Headteacher Newsletter Issue 6
FORTNIGHTLY NEWSLETTER ISSUE 6: 30.11.18
Open Morning
On Monday the school held a very successful Open Morning for prospective families. The pupils were a credit to us all, showcasing our school throughout the morning.
Year 6 spoke to a number of families in the hall, after the tours, and each class had ‘Meeters and Greeters’ where the children talked about their learning that was taking place during the morning.
We would like to thank Friends of Clavering – Rachel Betts and Andrea Vaughan for the refreshments throughout the morning and Katherine Elphick for advertising the event for us. We would also like to thank Rosie Smith for her work in clearing our allotments ready for the class work that is taking place and in time for our Open Morning.
We are very lucky to have such a supportive school community.
Mindfulness
Mrs Lipscomb and Mrs Rudkin attended Paws B training this week as a follow on to the 8 week mindfulness course training that was undertaken previously. This is with a view to us becoming a Mindfulness School. The Paws B curriculum includes learning about the structure of the brain; it helps develop children’s ability to understand their own minds, learning to think with focus and mindfulness to help them cope with worries and to give them a toolbox of techniques for making choices based on kindness and self-awareness.
Indoor Athletics – Year 4
Year 4 competed in an indoor athletics competition at JFAN on Wednesday. There were lots of field events and track events, including obstacle relay races, speed bounce and turbo javelin. All the children participated and were amazing; they all supported each other and showed great team spirit.
We competed against 5 other schools – we won!
We were all very excited and proud of ourselves – well done Year 4.
E-safety
As mentioned in the last newsletter, parents that were able to attend the e-safety session, in October, have kindly put some notes together. We feel strongly that parents MUST hear these messages. The notes will accompany this newsletter. Thank you to Sarah Birch for co-ordinating this for us.
Film Night
The children enjoyed watching ‘Arthur Christmas’ this week after school as part of the Friends of Clavering Film Night. We would like to thank Rachel Betts, Andrea Vaughan and the parent volunteers for organising and supporting the event.
Christmas Performances
We are pleased to inform you that Key Stage One will be performing ‘Innkeeper’s Breakfast’. Key Stage Two will be performing ‘Snow Queen’. I am sure that your child will soon be telling you a great deal about the performance that he/she will be in and I know that all pupils are eagerly anticipating sharing them with you.
Whilst we would dearly love to be able to invite all of our families to every single performance, this is clearly not possible. As I am sure you can appreciate, we are bound by health and safety requirements in terms of numbers in the hall and now that our number on role has increased significantly, since last year, we will have to change our arrangements compared to previous years. Unfortunately, as a result, we will not be able to invite parents/carers to the dress rehearsals, when the rest of the school attend, and a ticket system will need to be applied to both the KS1 (years 1 and 2) and KS2 (years 3, 4, 5 and 6) main performances.
Our aim is to ensure that tickets are given to parents/carers using a clear and fair system. We wish to provide all families with the same number of tickets and enable all children to have someone to view them at each performance. Each KS1 family will receive two tickets for the KS1 play and KS2 families will receive two tickets to attend the KS2 play. The oldest KS2 child will receive the two tickets to see one of the KS2 evening performances. Parents of only /eldest children in years 5 and 6 will receive their two KS2 tickets for the evening performance of the 12th December and parents of only /eldest children in years 3 and 4 will receive theirs for the evening of the 13th December.
If you do not intend to use a ticket, then please return it to the office. Equally if you want to go on a waiting list for any spare tickets that we receive then please let us know. It will be organised on a first come, first served basis.
The Reception Nativity play will take place in the hall and tickets will, therefore, not need to be issued.
As in previous years, in order to comply with safeguarding and copyright regulations, there cannot be any filming or photographs taken during or after the performances. There will, however, be a DVD available in the new year of each play, which will be edited accordingly in order to comply with regulations. This will be available to purchase early next term.
Thank you for your support and co-operation.
Ooo000ooO
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY
3rd December Tray Day 3.15 – 4.15pm
3rd December Years 5 and 6 trip to The British Museum
7th December Christmas Fayre
8th December Spirit of Christmas – school choir event
12th December Dress rehearsal KS2 am, KS1 pm. KS2 evening performance for
years 5 and 6 parents
13th December Reception Nativity am, KS1 performance pm. KS2 evening
performance for years 3 and 4 parents
17th December Christmas Shopping Morning
18th December Christmas Lunch and Friends of Clavering Entertainment
19th December End of term
3rd January Spring Term begins
ACHIEVEMENTS
STAR OF THE WEEK
Week ending November 16th
Reception Jude – trying to have a great ‘can do’ attitude
Alexa – practising her number formation without being asked.
Year One Ellie – for writing a super story
Year Two Poppy – for challenging herself in Maths
Year Three Barnaby – for brilliant engagement and contributions in all lessons
Year Four Aiden – for listening to instructions and working hard in all subjects
Year Five Matilda – a well written and very well delivered persuasive speech
Year Six Hannah – for sensitive responses to war poetry.
Week ending November 23rd
Reception Polly – for amazing writing and super shape work
Year One Harry – for trying really hard to do all of his Maths independently.
Year Two Sidney – for getting all his spellings correct
Year Three Charlie W – for great effort and resilience using column method of subtraction
Year Four Charlie – for being so kind and reassuring to other members of the class
Max – for being so kind and reassuring to other members of the class
Year Five Martha – for great thinking skills in Science
Year Six Finley – for intelligent questions and suggestions in Science
THE TIDIEST CLASSROOM OF THE WEEK!
