Newsletters

Deanshanger Primary School - Newsletter 5   23-10-2020

 

Wishing you all a lovely half term break

Thank you very much for supporting your children and us all this half term.  There is no denying that it has been a challenging time in multiple ways (for COVID-19 reasons), but we've all made it to the break with lots of happy children, good learning progress and no bubble closures! 

It has been a big team effort and I'd like to extend huge thanks to the staff team for working extremely hard to make school life continue to be as close to 'normal' as before. They are an amazing team!

Huge thanks to your children too - they have shown amazing resilience and determination to learn.

Thank you very much for helping us to donate 182kg of food items to Towcester Food Bank. What an amazing amount of food! Your generosity will make a huge difference to many local families. 

Even without a parade, our Future Job Day was a special opportunity to consider our plans and dreams. It was wonderful to see the children dressed up in their amazing outfits - thank you so much for supporting them/us with this.

Mr Peel was very busy with his camera and has put two photos galleries together on the school website.  It would be really fascinating if we could fast forward twenty years to see how many children followed these current dreams! Based on the breadth of outfits, I believe the future is looking very bright with a real range of professions well presented.

Thank you very much to Mrs Kupczyk, Mrs Peel and Mrs Wallace for inspiring us with your jobs in our special Zoom assembly on Wednesday. It was very kind of you to join us and extremely interesting. 

Although you probably won't be able to be in school in the near future, a new display in the entrance area will be going up shortly displaying the writing from the day and the photographs. I'll ensure that we share some images with you.

Governors update from Mr David Aaronson, Chair of Governors

I hope everyone is keeping safe and well. Governors had their first Full meeting of this Academic year last week, under the present circumstances it had to be online, but thankfully modern technology came to our rescue and most of us were able to fully participate in the meeting.

We have welcomed four new Governor’s to our team, they are Hannah Bailey and Vincent Lajux, both parents of children at school, Geordie Stewart a resident of Deanshanger, and Daniel Peel the new Staff Governor. They all bring a wide range of skills to the Governing Body and have already shown their commitment to the role. As Chair, I hope they will enjoy their time with us and look forward to working with them.

The first full meeting covered a number of issues including a presentation by Phil Webster from New Bradwell Primary School on our partnership working with them, individual representation on the various committees, HT report and future programme for 2020/2021.

Over the next weeks, the committees will be meeting to address various issues around Personnel, Curriculum and Finance and this section of the newsletter will keep you informed of our progress in moving the school forward.

I have also spoken with the Head to keep up to date on a variety of issues, and these will continue throughout the year.

As Governors, we have been impressed by the hard work and commitment shown by all the children during these challenging times and want to say thank you to the staff for their support and encouragement and to you parents/carers as well. It is a tribute to our school as a community at the heart of the village 

I would also like this opportunity to thank parents and wider community for their marvellous response on the 10th October to the schools Food Bank collection point on the Village Green.

David Aaronson (Chair of Governors)

Email - chairofgovernors@deanshanger.northants.sch.uk

There will be a Reading and Phonic Meeting for EYFS and Year 1 families on Tuesday 17th November. This will be a virtual Zoom Meeting at 7pm. Keep the date free!

We would love to see as many parents as possible at this meeting. We will explain how and why we teach phonics. This will include a guide with suggestions on how you can support your child at home.

Reading continues to be a central focus for us as a school. This term we have had the amazing introduction of the Huxley Horse Challenge for Foundation Stage and Year One. This has included the use of e-books. It has been wonderful to see Tapestry videos of parents supporting their children with phonics. Keep up the good work!

From Years Two to Six we continue to use Accelerated Reader and myON. Several year groups have set projects in myON for homework that have been very successful in supporting home learning activities and homework at this time. 

The commitment to Accelerated Reader has been amazing across all year groups. At the present time we have read a staggering 21,849,563 words across the school. The amount of engaged time per day with reading is as follows:

Year 3 - 45 minutes

Year 4 - 54 minutes

Year 5 - 37 minutes

Year 6 - 35 minutes

This means we have exceeded our target of 30 minutes in four year groups. An amazing achievement!

During our weekly celebration assemblies, we have celebrated our 'Readers of the Week' and 'Reading Class of the Week'.

