Dear Parents
Welcome back to a new school year. I hope you all had a restful summer break. The last two weeks for me were a little hectic! For those who haven’t already heard, I became a dad! Jacob Gregory Mortimer (Jake) was born on the 22nd August and weighed 8lb 11ozs. Mum and baby are both doing well.
Scarecrow Festival
As always, our school will be taking part in this weekend’s Scarecrow Festival. This year the whole school will be working on one scarecrow. We have decided to build Roald Dahl’s BFG. Each class are working on a different section of him and once completed, he will be placed on the roof of the school for everyone to see.
A New Curriculum for Harpole Primary
This year we are introducing a new curriculum for the pupils of the school. The new curriculum is called "The International Primary Curriculum" (IPC). As you can probably gather from the title, it is a curriculum that is used in international schools across the world. The IPC incorporates many things that as a school we have been working on over the past few years.
Thematic approach – the IPC uses a topic based approach to learning. This means that rather then each curriculum subject being taught separately they are linked to one overall theme. From past surveys of our pupils we have found that this is the way they prefer to learn.
Brain friendly learning activities - many of you may remember the very popular "Brain Days" we ran in 2006. These two days focussed on the different multi-intelligence that we all have and also the different learning styles we use. At the end of the two days the children were able to identify what their particular intelligences were and also what learning style suited them best. The IPC has used the research conducted and developed activities to meet these differing learning styles.
The International dimensions – one of the aims of the IPC is to enable pupils to have a greater understanding of different countries and cultures. We have started this with our links with Sri Lanka and the introduction of teaching French. The IPC units offer the children opportunities to find out about many different countries. As I have said on many occasions, with Globalisation our pupils in this school now will be competing for jobs against young people from all over the world. Improving their understanding of these different countries will help them in the years to come.
Next week you will receive class letters explaining more about the IPC units that your child/children will be undertaking over the coming term. Later in the term we will also be holding open days for you all to see IPC in action.
In order to maintain our high standards, we will still be teaching Literacy and Numeracy and all aspects of the National Curriculum will still be covered.
Although we are the first school in the county to take on IPC, we have the backing of our Local Authority Inspector. Also other schools in the Country who have implemented IPC have had glowing Ofsted Reports for their curriculum.
Ofsted
On the subject of Ofsted, we are still awaiting the "call". We were informed by our Local Authority Inspector that we would definitely get an inspection last academic year. As it never came, we are sure it will happen sometime this term.
Reception Intake 2008/09
Although it seems a long way ahead, it will not be long before parents have to apply for a place for Reception intake for next year. Could I remind you all that if you have a child, or know someone who has a child, whose date of birth is between the 1st September 2003 and 31st August 2004, please ensure you have informed the office and they will put their name on the appropriate waiting list. Currently we have only 19 children on our waiting list and we need to take in 30 to maintain our numbers. This is essential as it enables us to sustain our excellent resources and adult pupil ratio.
Collecting/dropping off children
Could I please remind all parents of the following points when collecting or dropping off children at the start and end of the school day:-
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Parents should not use the school car park.
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Please do not use the entrance area (marked by yellow zig zag lines) by the main gates for dropping off children or turning your car round.
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When walking out of school, please keep to the paths and do not use the main gates as an exit.
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Please do not park between the two cones.
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Please park sensibly outside the school.
These measures are in place to safeguard YOU and YOUR CHILD/CHILDREN. Many of our staff arrive at 9am and leave at 3.15pm and none of us want any accidents occurring. Please inform any other persons who may be collecting your children of these instructions. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.
School uniform and lost property
My annual nag! PLEASE ENSURE ALL YOUR CHILD’S CLOTHING IS CLEARLY LABELLED WITH THEIR NAME. We still have a large amount of unnamed lost property from last term.
Harvest Festival
This year’s Harvest Festival will take place on Friday 5th October at 9.30 am at All Saints Church. As in previous years, children are encouraged to bring in food parcels on the morning of the festival. These will then be auctioned off at the Harvest Supper on the following Monday. Details of this will follow.
MacMillan Coffee Morning
We shall be holding a coffee morning in aid of the above on Friday 28th September from 9am – 11am. Further details will follow.
Music Tuition
Please note that music tuition will start week commencing 10th September as follows:-