Our cleaners are judging the tidiest classroom each week. The winners are announced in assembly on a Friday. The class that has won the most times at the end of a term will be awarded an afternoon with an activity of their choice or an extra playtime.
Winners:
Week beginning –
10.9.18 Class 4
17.9.18 Class 6
1.10.18 Class 1
8.10.18 Class R
29.10.18 Class 5
5.11.18 Class 2
12.11.18 Class 3
IT DIDN’T GO UNNOTICED’ AWARD
Year Two, especially Emma, Anna, Robin, Ethan, Ashton, Samuel, Lola, Josh, Aurelia and Tilde for being so kind and helpful at lunchtimes.
School Admissions – Primary and Secondary – Apply Now!!
To apply quickly and easily for primary and secondary school places go online to http://www.essex.gov.uk/Education-Schools/Schools/Admissions/Pages/Apply-Online.aspx
For secondary applications – (children in year 6) apply by 31 October 2018
Secondary Admissions booklet:
For primary applications – (child born between 1 September 2014 and 31 August 2015) apply between 12 November 2018 to 15 January 2019
Primary Admissions booklet:
REMINDERS:
- SWIMMING, Year 2 will have a term of swimming instruction in the Autumn and Year 3 in the Spring. If your child is fit to attend school then they are fit to go swimming, unless a medical note is provided. Swimming will commence Monday September 10th for 13 weeks. Voluntary contributions, which cover the cost of the swimming teaching and transport, can be paid termly – £79.00 Please make cheques payable to Clavering Primary School.
- With the current road works along Stortford Road, please be extra vigilant when entering and leaving the school grounds. Please use the footpath to ensure the driveway is left clear for the school buses.
If you have any questions at any time then please feel free to make an appointment
Have a good weekend
Rosalind Allsop
Headteacher
ESafety Talk – 11/10/18
“Our mission is to totally change the perspective that everyone has of ‘Stranger Danger’ in the hope that our children will see the online environment as the number one ‘Stranger Danger’ risk”. John and John
There is a generational divide between what parents know about the internet and apps and what our ‘techno savvy’ kids know.
In the ‘Book of Life’ there is no chapter on the Internet. We are all learning together.
Sex offences against kids have risen 20% in the last year. (NSPCC)
Sexting is the main risk for children over 13.
Paedophiles are the main risk for children under 13.
There are 86% indecent images of girls online compared with only 7% of boys. 55% of these images are of children aged 10 or younger. 43% are aged between 11 and 15 years of age.
Apps
‘ It is worse to ‘shut the door’ on Apps. It is better to supervise.” If you delete them, they can be re-installed easily by the children.
Apps to watch out for…
Musical.ly… now known as TikTok
Kids are encouraged to lip sync/sing songs from the Top 40. Most songs/videas have outrageous lyrics and adult content.
With the message function there is 100% chance of an inappropriate message. Paedophiles can find school details easily from videos (children wearing school uniform). They can save the videos to their email and or copy the link and share with other paedophiles. Every paedophile that sees it is a new ‘like’ for the child.
If using this App. Go ‘private’ and select your friends. Don’t let others join. Select ‘friends only’ for messages.
Twitch – Live streaming for gamers. Easy access for paedophiles.
Can be downloaded on Xbox or playstation. Encouraged by games such as Fortnite.
Fortnite – is an online game and is not suitable for children under 12 years old based on the content. A number of primary age children are accessing it. It has a PEGI rating of 12.
Please note this PEGI rating only takes into account the content in the game and not the contact element, where players may be exposed to swearing and offensive language from strangers in voice or on-screen text chat.
Here are some useful links related to this game:
https://www.childnet.com/blog/a-parents-guide-to-fortnite-battle-royale
https://www.esafetytraining.org/parent-carers-area
Live.me – Paedophiles encourage children to go into a private chat. They offer to buy them gifts in the App. The paedophiles can record everything they see on the screen.
ROBLOX – has something called ‘Adopt Me’
Contents of both includes role play of ‘rude adult stuff’. Sexual and inappropriate content. Paedophiles use voice changers to sound different.
Snapchat – It was recommended that we should download it and learn to use it together with our children before they start secondary school and want to add their friends. Ensure that it is used on ‘ghost mode’ and select the option ‘until turned off’. Otherwise they can be located on a map.
Youtube is full of heavily inappropriate content. Download Youtube Kids and set it up with your information. You can filter content in ‘Settings’.
Google can be made safer for children by encouraging them to use Kiddle instead.
If you have an iphone, select ‘location services off’ for the camera.
ANY PICTURE ON THE INTERNET CAN BE GEO-LOCATED. THEREFORE DON’T SEND PICTURES OF ANYTHING TO STRANGERS.
Some tips to help keep the children on side…
Identify with and be interested in what the children are doing. Don’t delete anything without talking to them first.
An angry reaction will not encourage children to talk to you when things go wrong. Be proud if they tell you that something has happened and encourage open communication. Don’t take the tablet/kindle away!
Parents need to join their children on this journey of discovery. Encourage the children to question whether they are using the internet ‘as safely as they can?’
Check out the Facebook page EST E Safety Training https://www.facebook.com/The2johns/
Or their website www.esafetytraining.org for more tips and to keep up to date with changes that are happening all the time.
