Weekly Newsflash! 22nd September 2023
Coming up next week…
| Monday 25 | – Golden Eagles’ (Y4) visit to Quaker Meeting House |
| Tuesday 26 | – Balance bike sessions at Bainbridge – Y1 and Y5 swimming – Herons’ (Y5) visit to Quaker Meeting House – Settlebeck school visiting Y6 |
| Wednesday 27 | – SFX visiting Y6 – After-school sports – Settlebeck open evening (5:00pm – 7:30pm) |
| Thursday 28 | – After-school cycling club – SFX open evening (6:00pm – 8:00pm) – PTFA AGM, The Falls Cafe, Aysgarth (7:30pm – 8:30pm) |
| Friday 29 | – After-school science club |
Click here to visit the full calendar
PTFA Car Boot Sale!
Don’t forget to pop down to the PTFA car boot sale on Sunday (24th Sept) morning to grab some bargains! All of your support is much appreciated.
SEND Meeting
It was a pleasure to welcome parents to a meeting this week regarding provision for children with SEND or additional needs. Following our Ofsted inspection, and in line with our ongoing school development priorities, we are engaged with the Local Authority SEND hub to review and develop our SEND provision. The feedback from the meeting was really useful and we have some actions to take forward. The first of these will be to set up an evening meeting for parents (attended by colleagues from the SEND hub) to share more information about provision and processes. This will be open to *all* parents. More info to follow.
Safeguarding
Is your child using Snapchat? If so, please reconsider. The recommended minimum age is 13+. We have heard some of our children in school talking about using Snapchat and this concerns us. Here are the main risks associated with Snapchat, according to the NSPCC:
Inappropriate or harmful content
- Children and young people could be at risk of viewing harmful or upsetting video content and images.
Location sharing
- Snapchat Map shares your location with other users on the app.
Unwanted contact
- Your child could receive unwanted contact from adults or other young people using the app.
Pressure to share
- Snapchat messages normally disappear after a short period of time once opened. This could put a child more at risk of sharing something that makes them feel uncomfortable or could harm or upset someone else. It’s important to remember that images, videos, and messages can always be screen shotted by the recipient.
Pressure to chat
- With streaks, there is a pressure to keep using the app and to achieve a high ‘streak score’.
Click here to read full guidance from the NSPCC about Snapchat
Healthy Snacks
Please remember that children are permitted to bring healthy snacks for break time, should they wish. This is from our ‘Healthy Food and Drink Policy’:
- All EYFS and KS1 children receive a free piece of fruit each day
- Any spare fruit is shared with KS2 children
- A healthy mid-morning snack may be brought into school e.g. fruit, wholemeal bread, crackers, cheese, etc.
Please do not send chocolate bars, sugary snacks, or anything other than water in the drinks bottle, unless this has been formally agreed with school (on account of individual needs).
Click here to read our full ‘Healthy Food and Drink’policy
Thank you in anticipation of your support.
SENCo
After a number of years working with The BAWB Federation as our SENCo, Mrs Alexa Barber has made the decision to step down from this role. We have been privileged to benefit from Mrs Barber’s expertise and commitment, and we have learned so much from her. She will be a much missed member of our team.
In previous years, we have not had the capacity to have an ‘internal’ SENCO – a member of our permanent staff team. However, we now feel in a position to offer this exciting opportunity to an existing staff member and will be undergoing a recruitment process in due course. I will let you know when we have more details on this. Meanwhile, Mrs Barber will continue to support us and to hand over to whomever becomes her successor. Of course we will say goodbye to her nearer the time.
Parent Forum
We would like to invite parents to the first of our parents forums this year on Tuesday 3 October at Askrigg School from 6:30pm to 7:30pm. Parent forums are an opportunity for parents to come together to discuss issues associated with school. They are chaired by a parent governor and are not normally attended by school staff, unless this is specifically requested. If you have any suggested items for the agenda, please email them ahead of the meeting to Mrs Mally Dolphin who will be chairing the first meeting:
Askrigg Produce Show
We are so pleased that our pupils did SO well at the Askrigg Produce Show. We have it on good authority that the childrens’ entries were fantastic, and the judging panel were very impressed!
Calendar
Did you know you can synchronise our calendar with our school calendar? Click here to visit the calendar and click the link at the bottom of the page that says ‘subscribe to calendar’ – this will enable you to push events out to your personal calendars.
Robins
The Police Station role play has inspired lots of wonderful role play this week. We have loved observing the different stories children have developed as they have played. The children took it in turns to be a robber, a police officer, they built jails, they wrote down what crimes had been committed and made ‘WANTED’ posters. We even have brand new Police hats, and the children have done so well taking it in turns to wear them.
