Newsletter 1 – Autumn 2015 It is wonderful to be able to report that most children at Gilbert Scott seem to have made a FANTASTIC start to this school year. So many of them are working so very hard and beginning to show what good learners they are. The vast majority have been very calm and so sensible. We are all very proud of them. Super behaviour and really good attitudes to learning are to be celebrated. Very WELL DONE pupils at Gilbert Scott. School Inspection by Ofsted: Obviously, to be judged as a school that ‘requires improvement’ is not the result we were hoping for when Ofsted visited in the middle of June. I trust that you realised from the letter sent out at the beginning of this term, that this was a very challenging inspection, with many things happening that gave us cause for concern. The entire school team thanks you for your subsequent support, particularly those who have commented on Facebook or have come to speak to us. Following the publication of the report, an article was run in the local newspaper. At the end of this article, information about my retirement next year was made public. Those of you who have worked with the school for some time will know that this is not how parents of Gilbert Scott find out information. I was horrified that I hadn’t had the opportunity to tell you first and feel that I need to apologise – even though this was not of my doing. I will be retiring at the end of the school year – August 2016, having worked here for 16 years and in education for 39 years. Those of you who said I didn’t look old enough to retire were very kind. My birth certificate says that I will be of an age to stop work. The Governors of the school are working with the Local Authority to find that special person to come and be the new Head Teacher of Gilbert Scott Primary School, Willow Tree Nursery and Woodlands Children’s Centre. Obviously you will be kept up to date with progress about this. I’m sure we’re going to have a fabulous academic year between now and then.

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Some pieces of information to share with you …

CHOOSING A SCHOOL Year 6 moving on to Secondary School and Reception class in September 2016 The Secondary schools hold their open days from the middle of September onwards. Please make sure you visit any school you are considering. Your paperwork MUST be submitted by 31st October. Every year we have a few children who are not issued with a secondary school in March. This makes them so unsettled and unhappy. We are holding a support session for parents to help with filling in the application forms on Wednesday 14th October between 9:30 until 3 pm. If you can’t make between these times and would like support, please ring school to arrange an alternative appointment. Gilbert Scott remains a VERY popular school, with waiting lists for virtually all classes. Make sure your child or the child of your friends and family does not miss out on their place at Gilbert Scott. We are holding an open day for prospective new parents on Thursday 8th October and on Thursday 26th November from 9:30 until 11:30 am. If you would like some advice and help to complete the paperwork to ensure your very special young person has a reception place in September 2016 please come and speak to a member of our very helpful office staff. Breakfast Club – still a bargain at £2 per child per day. Unless your child is going to Breakfast Club they should not be in school until 8:30 am. Dates for your calendar: October is always Black History Month. Why not spend time exploring your family history and heritage with your children? A mini ‘Who do you think you are? Each class will be doing some work around Black History throughout October. Thursday 1st October – special lunch for everyone The children have voted on their favourite school lunch and on Thursday 1st October the Children’s Choice meal will be burger or pizza, chips with chocolate sponge and chocolate custard for pudding. Jacket potatoes, fruit and yoghurt will also be available. The school will meet the cost of every child who pays for their lunch and has school lunch on this day. Tuesday 6th October – individual photos of the children being taken, as well as the Croydon Advertiser taking photos of our new Reception Class for an article in their newspaper. Tuesday 6th October – the first meeting at Red Gates School regarding the proposed expansion of their provision by 56 pupils (7 classes).

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Thursday 8th October (and 26th November) – Open Day – for prospective pupils in September 2016, as well as anyone thinking of changing their child’s school. Monday 12th October at 9 am – Parent Pow-Wow – an opportunity to speak to Mrs Adams and Mrs Jackson re anything you feel we should know, or anything you would like clarified. HARVEST ~ TINS TINS TINS TINS TINS TINS TINS We will be celebrating Harvest on Thursday 15th October, during the morning. You are invited to join us for this celebration. Please start to send in any donations for this event. We are asking for just tins this year, so we can donate to the Food Hub in Purley which provides food for local people in crisis. Attached to this newsletter is a list of food which they would appreciate being donated. Inevitably at this time of year there are a lot of requests for support. This then moves into Remembrance Day, Children in Need and then donations for the school’s Christmas Fair. Already you have donated £300 for MacMillan Cancer Support.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all your support for these events. It shows what a caring and compassionate group of families we have at Gilbert Scott.

