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Headteacher Message!
Dear Parents/Carers,
We’re already three and a half weeks into the term which has flown by. It has been lovely to see what the children have been up to this week around school – there has been a lot going on!
This week I met with our new catering provider, Caterlink, to discuss the menu, their commitment to using local produce and how they could support our kitchen gardens. After half term, there will be an opportunity for the children who are part of the World Caretaker group to meet with the Caterlink team. On Monday, representatives from Caterlink will be at Ashley to meet with parents/carers, please let us know if you are attending this meeting by completing the form. There will be samples of food available. More information about Caterlink will be shared after this meeting.
We have a team of volunteers who listen to children read, help in the library and help with gardening. However, we would like to grow this team so that we can offer the children more. If you have a DBS through the school (or are willing for the school to obtain a DBS clearance for you) and can spare half an hour on a regular basis, please contact the office via parents@.
As is usual for this time of year, I would just like to remind you what our plan is should it snow heavily. Should we experience adverse weather conditions we aim to make a definite decision by 7.30am, but with every school trying to send their emergency text messages these don’t always arrive as quickly as we would like and so advise checking the school website. We will also send messages out via SeeSaw. Just to reassure you, we will always endeavour to open if at all possible, but our decision will be based on how many staff members are able to travel safely to work to enable us to safely supervise children. Should snow fall and we do open, please send your children in with a change of warm clothes (including footwear and socks) because we will let them enjoy some playtime in the snow with their friends and they will be wet when they come back inside! Having said all this, my fingers are crossed that I don’t have to make an awkward decision this year!
Finally, we are seeing a number of children arrive at school late and this is impacting on learning. We start our learning as soon as the register is taken at 8.45am. It is important that every child arrives in school in plenty of time to get organised and ready to learn. If there is anything that we can do to support you with attendance and with being in school on time, then please do come and talk to a member of the leadership team.
Have a wonderful weekend
Mrs Ratcliff
Attendance -
Every term we monitor and report on pupil attendance. Our maximum allowable absence figure is set at 4%, hence our attendance target is 96%. We have produced the following attendance guide for parents with information that we hope you will find useful. If you would like to know your child’s attendance figure at any stage during the school year, please enquire at the school office.
Why 96% attendance?
- This optimises learning opportunities for your child.
- 96% attendance equates to 7.5 days off a year.
- As a school we want to prepare our pupils for excellent work habits. Regular attendance and excellent punctuality are part of this work.
- Attendance figures can flatter to deceive. 90% attendance a year means nearly 4 whole weeks of lessons have been missed.
Attendance Matters
Low attendance
There is a clear link between poor attendance at school and lower academic achievement. Even taking a small amount of time off school can be problematic. Your child is likely to fall behind in their work and find it hard to catch up. The fact is, if your child doesn’t attend school regularly, they are less likely to do as well as other children. Absence also impacts on the social elements of schooling, which could affect your child's ability to make and maintain friendships. Being late for school affects a child’s learning too. A child who is 10 minutes late every day will miss 30 hours of lessons during a year. In summary, low attendance may lead to fewer chances and fewer choices when they are looking for work and developing social relationships later in life.
Did you know?
- If a child has 90% attendance that means that he/she is absent for lessons for half a day every week.
- If their attendance stays at 90% during the academic year he/she will miss 4 weeks of school, which equates to nearly half a term.
- If his / her attendance stays at about 90% from Year 1 to Year 6 he / she will have missed 27 weeks which is over half a school year. I think you will agree when expressed as days/weeks missed it is far more meaningful and concerning.
Letters to parents regarding absence
We send out letters to parents whose child's attendance has fallen to 96% or below. This could have been due to a holiday at the beginning of the year or a spell of illness, particularly in the Autumn and Spring terms when the flu and cold bugs are thriving. We don't enjoy sending these letters out, but we hope you understand that we have a duty to alert parents to their child's attendance. Ongoing poor attendance (below 90%) is shared with our Local Authority Inclusion Officer, to whom we report each half-term. This can lead to an attendance meeting at school or over the phone. The aim of these meetings is to give school, parents and the Inclusion Officer the chance to sit together and look at reasons for absence, the impact this is having, and then discuss ways to improve the situation.
