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Dear North Tawton Friends and Families, North Tawton Park If you use the park in North Tawton, you will know it is a wonderful space, but some of the play equipment is in urgent need of repair. The Town Council have secured some funding to address this and have asked me to be in the working party to decide how this money is spent. Please share your views so I can represent them in our next meeting. North Tawton Park Consultation  Tin Can Collection Mike would like to continue the tin can collection after the Easter holidays. Please bring along your cola, soda / pop, beer and cocktail cans to school on Thursday morning where he will be at the gate. The cans will be recycled, and the money obtained will be given to the charity Families in Greif, a very worthy cause. Help for grieving children & families | Families in Grief Attendance Each week we monitor attendance. We are calculating attendance across the school houses and House Captains announce the percentages in Friday assembly.  We are aiming for 97% + so we still have a way to go. This term our school attendance has been 93% Please click on the links to our latest class blogs: Sycamore Class Hazel Class Ash Class Willow Class Beech Class Chestnut Class Oak Class Acorn Class Staff training Have you ever wondered what staff do on INSET days and in staff meetings? This term, we have been focused on working together to improve standards in maths and writing. The whole primary teacher group have come together for twilight sessions to implement new ways to teach maths and writing, and we have worked across our DMAT schools to moderate writing standards across the Trust. Our staff team have had training regarding Inclusion – specifically introducing the Zones of Regulation and learning how to support pupils who have experienced adverse childhood experiences and trauma. On our INSET day Thursday, all staff are involved in reviewing our work and our next steps. Foundry staff will be working in phases, Early Years, KS1 and KS2 to plan for the term ahead. Our SEND team will meet together, and we have practitioners from each school training in an intervention called Lego Therapy. Next term we will continue to build on these areas and the work we have started in our Foundry Hub regarding equality, diversity and inclusion. Our staff who teach our Read Write Inc phonics programme have regular training, observation and opportunities to share best practice throughout the year.  Wishing you a gentle Easter
Tara Penny Principal Dear North Tawton Friends and Families, Happy Red Nose Day! Did you know that Comic Relief launched Red Nose Day in 1988? I was at college! My friends and I told jokes and did face painting in our local shopping centre. Comic Relief encourages schools and community groups to plan events, dress up, and complete challenges to raise money for children facing poverty in the UK and across the world. This year, the event has focused on supporting those in need during the current living crisis, focusing on issues such as lack of food and homelessness. Thank you for encouraging your children to wear red today and for the contributions to our cake sale! Miss Collins and Miss Wallis will collect up the money and let us know how much we have made for the charity. In the afternoon, we all met in the hall for a fun treat – we watched Mr Bean and told jokes.  Lots of TV shows and personalities support the cause. There will be programmes on TV from 7pm on BBC1 tonight. International Women’s Day In assembly, we learnt why we still need to address gender equality. While many aspects of women rights have been addressed, there is still a long way to go in this country and across the globe to ensure that women and girls, men and boys are all treated fairly. We spoke about the need for 50% representation in sport, law making, politics, business and all positions of influence. Lunch Times This week we have been reviewing our lunch time systems. It is important that all of our children feel safe and included in all aspects of the school day. The dinner hall can be noisy, and finding a seat can be overwhelming and uncomfortable for many of our pupils. We have been looking at ways to ensure the systems run smoothly and efficiently, and that the noise and bustle is reduced. We do instruct children where to sit ‘filling up tables’ so that children are not saving seats and making others feel uncomfortable when they are looking for somewhere to sit. We trialled sitting in mixed age groups, houses and have settled on a system where we line up in a way to aid our kitchen staff to distribute food quickly and tables are filled up in order. Games outside have also been an area we have been addressing. Younger children have not always looked after play equipment and put it away at the end of sessions. We now have a new storage space and system for distribution and collection of equipment. Older children are much better at looking after equipment, but there have been issues with football games being perceived as unfair. I was really impressed that a group of Y6 pupils took up my request to form a problem-solving group, giving up part of their lunch time to help find solutions to the organisation of football. We have a system we tried today and it worked better. Children need to stick to their team (no mid game transfers!) and one team wear bibs so it is clear to everyone who is on which team. It is important to us that we take in to consideration all of our children’s needs and we appreciate your support while we try new systems. Coats The weather is improving – however, children still need a coat every day! Today several children did not have waterproof coats. We are hardy North Tawtoners and like to be out in all weathers, so please make sure your children are dressed appropriately. Attendance Each week we monitor attendance. We are calculating attendance across the school houses and House Captains announce the percentages in Friday assembly. Tin Can Collection Next week is the last week of our tin can collection. Pease bring along your cans for this worthy cause. We need your cola, soda, beer and cocktail cans! Please bring them to school on a Thursday where there will be a box at the gate. The cans will be recycled, and the money obtained given to the charity Families in Greif. Help for grieving children & families | Families in Grief Flowers Thanks to FONTS for donating plants to the school, the Y4 class and our Wildlife Champions have been busy planting this week. Do look at the planting in the Memorial Garden and the top of the carpark.  