Hello Everyone. I hope you have enjoyed the half term holidays and had a restful break and the chance to spend time together with family and friends. Last half term was a very busy one: everyone worked very hard and deserved a really good rest. I am spent the holiday with my family: we were finally able to walk to our new cinema in Halifax - the town has been without one for the past 20 years so it has always meant a car journey for us to Leeds or Bradford so it was a real treat to be able to walk there.
As usual this half term looks set to be very busy and exciting with lots of great activities planned for our children.
Bonfire Night
As you will know, it is Bonfire Night tonight. This can be a great time for families and friends to get together but we ask that that you remind the children about keeping safe. We had a number of incidences in our local area, just before the holidays, of children from another school playing with fireworks which they had bought from a local shop. Like you, we obviously want to keep all our children safe so I would welcome your support in reminding the children never to buy or play with fireworks. It is illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to buy fireworks and, similarly, illegal for shops to sell fireworks to anyone under the age of 18. Please could you, therefore, ask the children to tell you if they see any shops in our area selling fireworks to anyone below the age of 18. If you or the children see this happening, please inform our local Community Police Officer who will deal with the matter. Thank you.Year 6 Support
Thank you to the parents who posted messages/questions in response to my previous blog, enquiring about the support which is/will be in place for our Year 6 pupils to support them through the SATs.
During the last 2 weeks of the half term all our children were assessed in Reading, Writing and Maths. We are now in the process of using this information to group the children according to the level of support they need to achieve/surpass their targets for the end of Year 6. The support may take the form of small group work or 1 to 1 sessions with a teacher/teaching assistant on a daily or weekly basis. Alternatively, it may mean that children are given extra writing/ reading and/or maths lessons during the school day to support or extend their thinking further - according to their particular needs.Whatever the level and nature of the support that has been decided upon you will be informed of by the end of the first week back (9th November). In addition, we are already running RM Maths before school each day to which identified children have already been invited and parents informed. If your child has been selected to attend please continue to support this work by ensuring that your child attends each of and arrives on time for these sessions.
MathleticsIn addition, every child from Year 2 upwards has access to Mathletics via the Internet: www.mathletics.co.uk Your child has his/her own unique password and user name for this. When they log in they will find that their teacher has set them a list of focused tasks. These tasks have been assigned individually to each child in order to address the areas of maths which your child needs to particularly concentrate on. Once the tasks have been completed each child has access to Live Mathletics where they can play mental maths challenges against other children all over the world which will help to further develop their mental maths skills. Please encourage your children to complete the set tasks regularly. Thank you.
For those of you who do not have access to the Internet, children can complete their tasks by attending homework club on Wednesday straight after school.
Saturday Clubs
I had the pleasure of being in school a couple of Saturdays ago and I felt that I needed to say what a wonderful place Copthorne is on a Saturday morning. There are over 60 children attending Saturday Club which includes Wii Club, Arts and Crafts, Archery and Healthy Cooking Club. Children rotate around the different activities so experience everything over the term. On the Saturday morning when I was there, the children's activities included making Halloween Puppets and decorating Halloween buns. Everyone was having a wonderful time and, as usual, our children's behaviour was outstanding and made me very proud. I would like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to the Copthorne Association for their financial support in helping to fund Saturday Club - because of the Association's support we are able to run the Clubs for the majority of the school year and so provide additional engaging and enriching activities for the children of our community. Thank you too to our Learning Mentors (Mr A Khan, Mr H Khan) and Teaching Assistants (Miss S Khawaja, Mrs F Rehman, Mrs A Khan and Miss A Parveen) who run the club and help to make it such a great experience for our children.
Coming up this half term
Ladies' Evening
Mrs H Nisar and myself are in the middle of planning a Ladies Evening to be held in late November/early December. The evening will include dancing, mendhi and, of course, food! If any parents would be willing to volunteer to help organise this event we would be very grateful. Please let Mrs Nisar or myself know as soon as possible.4 Poplar to Culture Fusion
On Tuesday, 27th November, as part of our work with the Linking Schools project 4 Poplar will be spending the day at Culture Fusion in Bradford with pupils from our link school: All Saints in Ilkley. We have been linking with All Saints for a number of years and children from Copthorne and All Saints have formed good friendships and have developed a great understanding of each other's lives and cultures. I am sure that this particular meeting will prove just as positive.
End of term
Wishing you all a great half term.
Mrs Shepherd
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