In line with Government and Local Education Authority policy, any holidays taken in school time have to be recorded as an unauthorised absence. Our school is accountable to the DfE and Surrey Local Authority (LA) for attendance.
Impact of absences
Absences do affect how well children do in school. Normally, lessons in school are progressive. At the start of a new topic, children learn the first ideas and 'building blocks' which are then built on over a week or term to help each child secure their knowledge and skills. Later, more advanced lessons rely on this earlier understanding to move the children forward. Absences cause gaps in children's understanding which then have to be filled in. Essentially, they're playing catch-up. This means that a Teaching Assistant who normally works with a particular group or child may need to be reassigned so that the child who was absent can have the extra input they need to catch up. In these cases, the absence is impacting on other children's education too.
Lateness to school
Arriving late to school can also be disruptive to your child and the class as a whole.
If your child arrives late for class:
- They miss out on important learning, which could affect their achievement.
- They don’t have the social time to settle into class.
- It can be embarrassing for them.
- They may disrupt the learning of the rest of the class.
The Past Fortnight -
RE News-
Each term a different year group have an opportunity to have their RE learning displayed at the church. This term Year 5 have their work being showcased. They were exploring the big question ‘What do Christians believe about creation?’ They have created eye catching representation of the 7 days of creation and shared their reflections.
Please do pop along to the church to have a closer look at their excellent detailed masterpieces!
- Mrs Nawaz
Y6 -
This week in art, we explored Chiaroscuro and the effect of light and dark on the atmosphere of a picture. We looked at examples and then practised creating low and high values using masking tape and charcoal. This is in preparation for our Banksy inspired screen printing - watch this space!
- Miss Sen
Year 6 have been trying to recreate Johann Pachelbel piece 'cannon' on the glockenspiels. The children had an amazing time reading the sheet music and following a beat to recreate this iconic piece of music.
- Miss Casley
Y5 -
This week on Thursday and Friday year 5 enjoyed an Anglo-Saxon workshop lead by Reginbald the scribe. The children learnt a lot about religious beliefs, day-to-day life, customs such as dance and the invasion of York by the Vikings through drama. The children loved their time learning this half terms history topic in a new refreshing way. It was so enjoyable even the teachers got involved!
- Mr Denman
Y4-
We've been writing impassioned speeches, using our text 'The secret of Black Rock' as adults wanting to destroy it to Erin, the young girl who discovers it might not be quite what it seems. This has lead nicely onto the theme of not judging a book by its cover and what that means.
- Mrs Ready
Y3 -
Year 3 have been writing stories set in the rainforest:
The misty, lush rainforest was alive with majestic animals and the sounds of birds chirping. The startled creatures watched in horror as two men charged through their beloved forest!
-Sebastian K
Their amazing setting descriptions bought the rainforest to life for the year 6 as the eagerly listened to find out why the animals were watching in horror and what would happen to the Great Kapok Tree.
- Mrs Nawaz
Year 3 children were given an opportunity to enter a creative writing competition. The winning pieces will be published for all to read.
Congratulations to those who entered and won.
Y2-
Year 2 were visited by a firefighter, Eric Daniels who had a fire safety talk with them. The children took part in talking about and ordering scenarios. They also took part in whole class discussions and shared their thoughts about safety around fires.
-Mrs Van Der Schaff
Y1-
The children have been learning about why the Torah is so important and exploring where it is kept, why it is handwritten and how you cannot touch it with your hands. They have been making their own scrolls with their version of The Ten Commandments and looking at videos and pictures of worship in synagogues. Year 1 will be continuing their learning on Judaism in the summer term.