Reading is incredibly important. Between us, we can make a real difference to every child’s life chances if we support them with their reading. Please share some form of print every night for at least 10 minutes and enter this into the reading record book. See additional info sheet attached. Maths Workshop on Monday 19th October during the afternoon – more details to follow – come and find out about how maths is now expected to be taught, what your child is expected to be able to do and how you can help. Half Term – Monday 26th October to Friday 30th October, with the children returning to school on Monday 2nd November. Woodlands Children’s Centre is running a number of activity sessions over half term. Please see their website for further details and to book places for your children. Thursday 5th November – special attendance assembly for children in nursery, reception and year 1 classes and their parents. Friday November 6th - Learn and Lunch for pupils of the ELPs, years 1 and 3 Monday 9th November at 9 am – Parent Pow-Wow – another opportunity to speak to Mrs Adams and Mrs Jackson re anything you feel we should know, or anything you would like clarified.

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Thursday 12th November at 9 am – the school’s attached Speech and Language Therapist will be holding a coffee morning for parents of children in nursery and reception and talking about Language Development. Friday 13th November – Sharing of Learning time parents of children in the nursery class; Learn and Lunch for parents of pupils in years 2 and 4. Week beginning 16th November – residential school journey for pupils in years 5 and 6. Parent Consultation sessions will be on Wednesday 25th and Thursday 26th November. You will be invited into school during the week prior to these dates to book your own appointment. The Governors will be conducting their annual ‘customer satisfaction’ questionnaire at this event. As a thank you for completing the questionnaire you will be given a free ticket for a variety of raffle prizes, one of which will be a basket of fruit donated by our caterers, Caterlink. At the Parent Consultation sessions there will be a number of boards asking for your opinion about a variety of things concerning school and your child’s education. Please help us to continue to improve what we do for the children by letting us know your views. You also have the option of recording your views about the school through ‘Parent View’ which is accessed via the Ofsted website. We will also have some science challenges for you to have a go at. Further Information: Please do check the school’s website. You will find all sorts of useful information on it. You should have received your child’s access password for FRONTER. If there are any problems with using Fronter from home please leave a message with the office staff. Each ‘class room’ will have a special parent ‘container’ where you should find all sorts of interesting items. The children also have access to Mathletics, Mangahigh, Reading Eggs, Language Nut and a new web based programme called Skoolbo. This is also downloadable as an app and supports children with their reading and maths. All schools have a statutory duty to report anything they are concerned about to the Children’s Social Care Department. Such referrals are only ever done after a great deal of consideration. Often we talk such referrals through with parents and carers before they are sent off. Sometimes this is not deemed by our advisors to be the action to take. Remember, we are always acting in the best interests of the children in the school. Our duty is to take every step we can to protect the children in our care. All schools have a number of

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pupils in them for whom life is very tough. Through schools taking action children’s lives are often improved and sometimes even saved. Uniform – this includes school shoes …. NOT trainers please. The weather has changed and become very autumnal. Everyone needs to bring a coat with them to school, even if they come by car. The playgrounds can be quite exposed to the wind and your child will be disappointed if everyone else is out to play and they can’t join their friends due to the lack of a coat.

Good punctuality is important. School starts for most pupils at 8.55. All children should be in the playground before this time. Aim to be in school from 8.45. The front door of the school should only be used if you are late. 8:45 is the time to arrive! School finishes for children in reception, years 1 and 2 at 3.10. For years 3, 4, 5 and 6 school finishes at 3.25 pm. Please collect your children on time – particularly the younger ones. They can become very distressed if no-one comes to get them on time. If it is someone different collecting your child please make sure the school / teacher knows who this is. We take time and care to try to make sure every child is released to the correct adult. This is why you may find adults blocking doorways at the end of the day. They are matching the right child with the correct adult. It does sometimes takes a few minutes for your child to appear out of the doorway. Attendance – All children are expected to attend school for at least 96% of the time that school is open (a government set percentage). At the end of each year you receive an attendance certificate with your child’s report. 96% - 100% is fabulous. 94% - 95.99% is okay, in fact, very close to the magic number of 96%. Any child attending for less than 90% is monitored very closely, with some parents being invited to meet with the school’s attendance officer. Unfortunately, we sometimes have to take families to court for poor attendance or persistent lateness, leading to absenteeism. Holidays – the government has changed the rules regarding holidays. Schools are no longer allowed to authorise any holidays taken in term time. We are asked whether it is appropriate for a fixed term penalty notice to be served upon the family. Decisions regarding this are linked to levels of attendance in the prior school year. The message here is – your child should be in school as much as possible and they should be on time.