Fred the Frog has joined us in phonics this week. Fred says words in Fred Talk, eg, s-a-d, and the children help him to say the word, eg. ‘’sad’.’ The children were great at making different words themselves with their magnetic letters, then were asked to “Fred talk then read the word”.
Owls
Another busy week in the Owl class this week.
On Tuesday we had our first swimming session at Richmond Pool, the children were amazing, not only listening carefully in the pool but taking responsibility and getting changed quickly too!
Swallows
In Art this week we have been experimenting with charcoal using a range of techniques. The children each had charcoal, a rubber and a dry paintbrush. We had a very concentrated session and everyone worked very hard! We then took our learning outside to begin to think about how we ‘draw large’. As you can see, the playground is now covered in a variety of different stationary objects!!
Kingfishers
In maths this week we have been developing our understanding of numbers up to 1000 using numberlines. This has been pretty tricky but we have really gotten to grips with our column addition work.
In English this week we have been using drama to retell our class text in preparation for writing a small play script.
Golden Eagles
Herons
We had a lovely Design & Technology session in the Herons this week. We are designing bags for precious items and this week it was time to practise our stitching. It turns out that the Herons are real professionals, thanks to their sewing work with Miss Telford last year. I can’t wait to see the finished products.
Please start saving scraps of material, decorations, buttons etc that the children can use in their finished products at the end of the term. We will have resources at school but it is always nice to have something special from home, if possible.
I would also like to have a collection of children’s magazines and newspapers in the classroom. If you have any at home that you would like to donate, I’d be very grateful – Miss Collins
Merlins
In art this week, the Merlins have been looking at packaging design and the effective components, such as typography, that improve a product’s selling point. The children have been researching clever designs and using their sketch books to record and collect ideas.
House Captains:
| Bainbridge | Tommy S Antoni P Dylan PG |
| Askrigg | Fred C Georgie B Amelie A |
| West Burton | Toby W Ava HW Beatrice QB |
This Week’s Awards:
| Pupil of the week | |||||
| Robins (Reception) | Ruby, for effort in everything! Ruby always tries her absolute best in everything she does. | ||||
| Owls (Y1) | Otto for effort and enjoyment in music, demonstrating great rhythm. | ||||
| Swallows (Y2) | Charlie for his enthusiasm when learning about the Stone Age in history. | ||||
| Kingfishers (Y3) | Archie for showing increased levels of effort in his writing and supporting other children. | ||||
| Golden Eagles (Y4) | Rene for enjoyment in maths when mastering a tricky topic and always following the RESPECT code. | ||||
| Herons (Y5) | Tristan for enjoyment and responsibility: demonstrating impressive skill in DT and supporting others too. | ||||
| Merlins (Y6) | Beatrice C for her effort and enjoyment in maths. What a great start to the year! |
| Headteacher’s Awards | |
| Bainbridge | Hugo PG, for being a kind, supportive, and encouraging friend on the way to swimming. |
| Askrigg | Oliver C, for being a kind, supportive, and encouraging friend on the way to swimming. |
| West Burton | James D, for his endlessly positive approach to school life and being a super role model for his peers. |
| Good Samaritan Awards | For courage, care, compassion (for the children, from the children). | Nominated by |
| Robins | Ronnie for being really kind and letting him have the Police hat! | Joshua J |
| Owls | Max for inviting him to play with the jigsaws when he was feeling sad. | Seth |
| Swallows | Ada for helping a friend with some tricky maths. | Ben |
| Emma for being a good friend and always asking her to play. | Rosie | |
| Kingfishers | Martha for helping her out with the clip on her bag. | Rosie |
| Golden Eagles | Joey for being a good friend, cheering her up when she was feeling blue. | Sylvi |
| Merlins | Johnny for being a good sportsman in PE. | Dylan and Toby |
| Jo for being an excellent school councillor and tidying up the girl’s bathroom. | Katie | |
| Hollie F for being selfless and putting away Jo’s saxophone without her asking. | Jo | |
| Lily D and Isla B for their perseverance and encouragement towards each other when they ran 100 laps of the playground. | Y6 girls |
| Other | |
| Rewarding Reading | Douglas (10 books) |
| Best Learning Space (classroom) | Robins |
| Most Effective learning Environment (school) | Bainbridge |
| House Point Winning Team | Red Squirrels |
| Best Class Attendance | Robins and Owls (99%) |
