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Our friends at Merry Go Round have raised £408.25 for our school! Please do pop in to their shop, it is a trove of treasures!  Dear North Tawton Friends and Families, And so we come to the end of our very short term! This week our Year 2 have completed their SATS. They did a great job of keeping calm and showing us their best work. After the break, Y1 will have their phonics assessments and Y4 their times tables tests. On Tuesday we had a visit from a Viking, Ancient Greek and Thomas Farriner, all in the form of the incredibly talented story teller Steve Manning. He was really impressed with our children’s historical knowledge and was able to stretch their thinking and understanding of the periods of time. Yesterday a group of children visited Okehampton Primary for the grand opening of the science lab. There were investigative activities for them to take part in, and again stretch their understanding.
It’s been great to see everyone dressed up today, a special shout out to the corgis, the glitz and glam and the parents who were face painting early this morning! Today KS2 participated in our OCRA ‘Quad Kids’ sports event and a group of Year 5 children were also involved in a recruitment process with DMAT executive leaders. Never a dull week here at North Tawton Primary! Farewell This week we say farewell to Lacey Lethbridge who has been on a student placement with us. She has been reading with children across the year groups, but has spent the majority of her time supporting learning in Year 4. We all wish her all the best in her career ahead. Community Forum Tuesday 28th June 5pm – 6pm This will be an opportunity for you to hear about our progress on our school development plans including:
I will send a questionnaire after the break so parents have the opportunity to ask questions and raise topics for the forum. Do see Dojo for all of the events taking place over the half Term and Bank Holiday Don’t forget to look for those corgis around North Tawton and please go and admire our bunting at the church. Next Term Week of 20th June Y6 Activity Week Tuesday 28th June 5 – 6pm Community Forum Thursday 30th June Y6 induction day at Okehampton College Friday 1st July Rainbow Day – a celebration of inclusion Week of 4th July Festival of Hope – more details after half term Thursday 7th July Sports day Friday 8th July Music Concert Saturday 9th July Summer Fayre Friday 22nd July Farewell Assembly I hope you all have a lovely week, don’t forget we are also closed on Monday! See you on Tuesday 7th June With very best wishes Tara Penny Dear North Tawton Friends and Families, This is a very short term; I can’t believe that next week is the last before the holiday! As always, there is a lot to learn and accomplish so staff and children are working hard. Year 2 have started their Standard Assessment Tasks (SATS) These are tests which we administer in school and use to inform an assessment of their understanding in reading and maths. I have been really impressed with their hard work and attitude. Keep up the hard work Year 2! Base Curriculum As I have explained before, each class teacher has a curriculum responsibility across the school. This term there has been a lot of work across the Trust developing our history, geography, and science curriculum. Miss Radbourne and Mrs Budiman have been working with colleagues from other schools in the Trust and national specialists to develop our own Dartmoor Trust Base curriculum. They have both worked incredibly hard over the year and we are very proud of our ambitious and progressive curriculum. As always, do look at the class blogs to see what each class have been learning this week. Behaviour Behaviour at our school is very good. As I walk around the school each day, I see children in class focused on their learning and being collaborative and cooperative with their peers. Like every inclusive community school, we have a few children who have plans in place to support their behaviour development. These children are supported by staff working with our SENDCO to make sure they are accessing the curriculum and making progress with specific strategies in place. This may be shorter session in class, movement breaks, 1:1 work or adapted timetables. These children are closely monitored, parents are involved in their plans and are making great progress. I am always proud to show Trust staff and prospective parents around our school as I know the children will be engaged and enjoying their learning. Over the past three weeks, we have had a few incidents of name calling and rough play between a group of KS2 children at playtime. These incidents are always followed up immediately by staff with appropriate consequences and parents are informed. I will be monitoring this closely as this needs to stop. Please support the school expectations by not allowing name calling and rough play outside school and reminding children to talk to us about issues so we can support them. Thank You! FONTS On Tuesday, a team of brave parents joined me in sorting out the resources in the FONTS cupboard. This is a storage area which goes on and on under the school! We emptied the cupboard and sorted through Christmas decorations, summer fayre games, art and crafts and some old school technology. There are a lot of great resources which needed a dust down, and equally a lot which needed to be thrown. A huge thank you to Katie Hillier, Kate Keast, Laura Dennis and Danielle Dale for the time and good humour as we sorted through the dark and musty cupboard and got soaked on our trips to the skip! Benches The children are loving the new picnic benches! A huge Thank You to R L Taylor and West Devon Fire Protection for sponsoring two of these for us. We would love more, so if you know a company who would like to sponsor a bench, please let FONTS know! Volunteers
