Headteacher’s Blog

The weekly blog - keeping you up-to-date with school life; Stars of the Week; Housepoint winners and much more..

Wed 29 Sep 2021 Mr A

It is always a pleasure writing to you each week and keeping you up-to-date with school life and the things that we are working on.

This week, we have looked at the 5 respects that we are implementing into our school behaviour policy. Since lockdown, we have seen a decline in the way we speak to one another, treat each other, treat the environment. So as a school, we have decided to work with staff and pupils to combat this and create our 5 respects. These are:

To speak respectfully
To behave respectfully
To respect the school environment
To have respect for my learning
To have respect for other pupils’ learning

The children have had input into the first two during my assembly this week and they have worked as a class council to think about the school environment, which they will feedback via the school parliament.

Once these have been worked on, they will be displayed around the school and on our school website to help pupils and staff remember our 5 key respects.

We will run a small competition for some artwork to complement these.

Stars of the Week

Nursery	Tymon J & Charlie C 🤩
Reception	Sebastian S & Arthur WT 🤩
Year 1	Tristan B & Jasper M 🤩
Year 2	Mollie C & Tayla P 🤩
Year 3	Neve D & Leo OB 🤩
Year 4	Jacob L & Beau D 🤩
Year 5	Poppy L & Olivia J 🤩
Year 6	Dylan D & Fraser L 🤩

Housepoint Winner

EYFS	Sebastian S
Key Stage One	Theo R
Lower Key Stage Two	Max S
Upper Key Stage Two	Ellie C

Our winning house is: St. Andrew

Our whole school attendance this week is: 94.2%;

Our whole school attendance to date is: 94.7% this is 1.5% outside the National which is currently 96.2%.

In other news...

The governing body met on Thursday night to look at the School Development Plan, how pupils have returned to school, the school budget, and complete the statutory aspects at the start of each academic year. I can now confirm the following:

Chair of Governors: Michelle Horrobin

Vice-Chair of Governors: Joanne Vickers

Safeguarding Governor: Jenny Cantellow

SEND Governor: Jenny Cantellow

Pupil Premium Governor: Rhian Cockwell

Link governors for the following areas:

English: Michelle Horrobin

STEM: Emily Gravestock

The Arts: Joanne Vickers

Humanities: Emily Gravestock

Harvest Festival

Thank you for all of your contributions towards our Harvest Festival, we are collecting for Swindon Food Bank who have asked for alternatives rather than food; so thank you for supporting us again.

We are hoping to go Live on our Facebook page (private group) as our Y4 children will be performing and all our children will be singing some harvest songs. This all starts at 13:00.

Year 6 Class Assembly

Thursday 7th September sees our Y6 children perform their assembly. We are hoping to invite Y6 parents into this assembly. I am just checking current information. At the moment the protocol will be that you will need to wear a mask to walk through the school and into the hall. Once in the hall, you can remove your mask.

The door will be open for ventilation. We ask, that only 2 adults per household attend the assembly please to minimise the risk to our pupils, staff, and yourselves. If you have any symptoms before the day, please do not attend the assembly - thank you.

National Poetry Week

Next week starts our national poetry week. Why not take your child out and read poems out and about. If you take any photos or videos, please send them to school - we can share them on our Reading page on the website.

Imagine reading Walt Whitman's poem 'O Captain! My Captain!' by the waters edge somewhere. Or Shakespeare's Sonnet 18: 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day.' in a field on the Ridgeway. Or just before bedtime:

I Love You All, My Family by Shayla S Randolph

When monsters lurked beneath my bed
And scary dreams ran through my head,
When thunder growled those sounds I dread,
There you were,
My father.

When scuffed up knees made me cry,
Soft hankies wiped my sad eyes dry,
Coaxing me each time I tried.
You were always there,
My mother.

Who held my hand when I was scared?
Ate candy that he should have shared?
The things I did because you dared,
My brother.

In times of trouble, times of need,
I feel such strength surrounding me,
Without whose love, I can't succeed.
I love you all, my family.

Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/i-love-you-all-my-family

I hope you have a lovely weekend, even though it seems to be raining the entire time and I will see you on Monday morning.

Best Wishes

Mr A

Week 3

Fri 24 Sep 2021 Mr A

I would like to thank all our parents for your efforts in keeping COViD out of our school, working together, we have followed the advice and have kept us all safe. We know that numbers in Swindon are on the increase and Ridgeway have gone back to wearing masks. Can I just remind you that if your child has any symptoms, please take them for a PCR test and keep them off school until you have the results.

