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Dear North Tawton Friends and Families,
A taster of my week at North Tawton:
Find out more about our learning in our class blogs: Sycamore Class Hazel Class Ash Class Willow Class Beech Class Chestnut Class Oak Class Acorn Class Thank you FONTS For those who do not live in North Tawton and receive the parish magazine Roundabout, this is what I wrote this month: Thank You Friends of North Tawton Primary School This month I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank our parent group ‘Friends of North Tawton School.’ Schools nationally, and in fact internationally, have parent and carer groups who work in ways to support the schools their children attend. Typically, they will organise a summer fair and run bake sales. Our North Tawton group do this, and a whole lot more! Friends of North Tawton School (FONTS) have two main aims: to raise funds for the school and to bring the community together. Throughout the year they organise events to do these two things. The funds they raise are used for enriching the curriculum, as you will know from my previous articles, we have less and less government funding for doing this. Hopefully you have seen the local media coverage of the North Tawton Santa Dash. This was the first time and I hope will now become a tradition. This year we had another Christmas first, a wreath making workshop, which was also well attended and enjoyed. In addition to our Christmas Fair and selling children’s Christmas cards, FONTS raised over £2000 this Christmas! Over the past year FONTS have organised a Bring the Fizz for the Quiz, Valentines Disco, Crown around Town and Scarecrow trail and an Easter art competition. They also organised a book fair, school photos and of course the summer fair and bake sales! FONTS have been of great support advertising and supporting school events such as World Book Day, volunteer days and encouraging the local community to collect resources for developing our grounds and welcoming new parents. So, who are these people? There are four named posts. The people who volunteer to take on these roles fulfil the vital role of organisation and coordinating events, and ensure we fulfil legal duties such as risk assessments and insurances for events and keeping the accounts. They work closely with the school, namely myself and Jo Ware, to agree dates and organise logistics. Chair - Philippa Crisp Vice Chair - Vanessa Peri - Khoi Secretary- Katie Hillier Treasurer - Wayne Arscott They don’t do all the work! They enlist support from the wider parent and carer group. All are welcomed to be members of FONTS! We welcome parents and carers to support in any way they can: running stalls, selling raffle tickets and of course, attending events! We also have members who have taken on the organisation of a specific event such as Evie Compton organising the Santa Dash, and Katy Robins organising the printing of Y6 hoodies and the Bag 2 School scheme. This year FONTS have raised money for to pay for our new and exciting playground markings, staging and microphones to enhance our performances, playtime equipment trolleys, musical instruments and subsidised the costs of class trips. From all of us at the school, we would like to say a heartfelt Thank You! To find out more about FONTS and the work they do, follow ‘Friends of North Tawton School’ on Facebook. Attendance Please see the letter from Miss Paton reminding parents and carers of the importance of great attendance. The class with best attendance this week was Ash Class (Year 4) with 96.9% Well done Ash Class, extra play on Monday for you! Farewell Farewell to Lucy Lamb who leaves us after 5 years of dedication to our nursery children. She has taught so many of our children to be independent and make a great start on their learning journey. We will miss her. And farewell to Pieta Merriott who has been conducting her teaching training in year 1 class, we wish her all the best in the future. Wishing all our families a great weekend, Tara Penny Principal Dear North Tawton Friends and Families, As many of you will be aware, North Tawton lost internet coverage this week. While many homes were without for a day or two, we still didn’t have internet access on Friday. I sincerely hope we have it back for Monday! Three days of no internet at school has made me realise how reliant we have become on technology. We take registers online, arrange dinners online, use email to communicate with you and other agencies, and we use apps and websites throughout the day to keep records and seek information. Our lessons are greatly enhanced by showing video clips displaying diagrams, text and images. One child said: ‘in the olden days, they used blackboards and chalk at school!’ this made me feel very old as not only did I use these as a child, I did when I started teaching! Thank you for being patient with us, and thank you to staff for hot spotting and using their own phones so we could keep in touch and make important calls. Zones of Regulation In our Trust INSET training, we looked at the Zones of Regulation, how we can use this in school to help children recognise their emotional state, give the children language to discuss how they are feeling and ultimately, to regulate. You might like to use this at home when talking to your children. The aim is to know how to regulate back to the green zone where we are psychologically safe. Children often need support to recognise their zone – partially the yellow zone, and need advice to regulate, this called ‘co regulation’.  We are making it clear that there are no ‘bad’ feelings, it is what we do with our feelings that matters. Anger is an emotion that can enable change, such as women getting the vote, workers having sick pay and children having protection and rights. Sadness is also something we should express and not be ashamed off.
Questions were asked about being excited, and why this is in the ‘yellow zone’ and not the green. We do of course want our children to be excited about their learning! Adults will recognise the difference between eager curiosity and hypervigilance and over excitement. When we are over excited, our brain can’t focus on acquiring new knowledge and skills. Do see more information about this here: The Zones of Regulation | A Curriculum For Emotional Regulation Attendance Our attendance continues to be lower than the national average, and our attendance officer has highlighted this. Letters are going home regarding levels of absence, so you are aware of how much your child has missed. Unless they are too ill to be at school, please make sure children are in school on time. We all have days we feel a bit under the weather, especially this time of year, but the majority of the time we need to build resilience and overcome this. Teachers are always willing to support with advice, encouragement, praise and stickers! Holidays in term time are not authorised. I understand how frustrating this is as the travel companies hike up their prices during school holidays. However, attendance is important, there is a direct link between attendance and attainment and we really do need children in school so we can give them every opportunity to succeed. Maths Audit Last week, Mr Whitley and Miss Paton conducted an audit of maths across the school They looked at books, observed lessons and spoke to children. We have identified maths as an area we need to focus on this year and we were glad that there were lots of positives from the audit. However, we still have children who are less confident in maths than they are in reading and in writing. We have an action plan to focus on raising achievement and enjoyment of maths. We will talk to you about this in our next parent meetings. Mr Morrow Visit On Friday, Mr Dan Morrow our Trust CEO, visited. He was really impressed by the attitudes of the children and enjoyed talking to the staff about what progress the children they work with are making. He was particularly impressed with the French teaching in Reception - thank you Marion, how well the staff know the needs of the pupils in their classes, the classroom environments and the conversations he had with pupils about their learning. He will be visiting regularly so he becomes a familiar face, and we can benefit from his advice and support. Lost Property We have lots of lost property at school! I am going to put it out on the hall tables after school on Monday so please pop in and see what you can find! Uniform Link We are not going to continue to store uniform at school. Please use this link to order new uniform. https://www.brigade.uk.com/parents/school/NO4360PD/ Class News As always, please click on the links below for class news · Sycamore Class · Hazel Class · Ash Class · Willow Class · Beech Class · Chestnut Class · Oak Class · Acorn Class Farewell Sadly, we say farewell to Lucy Lamb this week. She has been at North Tawton for five years and has been an integral part of developing our nursery provision. She has been a wonderful practitioner and colleague and will be missed. We wish her all the very best in her new adventures ahead. Wrap up warm and take good care Tara Penny Principal  Welcome back to school! We have had a busy three days sharing our Christmas news and getting excited about our new topics. We also welcomed new staff to Y2 and new children to Year 1 and Year 3. We excited that we have more new children coming later this month!
Did you see we were in the local paper? Dozens took part in Friends of North Tawton School Santa Dash | creditoncourier.co.uk A huge thank you to Evie Compton for organising this and to all of you who took part, supported and sponsored. Same again next year? Wishing all of our families a very happy New Year! Tara Penny |
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