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Headteachers' End of Year Letter

Wed 24 Jul 2019

24 July 2019

Dear Parents and Carers,

So, another year has flown by and we are at the end of summer term once again.

I would to thank all of you, on behalf of myself and the whole staff, for all the many good wishes, thanks and gifts we have received over the last few days. Positive feedback makes all the difference to us.

This year has been another eventful and busy one. We have achieved the Silver Award for our Learning Outside the Classroom, thanks to all the team and in particular Mrs Vandyken, who leads this area for us.

We have also achieved the Bronze Award for School Games – Miss Noble has worked tirelessly with our own staff, Club Sport and the Alfriston Sports Partnership to provide opportunities to take part in tournaments and competitions across the school. New sporting competitions we have tried this year include tennis and cycling – thanks to Mr Scott!

Our focus on the Arts remains strong – so many of our children have performed in Celebration Assembly, Arts Evening, class assemblies and productions, which seem to go from strength to strength. We have several musical and dance clubs which children have enjoyed.

Thanks must go to our Year Six mental wellbeing mentors, trained by Bucks Mind this year and who ran TLC club. Many of your sons and daughters benefitted from this club with visits at lunchtime to talk over issues big and small. Combined with our focus on MindUp and growth mindset, we hope you have noticed resilience, empathy and perseverance building in your children.

We remain committed to providing a wide breadth of curriculum, from cookery, outside learning, themed days, a wide range of visits and trips and visitors coming into the school.

We are always looking for ways to improve the academic outcomes for our children and in English, we have introduced Letter Join across the school to set high expectations for handwriting and are embarking on a scheme called the Power of Reading in both Key stages as part of our English curriculum. We want our children to view reading as a pleasurable activity which opens the doors to a fount of knowledge and interest – within class through high quality texts shared with them and in their own personal reading development. Alongside a new spelling scheme, this will provide the building blocks and structure to get the most from our pupils at every stage.

In Maths we can report an increase in children achieving the expected standard in every year group, including Reception. In 6 of our 8 classes, this is also true of working at greater depth.

Statutory Results:

In Reception, this year we have achieved a 9% increase from last year of children achieving a Good Level of Development, which is at 77%.

Phonics results remain high – 90% pass rate in Y1 this year, which is well above average.

KS1 – We have maintained our levels of GDS in Reading and Writing with a 5% increase in Maths. We have had a slight dip in levels of WA in writing and maths from last year, but progress for this year group compared to their Reception results remains good.

KS2 – An increase in the percentage of children achieving working at in all three subjects of Reading, Writing and maths over last year.

Over half the class achieved the higher level in reading and 41% of children achieved the higher level in Maths. We have also seen an increase in those achieving GDS in writing.

Y6 SATs results

READING

WRITING

MATHS

Working at and above

Higher level

Working at

and above

GDS

Working at

and above

Higher level

% of pupils

79.3%

51.4%

86.2%

13.8%

75.9%

41.4%

I am immensely proud of all that our hardworking staff and children have achieved this year – and I thank you for your support for the work we do here.

I wish you all a well-deserved break – a time to reconnect and enjoy family time.

For our leavers this year – we send you with our very best wishes for your future adventures.

Autumn Term will start for children at 8.40am on Wednesday September 4^th.

With my very best wishes,

Ms O'Reilly

Amazon Wish List ...

Tue 23 Jul 2019

Detailed below is a link to Amazon for our wish list, we have added resources that the classrooms will need for September and if you would like to make a donation to the school you can order something from our list and have it sent directly to us. We are very grateful for your support. Many thanks.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/2MZ8KKPKHX8N7?ref_=wl_share

Coin Trail Update ...

Mon 22 Jul 2019

A huge amount was raised this morning - £355.31! Thank you to all who contributed to this :-)

Coin Trail - Monday 22nd July

Fri 19 Jul 2019

Who can spend the longest Penny? To continue on our theme to raise funds for new toilets the School Council have organised a coin trail competition on 22nd July for all the school to take part in.

Each class will see who can spend the longest penny! In other words which class will have the longest coin trail along the playground to our 'Spend a Penny' toilet.

So we ask you and your children to search for any loose change you may have and bring it along on Monday 22nd July for our toilet-tastic coin competition. Who will take away the Toilet Brush Trophy?

Bucks & Milton Keynes School Games

Fri 12 Jul 2019

More than 1,300 children competed for medals on Thursday in the annual Bucks and Milton Keynes School Games. Dozens of schools from all over the county took part in the event that gave many children their first experience of participating in a major sporting event. Students took part in 15 different sports, from athletics to swimming, rounders, table tennis, golf and cycling.

2018 Commonwealth Games netball gold medallist Ama Agbeze MBE gave an inspirational address during the opening ceremony. The event is the culmination of a year-long programme of activities organised by Leap, the Sport and Activity Partnership for Bucks and MK in conjunction with the School Games Organisers.

Our school team arrived bright and early at the Stoke Mandeville Stadium for the opening ceremony where they had a second breakfast to set them up for the day. They then took part in a number of Go Ride Mountain Biking events: a 80 m sprint, an endurance race and a team relay. The children worked really hard in their individual and team races and showed great sportsmanship. There was a very high level of skills shown by the competitors and this was our Year 5’s team their first cycling competition and there were a number of Year 6 teams competing. The team came 5^th overall and won the Fair Play award. Well done to Jake who came third in his race and won a well deserved medal. The team consisted of: Beatrice, Connor, Jake, Matthew, Tia and Verity. A huge thank you to Mr Scott for running the training sessions and organising the team at the event and to the parents who came along on this extremely hot day.

Report by Mrs Fennell