If your child does need time out of school and are not ill 🤧 but have symptoms, they can access remote learning via Teams and the class teacher will contact them at the start of each lesson.

School Parliament

The children and staff have voted for who they would like to run school parliament this year and I am pleased to announce that Chissy Champs have won the election. They are now the party in charge of parliament and will write a blog. You can find their work on our website under School Parliament and via the link: https://www.chiseldonprimary.co.uk/school-parliament/ Well done to both parties for preparing speeches and standing up in a whole school assembly and delivering what you would like to achieve this year - it is very brave of all of you.

Contacting the class teacher

Before COViD, we held a night in September where you met the class teacher and they took you through the expectations and how to contact them and keep up to date with things that were happening in school. Hopefully, by next September we will be able to do this again, as we get back to some kind of 'normal.' In the meantime, if you want to contact the class teacher, you can speak to them at the start of every morning, make an appointment on Teams to hold a meeting with you, or use the contact form on the class page on our website. If you click on the Children tab, Class Pages, then select the class your child is in, you can complete the form and this goes directly to the member of staff's email address and they will get back to you within 48 hours.

Stars of the Week

Nursery	Natalia L & Oliver L 🤩
Reception	Hugh R & Alyssa S 🤩
Year 1	Niamh C & Charlie A 🤩
Year 2	Oscar S & Charlie S 🤩
Year 3	John H & Beatrice WT 🤩
Year 4	Rosie M & Logan C 🤩
Year 5	Daniel C & Ava TA 🤩
Year 6	Thabo M & Ellie C 🤩

A fantastic achievement - well done all of you.

Housepoint Winners

EYFS	Roman E & Samuel T
Key Stage 1	Calan D
Lower Key Stage 2	Kai F
Upper Key Stage 2	Luke R

The winning house this week is: St. Andrew

The attendance winners are: Year 2 with 99.53%. Well done

Next week...

There are several things happening next week and we start the week celebrating European Day of Languages - all classes are looking at different countries on the day and celebrating our closest neighbours.

Nursery	Sweden 🇸🇪
Reception	Switzerland 🇨🇭
Year 1	Italy 🇮🇹
Year 2	France 🇫🇷
Year 3	Spain 🇪🇸
Year 4	Belgium 🇧🇪
Year 5	Greece 🇬🇷
Year 6	Portugal 🇵🇹

We will also be looking at Pupil Voice during the week and will be using some of the resources from The Pupil Voice website: https://pupilvoiceweek.co.uk/about

And finally, we end the week kick-starting the month of October, which is Black History Month.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend and we will see you on Monday morning.

Mr A

Week 2

Thu 16 Sep 2021 Mr A

Welcome to this week's blog.

I cannot believe that we are halfway through September already.

A quick reminder to Year 6 parents, you need to make sure that you are looking around secondary schools, and are ready to apply for a place by the end of October.

I know that Ridgeway School and The Deanery are offering tours around the school and St. Johns are offering virtual tours and meetings online. It is important that you select the correct secondary school for your child and that they will meet their needs.

Thank you so much for supporting the charity 'Maggie's, the Home of Cancer Care,' it really was wonderful to see so many children wearing orange. We raised a brilliant £200, which I will add to my donations already, which gives a total of £405, so far. I now have 73.93 miles to cycle before the end of September.

Stars of the Week 🤩

Nursery	Harrison & Eleanor 🤩
Reception	Immie & Bella-Rose 🤩
Year 1	Reuben & Lilly-Mae 🤩
Year 2	Calan & Jibril 🤩
Year 3	Regina & Jonathan 🤩
Year 4	Sophie D & William 🤩
Year 5	Finley & Jack 🤩
Year 6	Rocco & Poppy 🤩

Housepoint Winners 🧮

Well done to the following pupils, who get to have dinner with Mr H and I on Friday lunchtime.

EYFS	Frankie
Key Stage 1	Theo
Lower Key Stage 2	Sophie D
Upper Key Stage 2	Esha

This week St. Andrew are the winning house and get to celebrate

The attendance trophy goes to Year 2, having achieved 96.6%

In other news...

What a lovely gesture! A very kind parent bought everyone an ice-pop during the hot weather. Every child in school has now had one. Thank you very much, this was extremely kind and the children enjoyed the ice.

What a Result

Well done to Miss Harris and Mrs Parmenter for a fantastic job on Thursday morning. They were visited by the Food Standard people from SBC and we have once again achieved the highest standard of 5. Amazing result and shows your hard work throughout each year, thank you 😊

Next Week...