Our current top placings for our 'Reader of the Week':

1 Sienna Keswani, Year 4 Narwhal - 1,455,144

2. Kimberley Taylor, Year 5 Whale Shark - 886,398

3. Harry Maynard, Year 4 Narwhal - 846,987

4. Caelan Kumar, Year 6 Tasmanian Devils - 813,621

5. Euan Sharp, Year 4 Narwhal - 722,159

6. Sacha Muretti Robinson, Year 4 Borneo Pygmy Elephant - 717,150

Our current placings for our 'Reading Class of the Week':

  1. Year 6 Tasmanian Devils -5,896,541
  2. Year 4 Narwhal - 5,195,614
  3. Year 5 Whale Shark - 3,739,184
  4. Year 4 Borneo Pygmy Elephants - 2,136,856
  5. Year 5 Mountain Gorillas - 1,584,095
  6. Year 6 Red Pandas - 1,575,190
  7. Year 3 Green Turtles - 1,137,374
  8. Year 3 Bornean Orangutan - 383,411
  9. Year 2 Snow Leopard - 139,544
  10. Year 2 Sunda Tiger - 61,754

Over half term please encourage your child to read as much as possible. You will be able to take AR tests over half term. Please make sure that if you are taking a test on a myON book you do so in Accelerated Reader.

We have been extremely lucky to have been given a very generous donation by the Aaronson family for books for the school library in memory of Angela Aaronson - a teacher at our school for many years. We have also matched this with unspent money from our last school book fair, just before lockdown, and book vouchers we received as part of some research we have undertaken for the NSPCC. 

We know Angela, who was passionate about English and reading, would be extremely proud of our current achievements in reading. She would also gain huge satisfaction from the enjoyment that the children have acquired from reading the donated books. Her legacy lives on.

Our thanks and best wishes extend to Karla Mazey for supporting the school in multiple ways over the last few years. Karla has been a valued member of the cleaning, midday supervising and Wrap Club teams. We all wish Karla well in her new ventures. 

23 Oct 2020
Important Covid Updates
Please read the attached letter with important guidance from Public Health Northamptonshire regarding covid, half term advice and sleepovers.  
Read more
23 Oct 2020
Advice from the Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service
We have been asked to share the attached information with you to ensure that we are all happy and safe during Halloween and Bonfire Night. 
Read more
22 Oct 2020
Remote Learning
As with all schools in the country, and in line with a DfE directive, we have built a remote learning policy. Our policy(below) outlines our strategy if a bubble needs to self isolate or if there is a local or national lockdown.  Please familiarise yourself with this policy and make contac...
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22 Oct 2020
DPS presents 'Room on a Broom' - 22-10-20
 At DPS we have 'Room on a Broom' dress up. The children are enjoying a fun packed day with activities and a picnic with their classes.    Check out the full Gallery on the button below:Room on a Broom - Gallery 22-10-20  Jum...
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Week Commencing 02/11/20

Week Commencing 09/11/20

Future events coming up...

Foundation Stage children will be having a bonfire party in their Forest School session after the half term break. Look out for the email asking for your permission. The children must wear gloves for this. Thank you

Guy Fawkes Acknowledged in Class
9:00am – 3:30pm
05
November
Launch of BNTO Week
9:00am – 3:30pm
09
November
Remembrance Day observed in all classes
9:00am – 3:30pm
11
November
Children in Need
9:00am – 3:30pm
13
November

We appreciate that many families find them selves in challenging circumstances for various reasons including the pandemic.  For this reason, we're delighted to say that we have formed a partnership with St Mark's Meals.

The charity provide meals boxes packed with a recipe card and all the ingredients needed to make a yummy meal for four. They are stored in school ready to be provided (for free) to any family who needs one as a one-off or on a regular basis.

We would encourage anyone to call, email or come into the school office, if these meal boxes would help. Please contact the school office, email your class teacher or send me an email -  head@deanshanger.northants.ecl.gov.uk 

Could you please check your child's uniform over the break incase they have accidentally picked up uniform that doesn't belong to them;  some named items seem to have disappeared.  P lease also take the time to label all items that come into school, thank you. 

Wishing you all a safe and happy half term break.

We all look forward to welcoming your children back on Monday 2nd November.

Rachel Rice    head@deanshanger.northants-ecl.gov.uk