For photos and information about class learning, please click here for our blogs: Sycamore Class Hazel Class Ash Class Willow Class Beech Class Chestnut Class Oak Class Acorn Class Wishing you all a lovely weekend, Tara Penny Principal  Dear North Tawton Friends and Families, As we welcome March and (hopefully) fewer rainy days, it has been lovely to see the daffodils growing. I am hoping the bulbs we planted last year will begin to show soon. If you would like to volunteer to do some weeding in our memorial garden, we would be very grateful!  SEND Support I am delighted to announce that we have a new Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Teacher - Juliet Boyce. She will be working with Adam Newland and her counterpart Liz Davidson (who is SEND teacher at Chagford and South Tawton) to support us to deliver the best provision for our SEND pupils across the Foundry Hub. She has been working at North Tawton as a teacher and music specialist for several years so knows our children well. She will be introducing herself to parents of children with SEND needs over the coming weeks. Parent Meetings Thank you for coming to parent meetings last week. We value our open communication and wish to remind you that you do not need to wait for a meeting to talk about your children’s needs and progress. The beginning and end of the day are appropriate for short messages, but for discussions with me, or a class teacher please let us know so we can arrange a mutually convenient time. World Book Day Don’t forget its World Book Day on Thursday! I look forward to seeing the children dress up, please know that this is not compulsory. If your chid would rather not dress up, they are welcome to come in school uniform. There will be a Great Book Give Away from 8.30 – 9.00 in the hall. Please come in to the hall and help yourselves to some quality used books. If you have any books to donate, please being in before Thursday and they will be included. We will open this to children in the morning. Mothers and Others Plant sale Our wonderful FONTS group have arranged a plant sale for Friday after school to coincide with Mother’s Day weekend. Plants are £2 a pot, children going home on the bus or Y6 going home alone can bring money to school on the day and class teachers will keep safe for them. Courage Our theme this term is Courage. As it was Chinese New Year in the half term holiday, we started the term with an active performance of the Chinese Great Race, a traditional story to explain the Chinese zodiac. The Jade Emperor summoned thirteen animals to meet at the shore to compete in a race across the river. Ox gave Rat and Cat a lift. Rat pushed cat into the water jumped off Ox and won! Tiger swam steadily across the river, Rabbit found stepping stones and bound across. Dragon stopped to help others and then flew across the river, Snake hitched a lift around Horse’s feet, then slithered in before horse. Goat, Monkey and Rooster made a raft together. Dog played in the water before making it to the shore and Pig stopped for a meal and a sleep and then swam across coming in 12th. Cat came in last, bedraggled and exhausted, and didn’t get a year named after them.  We had fun performing the story and then thought about the following: Should Rat have had a year named after them? Is it fair that there is not a year named Year of the Cat? Who showed courage? Is courage the same as winning? Were there winners? Is it courageous to cheat? Who needed to show more courage? Over the following weeks, we will be exploring courage, looking to the Bible for stories and inspiration and finding for examples in history and current news to think about what courage means and how we can show this in our day to day lives. Attendance Each week we monitor attendance. This week we looked at attendance across the school houses and House Captains announced the percentages in Assembly on Friday. Creedy 91% Dart 88% Taw 96% Okement 83% Well done to Taw House. We are aiming for 97% +. With a week of colds and bugs doing the rounds, 96% is very good. Tin Can Collection Youcan be a Twocan Toucan Too! We are collecting aluminium cans for the charity Families in Greif. Mike Clark, President of the Rotary Club explained to the children in assembly that the cans will be recycled, and the money obtained given to this worthy charity. We need your cola, soda, beer and cocktail cans! Please bring them to school on a Thursday where there will be a collection at the gate. For more details about this charity, please click on the link Help for grieving children & families | Families in Grief Equality, Diversity and Inclusion In the half term holiday, I attended the Diversity and Inclusion drop in coffee morning at the community centre in North Tawton. This was a great opportunity to talk about the good work we are doing at school to support our children to learn about diversity and to prepare them for the wider world. I met with representatives from the police, Plymouth and Devon Racal Equality Council and local people who share an interest in learning more and networking about including others in our community. I look forward to this group building members and momentum.  Prayer Book Rebellion I met with Marion Pratt and David Botting Page last week to find out about The Prayer Book Rebellion, a local historic event. They have a whole programme of exciting events to mark the 475th anniversary. We have planned some events in school to find out more about Tudor times and learn about this historic event. There will be lots of local events for families to get involved in too. More details to follow! Find out what has been happening in classes by following our class blogs: Sycamore Class Hazel Class Ash Class Willow Class Beech Class Chestnut Class Oak Class Acorn Class With very best wishes for the week ahead,
Tara Penny Principal |
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