Dear Parents and Carers,
Welcome to our weekly newsfeed. I hope you are finding it a useful roundup of things going on at Saltaire Primary School.
Key Stage 1 and 2 national curriculum tests
Children in Year 2 and Year 6 are working hard through May to complete their end of Key Stage assessments.
In Year 2, we make sure children do not feel undue pressure by giving them the tests in their own classrooms with their class teachers. In Year 2, teachers use the outcomes of the tests to inform their own teacher assessments – the tests are not the only measure of their progress. Your child may have talked about the tests but we hope that they are enjoying completing them. Please speak to your class teacher if you have any further questions.
Our Year 6 children are primed and ready for a successful week when they take their grammar, reading, and maths tests next week. They have been so well prepared and are very ready for the challenge. We will do everything we can to make the tests as enjoyable as possible for the children and know they will be very successful. Good luck Year 6 – you are amazing.
Thankyou to Miss Garnett, Mrs King, Miss Walton, Miss Hayden and Mr Evans for all your hard work in preparing the children and administering the tests. The children could not have been in better care.
Yorkshire Planetarium
This week, Year 5 arrived at school to find an unusual object in the middle of the school hall. It was a huge, inflatable planetarium in which they learned all about the solar system. It was really exciting for them to climb inside and be immersed in computer simulations of the galaxy. The children had so many questions, they could have kept our visitor for another day.
House Points
As part of our new behaviour strategy, this term we are trialling the use of house points to promote positive behaviour and attitudes to learning. The children have been allotted houses according to our four champion learning behaviours of Concentrate, Co-operate, Create and Challenge. Children can receive house points for setting a good example by walking sensibly around school, being calm and well-mannered in the lunch hall and for demonstrating positive attitudes and behaviour in lessons and around school. So far, children have responded well to the new system. We’ll monitor its effectiveness over the summer term and re-launch it in the autumn term if successful.
Co-opted Governor Post
We currently have a vacancy on our governing body for a new co-opted governor. A co-opted governor is an individual from the community who has the skills and experience which the governing board require. They will be appointed by the existing board, following a recruitment process.
Applications from all members of the school community would be welcomed although we would particularly welcome applications from people with experience of finance, business, premises, Information Technology and Human Resources. If you are interested in applying for the post, you can apply in writing to Christian Bunting, Chair of Governors, or via the office email address. If you’d like to discuss the role in any further detail, please do get in touch.
Year 2 visit to The Deep – change of date
Please note that, due to a scheduling error, the Year 2 visit to the Deep has now been changed from Wednesday 5th June to Thursday 20th June. Apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Educational Visits survey
If you haven’t done so already, please take a few minutes to complete our online educational visit survey. In particular, I am keen to know your views regarding residential visits. We are currently planning these for the next academic year and your opinion around which ones should continue and the associated costs would be much appreciated. You can access the survey here:
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/SPSvisits
Whether you children are in Key Stage 2 or not, it would be good to hear from you.
Parent Forums
A reminder that our next parent forums will take place at 9:00am and 2:40pm on Tuesday 21st May. We will be discussing what we can do as a school and parents to protect our children's health from local air pollution. Saltaire Primary School is sited near a very busy main road which has been identified by Bradford Council as having high levels of air pollution.
We will hear from Dr Anna Watson, one of our school governors and a convenor of Clean Air Bradford about the problem and we want to hear your views on what actions we can all take to tackle this problem.
Tea, coffee and cakes will be provided.
FOSPS
The Friends of Saltaire Primary School met on Tuesday night. They have several events planned for the rest of this year which they will be writing to you about soon. Plans are also underway for this year’s summer fair which takes place on Saturday 29th June. FOSPS are always keen to recruit more volunteers and all are welcome at their meetings and events. I’ll keep you posted of forthcoming meetings and events but do look out for their letters too.
Food Tasting Session
Many thanks to Pat, our catering service manager, for providing parents with a tasting session on Friday afternoon. Parents who came along gave some very positive feedback about the range and quality of the food on offer for our children. They also made some great suggestions for how we can improve the service even more. If you have any other comments or suggestions about the school meals, please get in touch via the school office.
Assemblies
Please note there is no Friday assembly next week. On Friday 24th May, we have a music assembly.
I hope you all have a great weekend. See you on Monday.
Mr Rob Whitehead