- Mrs Rayner
Reception -
In Reception, we have been busy continuing our journey through space. They were visited by an alien in a box – who wouldn’t show himself until they had all written to him asking questions. He also set them the task of designing a planet for him and describing what it looks like. The children enjoyed decorating biscuits to look like planets and were excited to share with their teachers how delicious they were.
-Miss Key
Reading Champions -
D&T Curriculum
We hosted senior leaders and design & technology subject leaders from our local cluster of schools including Burhill, Bell Farm, Heathside Walton, Cardinal Newman, Walton Oak and Grovelands. Across the morning, we presented the refinements we have made to the D&T curriculum, observed teaching & learning across the school and met with pupils to share their experience of the subject at Ashley.
It was a successful morning and their feedback celebrated the following:
- the breadth of extra-curricular and enrichment opportunities offered in the subject
- how engaged and excited the children were about the subject and how eloquently they spoke about their learning
- the subject-specific vocabulary and oracy skills of the children
- staff enthusiasm and subject knowledge
- the progression of skills and our 'golden thread' approach
- how specific barriers to learning in D&T had been identified and strategies to mitigate these were in place
We all benefitted from the presence of a secondary D&T curriculum leader and each school was inspired to hear how we can ensure our learners are best equipped through their primary experience to access the KS3 curriculum. We are excited to continue our work in developing our D&T curriculum this academic year - one of our focus subjects in our school development plan - and will share further details about how the subject has evolved with our parent/carer community at Ashley in due course. We would like to say thank you to our D&T leaders - Mrs Luxford and Miss Hood - for all of their hard work in developing this subject.
This week also our subject leaders met with their counterparts at local cluster schools across Walton & Hersham during our professional development meeting slot to share best practice in their respective subjects. It was an opportunity to share ideas for potential enrichment activities and discuss how we assess across different subjects, amongst other topics. We recognise how important it is to be 'outward looking' in order to ensure the curriculum offer for the children at Ashley is as rich as possible; the teaching staff found the opportunity invaluable. 
- Miss Frost
Gardening Curriculum-
Now Spring is almost here, Curriculum Gardening are looking for the following -
- We are looking for donations of chipped bark and log stumps to help develop our allotment and faith gardens - so local tree surgeons who could supply as a one off or regular basis.
- If anyone knows of a company that supplies Polytunnels (as per picture). Installing one at school will allow us to extend our growing season and use with the children in cold/wet weather.
- Clean Jar lids/glass Mosaics or mosaic tiles/shells/pebbles - to help us create features for our new Sensory Garden.
- We are also looking for someone artistic to help paint a large outside nature mural. This will form the entrance to our new Spiritual Garden.
PARENT VOLUNTEER REQUEST - YEAR 1 ALLOTMENT DEVELOPMENT
We are moving on to our final stage of developing our Year 1 allotment. We are due our delivery of new raised beds in the next week and are looking for some help to instal them and fill them ready for Year 1 to grow! Help is needed on Tuesday 6th February.
Please contact me with any details via the office.
-Mrs Winstanley Fisher
STEM
If you have a career in the STEM( science, technology, engineering, mathematics) industry and would be able to spare some of your time to come in and inspire our children in the future please can you email the office with your name and a little bit of what you do? It would be great to have some of Ashley's community coming in and letting our children know about what sort of STEM jobs they could be doing in the future!
- Mrs Whitby
Dates for your diary!
Caterlink- NEW MENU
Following our recent emails regarding our new catering company Caterlink, please see below the new school menu which will be launched Monday 19th February.
If you would like to meet the new catering company and sample some of the food we will be hosting a parent meeting on Monday 29th January at 2.30pm here at Ashley.
gst menu spring summer 2024 ashley primary 18012024.pdf
WELL DONE -
A BIG well done to Leo A (Y3), who attended the Chorister for a Day which consisted of 3 rehearsals and then performing in Evensong alongside the choristers at Windsor Castle.
Thank-you
A MASSIVE thank-you to Mr Winters (Stifel Nicklaus Europe) for their donation of 30 laptops to the school. Your generosity is greatly appreciated.