Newsletter - w/c 26/04/21

Dear Parent/Carer,

Please see below for some important notices about school life:

Relationships and Sex Education

Please click here to watch a webinar by Mr Short (Headteacher) and Mrs Geggus (Assistant Headteacher for KS2) regarding Relationships and Sex Education. This subject became compulsory in schools from September 2020. Our webinar explains what we teach to each year group and how parents/carers may ask questions about this important subject ahead of the lessons being taught in July.

Year 6 - Residential Trip

As you will remember, we sadly had to cancel the Year 6 residential trip. Thankfully, Mrs Pace (Office Administrator) has worked hard to organise two school trips, Go Ape in Alexandra Palace and the Herts Young Mariners' Base in Cheshunt, that will allow the children to complete many of the team-building activities they would have completed had we been able to take them on their residential trip to Gilwell Park. Parents and Carers will receive a letter today with all the information they need, including how to make payments.

For the other year groups, we will return to providing school trips from September 2021 as many venues are not currently taking bookings and so we do not want to make promises to you or the children that we will be unable to keep.

A-Life - Mental Health & Wellbeing Workshop - 29-30/04/21

Next Thursday and Friday, the children in Years 3-6 will have a workshop, including lots of practical activities, to teach them five evidence-based strategies to look after their mental wellbeing. Also, in the next few weeks, all children will have a mindfulness art workshop with an artist to create mandalas - a geometric configuration of symbols found in Buddhism and Hinduism - as well as working collaboratively across the school to paint a mural on the back playground. Be sure to check our Facebook pages to see the work in progress!

Reading at Home

We would just like to clarify how reading at home is arranged so parents/carers are aware:

Reception - A child in Reception will take home three books each week: a sharing book for an adult to read to them, a Read Write Inc. Phonics book they can read to an adult, and a colour-banded book they can also read to an adult so they are being introduced to high-quality storybooks and information books.
Years 1 & 2 - A child in Year 1 or Year 2 will take home two books each week: a Read Write Inc. Phonics book they can read to an adult, along with a colour-banded book they can also read to an adult (N.B. If your child is in Yellow Group for Phonics, starting next week, they will also take home a book from a lower level as this will help them to build fluency - speed when reading - and they need this to move up to Blue Group and then Grey Group before they finish the phonics programme)
Years 3, 4, 5 & 6 - A child in Years 3-6 will take home one colour-banded book each week. Often the children in Key Stage 2 read chapter books and so may keep the same book for a few weeks and this is perfectly acceptable.

It is very important that all children have the opportunity to read aloud to an adult or older sibling at home, including those children who are academic and confident readers. Reading aloud helps children to develop their speaking skills, and it helps them to learn to read with expression (e.g. raising the pitch of their voice for a question, changing their voice to show different characters speaking etc.). We want all our children to enjoy reading as research shows that children who read for pleasure do better at school, college, university and beyond - we want success for all our children so we hope every parent/carer will set aside time each day to hear their child/ren read.

For your information, a child in Reception, Year 1 or Year 2 should read for 10 minutes every day; a child in Year 3 or Year 4 should read for 15 minutes every day; and, a child in Year 5 or Year 6 should read for 20 minutes each day.

If you want advice about how to complete their reading record three times a week, please click here.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Yours sincerely,

The Administration Team

admin@hurstdrive.herts.sch.uk

01992 624099