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Dear North Tawton Families, Bake Sale for Ukraine Thank you very much for you generosity baking and buying cakes. Unsold cakes were bought for the staff and put in the staffroom. We will return cake tins and Tupperware next week. Year 4 will be counting the money and we will let you know how much they raised. Photos and grand total to follow! I am very proud that the children in Year 4 wanted to do something to raise money for the Ukrainian refugees, they are really showing their compassion and practical thinking - well done Year 4! Assessment Week As we approach the end of the Spring term, we gather information about what children have learnt and understood so far. The assessments are gathered in many ways including analysis of writing, reading records, tests, observations, quizzes and discussions with children. This is part of the cycle of our curriculum and is an integral part of learning. By capturing assessment at points throughout the year, we are able to identify next steps for each child, look at patterns across year groups and demographics and analyse the effectiveness of our curriculum. Reports Class teachers are preparing end of spring term reports for you. These will explain what children have achieved so far, and what targets we will be working on in the summer term. At the end of the summer there will be a report to describe what we have covered this year and progress in each curriculum area. FONTS FONTS met on Friday, unfortunately we had to move to Zoom again, but despite a few tech issues we managed to have an update on fundraising and begin to plan some exciting events. Do check updates from FONTS and Dojo. Our next event is an Easter egg decoration competition. Like the Christmas wreathes, we encourage you to be as creative and inventive as you wish. We will display them in school and then invite you to display them around town for a cheery Easter treat for the whole community. More information coming home with children and on Dojo.  Do check emails for weekly Covid Updates and explanations of measures we have in place. Prayers and fingers crossed we will be able to have 'live' events in the summer term.  Don't forget to put your clocks forward on Sunday before bed time!
With best wishes for the weekend, Tara Penny Dear North Tawton Families,
With so many children, staff and parents testing positive with covid this week, it has been a challenging week. Unfortunately this new variant is really spreading quickly around our community and indeed across Devon, and we do have a number of people who have been very ill with it. From a school point of view, it has been incredibly challenging as seven of our staff have been unable to come to work this week. This has had a huge impact upon our normal routines and systems. A huge thank you to all of the staff team who have supported the school this week. Staff have worked extra days and hours, missed breaks and their planning time so that ratios could be covered and therefore we have not had to close any classes. I am so grateful as I am sure you are too. I think we all agree that remote learning is a very last resort and must be avoided if at all possible. If you or your child has symptoms of Covid, please take a test. If you or they test positive, please do not come to school. We really can’t continue to have such high levels of contagion. Many of our children and staff have family members who are medically vulnerable and could become critically ill they contract the virus. Absence from school had a detrimental effect to learning so I urge everyone to pull together to reduce this. Please wear masks at the drop off and collection as well as in the community in shops and at work. Please continue to have good hand hygiene at home, washing hands and sanitizing. Also remember the ‘catch it, kill it, bin it’ advice, with tissues being disposed of to stop germs spreading. FONTS A huge thank you to FONTS for organising the Bags To School collection – a very impressive £408 raised! See the Fonts update for more details. Watch this space for an opportunity to buy a once in a lifetime tea towel, and raise money for our school… Bake Sale for Ukraine On Friday 25th March, Year 4 will be organising a Bake Sale to raise funds for Ukraine. If you are able to bake a cake, cup cakes or provide something special to sell, please bring to school on Friday. Please avoid nuts and jot down the ingredients so we can be clear what each treat contains. We will have tables out from 3.15 – 3.45 for in the playground where KS2 are collected. Wishing all of our children, staff and parents who are isolating a very speedy recovery. With best wishes for the weekend, Tara Penny Bag2school- DROP OFF POINT OPPOSITE THE SCHOOL IN THE BLUE GAZEBO IS NOW OPEN!!!. Now is the time to have a de-clutter of those wardrobes. This is a free fundraising collection service for all your good quality unwanted items, such as clothing, bags, shoes, bedding, curtains, towels etc. 😊 Collection is on Monday so please have all bags at the drop off point by 8.30am.  📚 WBD- Thank you for all of your donations for World Book Day. All of the children got to create their very own t-shirt and chose a book to take home. The T-shirt’s looked amazing and those who chose to dress up last Friday looked wonderful.