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£

The cost of a school lunch has increased to £2.15 per day. This equates to £10.75 per week. Please make sure that there are always sufficient funds on your account to pay for your child’s lunches.

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A reminder that no child at Gilbert Scott is old enough to have a Facebook account. As a school we are expected to report any such accounts and these are usually closed down. This is to protect your child. The children have sessions about computer safety every term at school. If you have changed your telephone number, please make sure that the school has the updated one, just in case we need to make contact with you. Everything your child brings to school should be named: uniform, coat, book bags, lunch boxes, hats, scarves, PE bags and all PE kit. All classes from year R to 6 have indoor as well as outdoor PE lessons. For working inside pupils need a pair of shorts (preferably dark blue or black), a plain white tee shirt and a pair of plimsolls. Changes to the Teaching and Learning All of the children at Gilbert Scott are being taught from the revised curriculum which came into use from September 2014. We will be giving you further information about the changes to the curriculum, as well as posting articles on the school’s website. A quick summary around the English and maths would be to say that the expectations of what the children should be able to achieve within each year group is much harder. An example of this is that by the end of year 4 every child is expected to know thoroughly their times tables up to 12 x 12. Please note – no longer literacy and numeracy, but English and maths. Also, this year there are great changes to how judgements about how well the children are doing have taken place. We no longer will be talking about “achieving a level 2 in year 2 or a level 4 in year 6” We will be supporting you in these changes when we have more substantial information from the Department for Education. A request: please do not smoke e-cigarettes within the school site. Although you are not smoking cigarettes, it still gives an image of smoking to the children, something as a school, we try to avoid. Many thanks for your cooperation with this. Please see, complete and return the orange sheet about support for asthma. Thank you for taking the time to read this newsletter. It has ended up like a short novel. So much information to share with you.

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Reading Tips Tip number 1:

Don’t interrupt

Even if your child is going wrong try not to butt in. They will probably realise that what they’ve read doesn’t make sense and will go back and try again. Tip number 2:

Read together regularly

Make time at least every school day for reading. Little and often – 10 to 15 minutes is great.

Tip number 3:

Help with difficult words

Don’t be worried about telling your child a tricky word they are struggling to work out, but give them a bit of a chance first of all. Tip number 4:

Be positive 1

Don’t say, “No, that’s not right.” Instead say something like, “Let’s try and work this out together.” Let small mistakes go if they don’t affect the meaning of the text. Tip number 5:

Be positive 2

Be upbeat and positive if your child wants to read books you feel are too easy. Re-reading familiar texts is valuable for fluency. Tip number 6:

Talk about the book

Discuss what’s happening in the book and what might happen next to encourage good understanding. Give the reader time to absorb any pictures on the page before beginning to read. Guide them gently back to the text if they become distracted for more than a minute or two. Carry on reading with your child until they are 10 or 11 to ensure they are not skipping long words. Have two books on the go; one the child reads and one you read to them.

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Dates for Academic Year 2015 / 2016 Autumn Term 2015 Thursday 3rd and Friday 4th September – Training Days Monday 7th September – school opens to pupils Friday 23rd October – school closes for half term at normal time Monday 2nd November – school opens to pupils Friday 18th December – school closes to pupils at 2pm Spring Term 2016 Monday 4th January – Training Day Tuesday 5th January – school opens to pupils Friday 12th February - school closes for half term at normal time Monday 22nd February – Training Day Tuesday 23rd February – school opens to pupils THURSDAY 24th March - school closes to pupils at 2pm Summer Term 2016 Monday 11th April – school opens to pupils Monday 2nd May – occasional day – Bank Holiday Friday 27th May – school closes for half term at normal time Monday 6th June – Training Day Tuesday 7th June – school opens to pupils Friday 22nd July - school closes to pupils at 2pm Autumn Term 2016 Training Days on Monday 5th and Tuesday 6th September Opening to children on Wednesday 7th September. PLEASE NOTE: We always finish at 2 pm at the end of a full term – December, March and July.

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