Monthly Archives: November 2015

Thanks to everyone – we raised £650 for Children in Need.

The teaching of phonics is an essential part of every child’s education. The phonics approach teaches children to decode words by sounds, rather than recognising whole words. The emphasis in early years teaching is on synthetic phonics, in which words are broken up into the smallest units of sound (phonemes). Children are taught the letters (graphemes) that represent these phonemes and also learn to blend them into words. So, at its most basic, children are taught to read the letters in a word like c-a-t, and then merge them to pronounce the word cat. The new Incrediboys Group in F2 are loving their phonics … which is the stepping stone to great end of KS2 results too. Last year our boys (with 96% Level 4+ in reading and 98% Level 4+ in writing) outperformed not just boys nationally but girls too! Also 46% of boys got Level 5+ in writing – 18% above national.

Below is a guide on current popular sites and apps being used by children and young people.

http://www.internetmatters.org/advice/apps-guide/#tab-1431531253-1-85

We are advising all parents and carers to be aware of your children’s online safety concerning the use of social networking sites and apps such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.  These could be used through laptops, PCs, smartphones, tablets and other internet enabled devices.   The majority of these popular social networking sites and apps are only for use by those 13 and over so children in a primary school should not be using them.  The age limit is put in place to safeguard children, protect their privacy and to prevent them from being targeted with unsuitable advertisements.  It’s important to know all the sites and apps that your children are using, across all your internet enabled devices, and that you make sure they are suitable and age appropriate.

Mr Foster and our IT Technician Mr Emran Kharodia are available to discuss any help you may need or concerns that you have.

Our homework is now being set from the excellent website www.teachmykids.co.uk set up by Sunita Patel (an ex-teacher from Shenton Primary). The basic package to access all homework sheets for your child for a whole year costs only £19.99 – an excellent deal. Email to sunita@teachmykids.co.uk if you want more information.

We are extremely proud of our diverse school. The ‘Abbey family’ is home to pupils from a very wide variety of backgrounds, races and religions. The wider world is going through a period of immense and often violent discord. Within Abbey and the local area it is essential that we continue to seek common ground between all communities – things that unite us and not divide us. As our School Prospectus says “Children will be encouraged to show the good values of courtesy, sensitivity and tolerance as appropriate in a diverse community. The school will not tolerate any discrimination or inequality of opportunity.” Our role as a school is to help develop our pupils to be valued and valuable members of this diverse community. Preparation for life in 21st century modern day Britain takes many forms and this week we are having a massive push on ‘Good Manners’. Academic performance is just the start of success in life. Social skills play an equally important part – hence our insistence on our pupils saying, “Please”, “Thank you” and “Good morning”.

The Flu Vaccination for all Year 1 to Year 6 pupils will take place on Thursday 10th December.

Family Friendship Day last week had a winter theme and proved a great opportunity not just to bring brothers and sisters together – but also for pupils to make new friends within the ‘Abbey Family’. This newsletter has pictures of a wonderful day and some social commentary on how families have changed from the 1950s to the current day in Britain. The loss of some old established rituals, like the family meal and conversation around the dining table have almost certainly had a negative effect on social skills. What a great thing if all of our Abbey families regularly ate together like they did in the 1950s.

Our pupils commemorated Remembrance Day with a minute’s silence on Thursday 11th November. They also watched films relating to WWI – the war that started on the 4th August 1914 and cost the lives of 900,000 British soldiers. That’s three times the current population of Leicester. The war finally ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month … that’s 11.00 am, 11 November, 1918 … and that this was the moment the guns fell silent.

Dear All

What a fantastic fund raising effort today for Children in Need, with hundreds of pounds being donated by our wonderful ‘human values’ pupils and families. The story of Tomas on this weeks school newsletter is one very touching example of how giving can change other children’s lives. More good news – we have received a letter from Nick Gibb (MP and Minister of State for School reform) congratulating us on last year’s fantastic KS1 phonics results. The % of pupils exceeding the pass mark put us in the top 5% of schools in the whole country! Well done everyone!

Mr Foster (Headteacher)