🤡 COMIC RELIEF- Friday 18th March Donate £1 and come to school dressed in something Red and bring your best joke to give everyone a laugh 😆 🗓 Next FONTS meeting is Friday 25th March at 9am in the school Hall. Please do come along and see what exciting things we’ve got planned or maybe you have a fundraising idea you’d like to share. Everyone welcome. Thank you for your continued support FONTS committee Email [email protected] Or message FONTS on Class Dojo Dear North Tawton Families, I hope this newsletter finds you well. We do have a number of families with Covid this week, as far as I’m aware, none are too poorly. Do let me know if you or your children test positive over the weekend. Gardening Day On Saturday a team of volunteers were working hard at school. Between us we
International Women’s Day
In assembly this week I read The Paper Bag princess to Year 1 and Two. I was surprised so few knew the story. It’s one of my favourites as it challenges stereotypes. In this story the princess uses her wits to defeat the dragon and when the rescued prince is rude to her, she makes a decision as to how she is going to live happily ever after! With the older children I introduced the Bechdel Test. This is a test devised to look at how women are portrayed in films (it can be applied to books too) There are three criteria: (1) It has to have at least two women in it, (2) They must have names and (3) They must talk to each other, but it must be about something other than a man. You’d be surprised how many films do not pass this test! Children’s films that do not pass include: Toy Story, Luca, Lion King, Finding Nemo, Jungle Book and Aladdin. This doesn’t mean that these are bad films, but does provoke some discussion about what role models we are showing our girls and boys. In assembly I asked the children what other criteria they what to see in films. They suggested: To have female characters who are not evil. To have characters that are not always white. To have boys who like to be princesses. To have boys and girls as friends. This weekend, if you watch a movie, please talk to your children about the men and women in the story. Who has the most lines, makes the most decisions and has the most action? Also look out for how boys are portrayed. Are they shown as having fears and feelings? Imagine a gender equal world. A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination. A world that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive. A world where difference is valued and celebrated. Together we can forge women's equality. Collectively we can all #BreakTheBias. Cross Country It was a privilege to host the OCRA Cross Country event here on Wednesday. We had teams from eight local schools here competing. They ran a mile and a half, which was three laps around our fields and orchard. It was great to see so many happy, muddy, children! Geography Quiz Before half term, Mss Radbourne challenged children to revise their geography knowledge for a quiz. Congratulations to our winners Y2 – 1st Abel 2nd Ned 3rd Evie Y3 – 1st Juno 2nd Ashton 3rd Brook Y4 – 1st Tam 2nd Ben S-S 3rd Sonny & Ivy Y5 – 1st Alfie 2nd Charlie 3rd Jack Y6 – 1st Ollie 2nd Maya 3rd Eva Please do spend some time looking at maps and globes with your children and learning the continents, oceans and capitals of countries, this is great knowledge to have and will help them in future learning. With best wishes for the weekend, Tara Penny Dear North Tawton Families, I can definitely feel Spring in the air today! The sun is shining, our school daffodils are in bloom and I certainly am enjoying lighter mornings and evenings. It has been a very busy week here at North Tawton and a great start to the new half term. Fabulous Art Work I was delighted to visit the Ruth Smith Gallery on Monday and see all of the wonderful art work our community have created for the Future North Tawton exhibition. Do pop in and have a look if you have not already done so. Congratulations to all who entered and especially to our winners Rebecca Simms and her mum Philippa Simms for their winning entries. Future North Tawton - Ruth Smith Gallery Lent This week we have been learning about Lent and finding out why so many of us enjoyed pancakes on Tuesday. Mr Cutler held a pancake tossing competition in assembly and told us all about the Christian significance of this time of year. Many Christians give something up for Lent and use the time to focus on prayer or reading the Bible. Children have been encouraged to take something up for the weeks ahead. We will be learning more about this as we approach Easter. Family Time Thinking about Lent, why not have a conversation at home about things you can do as a family at this time of year, for example watch a TV programme together then turn off the TV and talk about it, or spend some time gardening or colouring together, or writing to or calling a family member. My yoga and mindfulness club children could lead a family yoga session. It would be good for us all to use this time of year to focus on mindfulness and family time. Devon Wildlife Trust On Thursday our Wildlife Ambassadors started working with the Devon Wildlife Trust on a well being project. We will be sharing more about this as the term progresses. World Book Day Please look at our class blogs to see photographs of children dressed up. They looked amazing! Each child has chosen a preloved book to keep and has decorated a t-shirt with their favourite book characters to keep as well. Many thanks to Mrs Ware for organising this and FONTs for funding the initial outlay of t-shirts and fabric pens. Assembly It was great to have so many of you log on for our sharing assembly today. I really enjoyed seeing the children proudly present their learning. What an array of exciting knowledge and skills they displayed for us! Scientific and historic facts, songs, a poetry recital, art work, models, drama in the form of weather presenters and even Picasso dropped by! We saw some excellent home learning as well as the work children do at school. The children spoke clearly and confidently – well done to them all! Unfortunately we were not able to share the Y3 video, but do look on Dojo to see what they were up to in Forest School! Ukraine In assembly on Monday, I spoke to KS1 and KS2 children about conflict being a normal part of human behaviour. We thought about different scenarios which could happen at school or at home where there is difference of opinion. We looked at different ways we can respond when someone has a different view to us and how we can respond to conflict. This led to a conversation about the current war on Ukraine. Older children have been watching Newsround and discussing the news with their teachers. I led this prayer for our children: Dear God, We pray for the people of Ukraine and the people of Russia to be safe and have peace. We pray that their leaders listen and make good decisions. We pray for all those who are afraid; that they may feel comfort and safety. We pray for those who choose conflict; that they will learn to make peace. Amen There will be an event at St Peters on Wednesday next week, which you are welcome to attend. With best wishes for the weekend Tara Penny Also known as The Paper Bag Princess!  |
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