Just a reminder that next Tuesday is school photograph day. If you would like a younger sibling to have a photograph with children in school, I am going to have to be rather strict.

To allow this to happen, you are going to have to wait outside the school reception and come in one at a time and exit through the Year 6 door and out via the school car park gates. The reason for this is, that SBC has said we need to limit the number of parents that are inside the building. if you could email Mrs Hughes, to let us know that you will be bringing a sibling just to give us some idea of numbers, that would be great, thank you.

I hope you have a lovely weekend and enjoy what seems to be like a good Friday afternoon and Saturday, weather wise.

Mr A

Week 1

Fri 10 Sep 2021 Mr A

What a great start to the year! I absolutely adore our celebration assemblies and seeing all the children together after such a long time is truly wonderful.

Please may I remind parents about drop off and pick ups and where to park please. Although you maybe allowed to park on double yellow lines, can you try to avoid the lines near the crossing on Orchid Road, as this is the main crossing for our children and they need to be able to see past parked cars - your help with this would be much appreciated.

I have now completed this year's diary dates for you all and Mrs Hughes will get these on to the website as quickly as possible. You will be able to find them by following the link: https://www.chiseldonprimary.co.uk/diary/grid/2021/09/

Next week, Ridgeway and The Deanery are having open events to show Y6 pupils what is on offer at their schools, please make sure you have a look around. Pupils are allowed out of school to visit as this is a big decision for our Y6 children. Applications for secondary school need to be completed by 31st October 2021 - you do this via SBC website.

There is a dress down day next Friday 17th for 'Maggie's the home of cancer care' and you can contribute £1 for children coming in in non-school uniform. If children do not want to, that is also fine, they can come in in school uniform. The theme for Maggie's is orange, so if you can wear something orange that would be fantastic but not compulsory.

School photos are on Tuesday 21st September, I will send a reminder out nearer the time.

Communication

We communicate in several ways to try and keep you as up-to-date as possible. I write a weekly blog, we send messages via the APP (if you do not have this, download from your store and ask Mrs Hughes for next steps), emails and telephone calls. The easiest way for us is via the app, as the HT Blog goes directly to the home page on the app and any messages, you are sent an alert if you have notifications switched on. We also post on Facebook, via the group or our Facebook page and you can also find us on Twitter.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend and we will see you on Monday

Mr A

Stars of the Week

Nursery	Ben S & Colby (will be presented on Monday)
Reception	Poppy M & Grace W
Year 1	Oliver S & Vanessa
Year 2	Lucas L & Theo
Year 3	Amelia & Max
Year 4	Lyla & Ewan
Year 5	Laila H & Charlie F
Year 6	Reuben & Iona

Housepoint Winners

Our housepoints winner each week will be able to have dinner with Mr H and I and this is paid for by us for doing such a wonderful job and earning the most housepoints.

EYFS	Frankie
Key Stage 1	Jasper & Benjamin
Lower Key Stage 2	George H
Upper Key Stage 2	Darcy & Esha

This week's attendance champions are Year 1 with 98.9% attendance, well done for a fantastic job.

St. David are this week's housepoint winners with 205 - congratulations and they have had their reward during break time.

Welcome Back

Fri 03 Sep 2021 Mr A

Welcome Back

It was great to see everyone on Thursday morning, all prepared and ready for school. Some of the costumes were excellent and the time taken to create some wonderful t-shirts. Thank you so much for taking part.

It was lovely to have all the children back in school and to share our first whole school assembly - the children and staff looked great. There are some pictures below of some of the costumes that children had designed.

Another great day as the children came in to school for the first time this year in uniform. They looked amazing - well done everyone, spot on with the uniform and all the children looked fabulous.

I have now completed the risk assessment and you can find this in the COViD-19 section. This explains how we are keeping your children safe, and how we intend to make sure that we can keep this virus out of our school, so that education is not disrupted. Obviously, we may have children that need to isolate during the course of the term but all measure are in place to deal with this quickly and effectively. Please remember, that if your child is displaying symptoms, please do NOT send them in to school but book a PCR test as quickly as possible and let us know the result.

As you know, the children are studying artists this term and will be creating fantastic artwork over the course of the term. During the last week of term, before we break for October half term, we are hoping to celebrate their art work with an exhibition of all their work and fingers crossed you will be invited in to gallery.

Have a great weekend and see you on Monday.