father Christmas for £5 wasn’t worth the money.
A. The £5 was to meet Father Christmas, receive a small gift and get a printed photograph of your child with Father Christmas. Please note that you are not just paying for your child to see the big man, but you are also donating to charity, the school PTA. All proceeds the PTA make from these events go back to the children in some way, for example the wonderful Pirate Ship in the EYFS playground or the mini bus, which is used to take children on trips.
BONFIRE NIGHT - Q. With the lovely big field we have at Livingstone, parents have asked if we could have a firework display next year.
A. We are sorry this isn’t possible because this is a sports field and it requires substantial maintenance to keep it in working condition. The field would very quickly become a muddy mess with the volume of people attending and would be unusable for quite a while after the event. The school, other Barnet schools and outside football clubs who rent the field, need to be able to use it all year round.
Nursery
The Nursery children have returned so well to class after the Christmas Break. Well done everybody!
This week we started with a mini topic on 'Fairies and Elves'. The children helped to set up a mini-world all about fairies - and they drew and collaged some lovely pictures for our display.
Kingfisher Nursery
It was lovely to welcome KFN back after the school holiday and the children have been settling back into class routine well with some familiar and favourite activities. The children especially enjoy 'Big PE', an opportunity to use their gross motor skills to explore moving in different ways on and around the apparatus.
Reception
This week we have settled back into Reception very well! We have been talking about Winter and also reading the story 'Matisse's Magical Trail' which has inspired lots of learning this week. We have learnt about Henri Matisse and enjoyed lots of different art activities, been making snail number bonds to 5 and writing number sentences and have been learning all about snails!
In the reading diary you will see the group and sounds that your child has been learning, please read daily with them and ensure all reading materials/books/bookbags are in on a Friday for changing.
Achievement Awards!
Niya - for making fantastic progress with her literacy. Well done Niya!
Ben - for making a fantastic snail collage inspired by Matisse. Brilliant work Ben!
Year 1
Happy New Year! Year 1 have returned to school refreshed and excited about our Spring Term. We have started our new RE topic and have enjoyed learning about how Hindu and Sikh people celebrate their festivals.
We will be introducing Mystery Reader starting next Thursday 12th January and will explain all you need to know about how you can support us at 'Read with Me' on Monday.
Achievement Awards!
Achievement awards this week go to Cody for his excellent work on place-value and Rosie for her detailed writing in RE. Well done you two!
Year 2
We have been learning about what multiplication means in Maths. We have been drawing arrays to work out multiplication sentences and writing the repeated addition sentence to match.
In English, we have read different free verse poems and identified the features to help us write our own poem linked to happiness.
Our foundation subject this week has been Computing focused on coding and algorithms. We created our own algorithms (instructions) to create our own alien and to move animations on j2code (a website which you can use at home).
Homework
Reasoning and Problem Solving - pages 5 and 6.
Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling - pages 28 and 29
Achievement Awards!
This week's awards go to Abdul for challenging himself in Maths and Lola for her super enthusiasm towards every subject.
Kingfisher 1
This week in Maths, we learned about place value. All the children enjoyed comparing numbers with Charlie the crocodile.
In English we are exploring traditional stories, this week we started with Jack and the Beanstalk. Children had fun planting their own beans and are eagerly awaiting to see them grow. Maybe magic will happen!
Achievement Awards!
This week we welcome Andreas to Kingfisher 1 and we are very pleased how Andreas has settled into his new routine. Well done, Andreas!
Year 3
We have had an excellent first week back in Year 3. We have continued our work on multiplication and division in Maths and in English we have started to learn how to write a letter. In Science, we have begun our new unit on 'Forces' and this week we have been focusing on how magnets work.
CGP Pages:
Maths: pages 26 and 27 (The 3, 4 and 8x table and using times tables fact).
English: pages 68 and 69 (prefixes un dis and mis).
Achievement Awards!
The first achievement award's goes to Junior for such a fantastic first week back! He has worked so hard in all lessons and shown excellent behaviour.
The second achievement award goes to Soroiyan for a really positive week. She has wowed the Non-Stop Action staff with her sports skills and the Year 3 team in class. Fantastic!
Year 4
Year 4 have had a great first week back after a well deserved break. In Maths, we have continued with our work on multiplication and English we have finished writing and publishing our newspaper reports. We have now completed our moving persuasive posters in D&T and will be moving on to Geography next week where we will be looking at volcanoes!
CGP:
Maths: Factor pairs (page 24)
SPaG: Suffixes -'ation and 'ous' (pages 78 - 79) and The 'ay' sound (page 93)
TTRS: 6s, 7s, 8s and 9s
Achievement Awards!
This week's achievement award goes to Sonny, Oliver and Muthara for their writing in English. Well done!
Year 5
This week, the children have been learning how to multiply 2- digit numbers using an area model and the column method.
In English, they read an adaptation Beowulf - a Viking epic written over 1000 years ago. They'll be writing action-packed narratives based on the epic.
Pop Art is our focus in the afternoons, and the children are enjoying it so far! They've learned important information about the art movement, and two world-renowned artists: Warhol and Lichtenstein.
FYI: There are no more morning Maths sessions. All children need to be in school at the usual time of 8:40.
CGP Books
Maths: pages 34-35 (adding and subtracting fractions)
English: pages 24-25 (prepositions)
Achievement Awards!
This week's awards go to Kayce for being focussed on his work, and to Arbel for her work on multiplication - well done!
Year 6
Year 6 have settled back into our routines well and have had fantastic outcomes in their first week back. In Maths, we have continued our work on fractions and in English we are looking at a new book 'Rose Blanche' for our next long write which is linked with our World War II topic in History. The children have shown a keen interest in WWII and have impressed us so far with the dates and facts they have retained.
A letter was emailed this week about our trip to the RAF museum on the 16th January so please check for that and fill in the permission slip as soon as possible.
Please read the information at the beginning of the newsletter in regard to Year 6 challenge clubs.
CGP Homework
Maths - pages 32 and 34
English - pages 32 and 34
Achievement Awards!
This week's achievement awards go to Zach for sharing his WWII knowledge and transferring this into detailed explanations in History and Evie for her great Maths work on fractions this week. Well done!
Kingfisher 2
We have had a good week back in KF2. The children came in ready to learn and they loved listening to each other’s Christmas experiences and enjoyed telling their classmates all about the gifts they gave and received.
The class have been impressing us with how much progress they have made learning their times tables and been mentally solving addition and subtraction calculations with large numbers.
The children also used a number of different word types to build sentences.
Achievement Awards!
This week’s award goes to George for all his hard work on adding 3-digit numbers and to Freddie for his great work attitude and improved independence.
JANUARY 2023
Monday 9th:
- Activity Clubs begin for Spring 1
Tuesday 10th:
- Reception and Year 6 height and weight measuring with School Nurse Team
Wednesday 11th:
- Mixed Football match vs Northside - 3.30 pm (HOME)
Thursday 12th:
- Girls Football match vs Lyonsdown - 3.30 pm (HOME)
Friday 13th:
- Parent Champion Coffee Morning with Home Start visitor - 8:40 - 10:00 am (all parents welcome)
Tuesday 17th:
- Year 2 SATS Meeting for Parents/Carers at 9:00 am in Dining Hall
Thursday 19th:
- Girls Football at Mill Hill Power League - PM
Friday 20th:
- PTA Quiz Night (more info to follow)