Ashley C of E Primary School

 Headteacher's Message!

Dear Parents/Carers,

 I hope that you all had a wonderful half term break, even if it does already seem a distant memory! It has been lovely to see how the children have settled straight back into the swing of things.

 The parent consultation meetings this week were well attended. The purpose of these meetings is to give you an insight into how your child has settled into their new year group, the progress they have made since September and how home and school can work together to support learning.

 Since September, there have been five INSET days when staff have attended training linked to the school development plan. The key priorities for this year are:

Key Priority 1: Quality of education - To continue to develop teachers’ pedagogy and understanding of high quality, adaptive/inclusive teaching so all pupils learn well across the curriculum, and pupils with SEND make accelerated progress from their starting points.  

Key Priority 2: Quality of education – To continue to refine the curriculum (in particular writing, history, geography, art and design and design technology), focusing on subject knowledge and strategies to support pupils with subject specific barriers to learning.     

Key Priority 3: Leadership & management – To continue to develop leadership at all levels, ensuring there is a distributed leadership approach with clear roles and responsibilities to improve attainment of all pupils.  

Key Priority 4: Behaviour and attitudes – To embed relational and restorative approaches to foster a respectful culture, manage behaviour consistently through the school, foster positive attitudes to learning and improve attendance.  

Key Priority 5: EYFS – To ensure all staff in EYFS have a good understanding of EYFS practice so all pupils learn well. To review and revise EYFS provision to promote success for all and a readiness for year 1.  

 The training has included further training on restorative approaches, ‘Girls on Board’ training with local GST schools, Ashley approach to spelling and reading, strategies to support pupils with EAL, statutory safeguarding training and phonics refreshers for all members of staff. There was also time built in for the leadership team to meet with every year group to discuss the progress of each child this half term and set targets for the academic.

 Later this term, I am looking forward to meeting more of you as I invite parents/carers in for a cup of coffee/tea with the leadership team on 1^st December 9-10am. The focus for the next drop in will be exploring how the school vision supports the children at Ashley to flourish and our plans for the development of outdoor spaces.

 On Sunday, it is our amazing annual Fireworks Display and I look forward to seeing you at this fundraising event. On behalf of the FOA, I would like to thank you for your ongoing support of our fundraising to improve the technology the children have access to as well as the ongoing development of the outside spaces.

 Have a lovely weekend.

 Mrs Ratcliff

Staffing Update:

Mrs Semec – Reception Class Teacher. Many congratulations to Mr and Mrs Semec who are expecting their second child in February.  Wonderful times ahead as they expand their family.

Mrs Bradford – ELSA and HLTA. We will be saying farewell to Mrs Bradford, 24^th November, as she embarks on a new career as a nursery room leader at a local nursery. Thank you for your dedication to the school and good luck for the future Mrs Bradford.

Mrs Rayner – Key Stage 1 Phase Leader. Mrs Rayner will be returning to Ashley in the new year.

Curriculum spot light on 'Design & Technology'

Each half term the children have a Design & Technology or Art & Design learning focus.

This year we have refined the way our curriculum gardening works alongside Design & Technology. Each year group has a 'Plot to Plate' project where they plant, grow and harvest so that they can cook and serve the fruit and vegetables on a plate. 

Last half term Year 3 harvested vegetables for the Big Soup share. Next year, Year 2 will be planting their pumpkin seeds ready to harvest next Autumn.  

Take a look at what Year 4 and Year 6 have learnt last half term and the rest of the school will learn this half term: 

Click here for our DT on a page document.

I made a noughts and crosses bag. I made it for my sister to play with her friends. the most challenging part was stitching the sides because I didn't do it tight enough. M - Y6

We used our science knowledge of circuits in design and used switches to turn them on and off. They had a design brief where we had to think about the purpose, function and user, all based around the residential that we went on at Sayers Croft in October. We thought about the design, worked collaboratively with a partner to design and make our torches and then evaluated them, thinking about how successful we'd been. - Y4

 Christmas Dates

Christmas events have been planned and we are excited to share the dates for our Christmas performances and other events in the festive period. Remember to sign up for your FREE tickets.

ashley christmas 2023.pdf

 Changes of Shoes

During the autumn and winter months, our school field can be a muddy place, but we still want children to be able to use it.

Please ensure your children have a change of named shoes (trainers or wellies) every day so that they may use the field. There are trainer sheds or welly racks that the children can keep these shoes in/on. This is important even on PE days so that mud is kept outside!

Knowledge Organisers & Curriculum Maps

The children have started their new learning themes and you can see the knowledge organisers and curriculum maps for autumn 2 here.

Reading & Spelling: Growing the Code across the school

Recently at one of our INSET days, the reading team (Mrs Athersuch, Mrs Boyd and Mrs Lewis) shared the importance of using phonics in spelling all the way through to Year 6. Below you'll find the Little Wandle (our phonics and early reading scheme) Grow the Code chart and some short videos on the sounds and how to use the chart.

grapheme mats phase 2 3 and 5 spread 1 .pdf

'Nuts for the trees'

Ashley school recently signed up to woodsforthetrees.org 'nuts for the trees' primary school project. Woods for the Trees want schools across the UK to plant trees from collected Autumn seeds. This is to help give nature a helping hand, as demand for new trees from nurseries will far outweigh what they can supply to create new woods in the next decade. 

On Tuesday, whilst dodging the showers,  Yr6 learned about different tree seeds and nuts collected from Ashley trees. Reproduction, sowing methods and knowing they have contributed in the drive to help climate change, were part of the group discussions. Maple, Sycamore, birch, oak and sweet chestnut were some of the planted. This project, and our whip tree planting project in a couple of weeks, links well to their learning focus of Evolution and Inheritance.

Harvest 

 Firstly, a big thank to all Ashley families for your generous donations – these were very warmly received by the foodbank and Rentstart. All year groups enjoyed a service at the church, many helped with packing the donations and the Faith Group packed and decorated food hampers to donate to RentStart.