Headteacher’s Blog

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

Fri 26 Nov 2021 Mr A

Another week has flown and we are entering the final three weeks of term. We had lots planned and in hindsight, maybe we should have held the diary back slightly - but who knew.

At this moment in time, we are seeing a little rise in the number of cases parents are reporting to us, especially in Key Stage Two. Thank you to those parents that are keeping children off school if the lft is saying positive and those that have taken their children for a pcr test. We must remain cautious in school, so that we are able to keep infection to a minimum. We all want a fabulous Christmas sharing it with our loved ones.

The staff and I have been working on developing our curriculum further and this is now mapped from EYFS to Year 6. If you would like to read all about our curriculum you can read each subjects map on the curriculum page. See how we develop the skills and knowledge to help our pupils retain the knowledge they need for the next steps in their educational journey.

Stars of the Week

Nursery	Rico P & Elena FK
Reception	Arya C & Amber E
Year 1	Louis F & Brody
Year 2	Ryker H & Tayla P
Year 3	Alistair G & George T
Year 4	Kai S & Ewan C
Year 5	Zachary D & Luisa E
Year 6	Luke R & Zuzanna K

Housepoint Winners

EYFS	Ben S
Key Stage One	Louis F
Lower Key Stage Two	Leo OB & Indigo P
Upper Key Stage Two	Luke R

The winning house this week is: St. David

Whole school attendance is: 95.59%, which is 0.61% away from National.

The winners of the attendance cup are: Year 1 with 100% - amazing, well done.

In other News...

Although we lost the game 4:6, our football team showed how wonderful Chiseldon pupils are. They didn't give in and continued to work as a team. You were fabulous and I know that parents and I really enjoyed cheering you on from the sidelines. It was great to be able to have some parents on site to celebrate the football team.

Next week is another fun packed week. Tuesday is St. Andrew's Day, so if you are in this house, you can come to school in non-school uniform and in blue. And the end of the week should have been our Christmas fair which unfortunately cannot take place. However, we are going to be holding a Christmas raffle and our yearly Christmas hamper raffle for the children will be held towards the final week of term.

Christmas Nativities & Plays

We have just had the update from Swindon Borough Council and they are recommending that we do not do any events inviting parents into school. This is a huge blow in getting back to normal and children performing in front of a live audience. I was really looking forward to inviting parents into each of the year groups shows.

I am thinking that there might be a way around but as we are seeing a rise in numbers here at Chiseldon Primary School, I will wait before making a decision. The first performance should be on Monday 6th December, so I will make a final decision next week.

Events coming up in the diary:

KS1 Nativity: 6th & 7th December

EYFS Nativity: 8th December

Christmas Jumper Day: 9th December

Christmas Dinner: 9th December

Reports to Parents: 9th December

Year 3/4 Christmas Show: 13th December

Year 5/6 Christmas Show: 14th December

Spelling Bee: 15th December

Christmas Disco (hopefully): 16th December

Sing along with Chiseldon: 17th December

All of these are subject to restrictions that are in place currently being lifted. If we cannot have you in the building, we will go live somewhere for you to be able to watch as the children are working very hard.

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

Mr A

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

Fri 19 Nov 2021 Mr A

Welcome to this week's update...

Firstly, I need to say sorry. It appeared on Wednesday that some children were not able to join the Bedtime Story. We are working to sort this out on Wednesday. I will be reading another short book again and children need to log on using their Teams login and they will see the Team that is called Bedtime Story.

I also need to apologise to Year 1. For some reason you didn't get the APP message about today's dress-up. Well done if you managed to find out in time to dress in something sparkly, or Strictly Come Dancing - which meant anything as there are many themes during the show.

Well done to our footballers in Y3 and Y4, who went to a tournament this week. They showed all there our values and how we are as sports people. Well done to you all, I am extremely proud of you - see photos below.

Our Stars of the Week

Nursery	Roman E & Ben S
Reception	Daisy M & Jaxon N
Year 1	William S & Benjamin RP
Year 2	Phoebe D & Nathan K
Year 3	Imogen D & Thomas M
Year 4	Lyla A & George G
Year 5	Castor S & Oscar N
Year 6	Charlie H & Elle W

Our Housepoint Winners

EYFS	Arthur WT
Key Stage One	Niamh C
Lower Key Stage Two	William W
Upper Key Stage Two	Esha B

The winning house this week is: St. Patrick

Attendance winners this week, with 99.13% is Year 1

Early Years Attendance: 93.65

Key Stage 1 Attendance: 95.64%

Key Stage 2 Attendance: 95.06%

Whole school attendance: 95.35%, which is 0.85% away from National 96.2%

In other news...

Next Thursday at 14:45 is the Y5 class assembly. Unfortuntately, we are unable to have parents in to watch the assembly but we will go live on our Facebook group for you to all tune in and see.

Our value this month is equality and we are working with the children on celebrating difference and forming our anti-bullying policy. As you know, we have a zero tolerance to bullying in this school and although it does happen, we work extremely hard to eradicate it as soon as we are made aware. If you haven't completed the parent survey that was sent out, could you please complete this at your earliest convenience.

Reading Review

This week we had an expert in to monitor our reading and how effectively we teach our pupils reading. They worked with our English leads, Miss Dickson and Mrs Brock and put them through their paces. I must say, the review was extremely impressed with their knowledge of reading and how we teach reading. This was the main outcome from the report:

As a school

Reading has the highest priority at Chiseldon and reading for pleasure has a dramatic impact on life outcomes – the inspector really liked that every class teacher read a high quality text at the end of the day and that pupils were actively motivated to read with clear evidence being seen that pupils discuss texts with enthusiasm.

In the report it was noted that - teachers have an ‘excellent’ understanding of each child’s strength’s and areas of development and that reading is built on progressively throughout the school.

We also all have high expectations for all pupils and this is shown by regular teacher assessments and interventions being put in place.

As an English Team the inspector was pleased with how the subject is monitored, our subject knowledge and the support we offer all members of staff.

Next step – we will be working on monitoring further the impact of reading through ‘pupil voice’ within the school and also some further Sounds Write sessions to help parents.

I must say that this is a lovely report, so well done to the English Team and all those involved.

I hope you have a lovely weekend and we shall see you on Monday.

Mr A

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

Wed 10 Nov 2021 Mr A

Thank you so much for wearing your masks whilst on site for the last two weeks. This has meant that we have returned to school safely. My main priority is to ensure that we are all safe and that we keep the school open, so thank you.

The mask restriction has now been lifted from Monday 15th November. You will not need to wear a mask whilst on the school site but will need to wear one if you would like to speak with a class teacher or enter the school building to talk to office staff, thank you.

Bubbles, break times, lunchtimes and no whole school assemblies will remain in place for the remainder of the term. I am still looking at Christmas productions to see if there is any way we can lift restrictions for live performances.

A gentle reminder: if you have taken your child for a PCR test, they must NOT come to school until you have the test results back. This way we are making sure that the bubble remains open. If you feel that your child has developed symptoms, please do an LFT or book a PCR test to make sure before sending them into school - thank you for your cooperation in keeping everyone safe.

Bed Time Story

Here at Chiseldon, we would like to try something new. Every Wednesday evening starting on Wednesday 17th November, a member of staff will log on to Teams and children may ask to join to listen to a bedtime story. To kick start this wonderful time, I will be reading the first bedtime story. Children will see me go live at around 17:55 to start the story at 18:00. This should not last more than 20 minutes.

Stars of the Week

Nursery	Marlon S & Zayn I 🤩
Reception	Alex W & Chloe A 🤩
Year 1	Dylan O & George H 🤩
Year 2	Charlie S & Rumaisa S 🤩
Year 3	Iyla T & Blake GH 🤩
Year 4	Sidney M & Teddy C 🤩
Year 5	Steven J & Ray G 🤩
Year 6	Farley D & Darcy L 🤩

Housepoint Winners

EYFS	Ben S 🥳
Key Stage 1	Mollie C 🥳
Lower Key Stage 2	Teddy N 🥳
Upper Key Stage 2	Finley L 🥳

The winning house this week is: St. David

The winning year group for attendance this week, with 99.63% is Year 4

Our whole school attendance is 95.28%, which is 0.92% behind national at 96.2%.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend

Mr A

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

Fri 05 Nov 2021 Mr A

Welcome back!

I hope you had a great holiday. Firstly, thank you so much for all your support with the new measures in place for this coming term. It seems odd that we are wearing face masks and being back in hubs but the children have adapted very well in school.

Face masks. Can you please make sure that you wear your face masks when on the school site next week, thank you. From Monday 15th November, you will only need to wear a face mask if you are speaking to a member of staff. So, just one more week please to help us keep everyone safe. You are doing a fantastic job, thank you.

Entrance and exit. We are keeping the entrance to school the same. This will be a permanent situation to help with the flow of the school. Enter via the big gates and exit via the small gate by the bike shed. Thank you for following this rule.

Next week, we will be observing remembrance day and holding a two-minute silence. Unfortunately, due to bubbles, we will not be able to attend the cenotaph as a whole school, like we do yearly but we have put things in place for Y5 and Y6 to attend. Y5 will be doing something there to remember and mark the day.

Stars of the Week

Nursery	Alexey O & Lucas O 🤩
Reception	Aubree D & Eva D 🤩
Year 1	Jack T & Sophie KP 🤩
Year 2	Amelle D & Robert M 🤩
Year 3	Harley S & Thomas C 🤩
Year 4	Beau D & Brooke C 🤩
Year 5	Rihanna D & Rayyan Z 🤩
Year 6	M R & Charlea D 🤩