If you would like to volunteer at school, we would really appreciate your support! Do you have a few hours a week to support with reading, gardening, running a club, or going on a trip? We will need to apply for an Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check (DBS) The certificate will contain details of convictions and conditional cautions. The school will organise this with you as we will need identification and your permission to see this record. You will also need to attend a school safeguarding and code of conduct training session so that you know our procedures to ensure chid safety. More information and applications are available from the office. Breakfast Club and After School Clubs A number of parents have asked why we do not have a breakfast club in the morning, and why we do not have provision in school until 6pm. I know that this is something the school did provide in the past, but due to lack of take up, both became unfeasible. Please see your email for a questionnaire so I can assess what the need is now, and if we can make this a financially viable provision in the future. Many thanks Next week Year 2 continue their Standard Assessment Tasks (SATS) On Monday FONTS are meeting at school to plan the summer fayre. We have a storyteller visiting classes to enhance the history curriculum. We are hosting interviews for a Trust wide chaplain next Friday, so will not have a parent assembly, so look out for a class video update on Dojo next week! And please dress up on Friday for the (early) Jubilee! Children can wear red, white or blue, be a prince or princess, or wear fancy celebration clothes. More details from FONTS to follow. I will of course use this as an excuse to wear my tiara! Looking Forward After half term we have a lot of events to look forward to including our Festival of Hope. Week of 20th June Y6 Activity Week Tuesday 28th June 5 – 6pm Community Forum Thursday 30th June Y6 induction day at Okehampton College Friday 1st July Rainbow Day – a celebration of inclusion Week of 4th July Festival of Hope – more details after half term Thursday 7th July Sports day Friday 8th July Music Concert Saturday 9th July Summer Fayre Friday 22nd July Farewell Assembly With very best wishes Tara Penny Dear North Tawton Friends and Families, It’s been a very important week here for our Year 6 class as they sat their Standard Assessment Tests (SATS) for Reading, Maths, Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation . They have shown increased maturity over the past months and this week showed us that they can not only focus on working hard under strict test conditions, they can also support each other. Thank you to Miss Ruby, Mrs Jelly and Mrs Ware, all the staff who have taught and supported this class during their time at North Tawton, and to all of you at home for supporting them. They really did themselves, and all of us proud. What have you done today to make you feel proud? We started the week with an assembly where we considered what pride means. I asked, ‘What have you done to make you feel proud?’ This is a great question to ask your children at home, tell them what you have done that you are proud of, and what makes you proud of them. We shall be learning the Heather Small song ‘Proud’ for our Festival of Hope in July. Trying new foods We have an exciting new menu, but we have noticed few children choosing the new dishes. Mandy and I have been encouraging children to try new foods and have been introducing ‘tasters' at lunch time and break time. This week we offered Quesadillas (cheese and onion tortillas) and many ate raw peppers for the first time. Please encourage children to try new things at home, as I told them. they might be missing out on something delicious!  Absence Policy Children have missed so much school time over the past two years due to Covid 19 lockdowns and illness, we are working hard to plug gaps in learning, socialisation, and emotional wellbeing. Now we are, hopefully, over the worst of our infections rates, it is vital that children are in school every day. If your children complain of sore tummies, please send them in! Unless they are physically ill with diarrhoea or vomiting, then they really need to be here. We will always call you if they are ill in school. As far as possible, please arrange for medical appointments in the school holidays, or close to the beginning or end of the school day so as little learning time is lost as possible. Holidays in term time are not authorised. Persistent absence will be followed up with our Educational Welfare Officer and can result in a fine. If you are struggling with attendance, please let me know and we will offer support through Early Help and social care. Currently our attendance is below the average for Devon, and for our Trust. I would like to see full attendance for the final months of the school year to bring our attendance figures up and to give our children the very best opportunities to succeed as possible. Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR)
The staff have taken part in very important first aid training. Please click on the link https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/how-to-save-a-life/how-to-do-cpr/learn-cpr-in-15-minutes It’s an online CPR refresher. It is only 15 minutes long, interactive (you have your camera on so it can monitor your CPR rate) and you get a certificate at the end! Job Opportunity We are recruiting for a Teaching Assistant to join our team. If you are, or you know someone who would be interested in applying, please direct them to the Dartmoor Multi Academy Trust website – see the link here. Vacancies - Dartmoor Multi Academy Trust (dartmoormat.org.uk) Reminder Monday 6th June, school will be closed in lieu of the Queens Jubilee Bank Holiday which falls on the Thursday before during our half term week. With very best wishes for the weekend, Tara Penny Principal Tea towels Don’t forget to order your tea towels or other products. There are lots of choices to suit all budgets, including magnets, mugs, candles, coasters and cushions. You can have your individual child or a group image. The school will receive 20% commission on all sales.
Visit www.mychildsart.co.uk/order Username: NorthTawton Password: b9RfH9Z2 FONTS Jubilee activity ~ The Queens Corgi’s. 🐶The Queen has lost her Corgi’s in North Tawton. Your job is to find all the Corgi’s who each have a letter with them. The letters you find will spell where all the Corgi’s need to be returned. An answer sheet and map will be available from School/Post Office for £1 from Wednesday 25th May. All entries will receive a Platinum Jubilee badge and an overall winner from all entries will receive a small prize. Thinking ahead We are really looking forward to this years Summer Fete. Date TBC. We are looking for clean, good quality soft toy/teddy donations for our Teddy Tombola 🐻 🧸 If you, like most parents of children, have a stash of teddies that are no longer played with, FONTS will happily take them off your hands 😊 Please message/email FONTS or speak to a team member. Pre-loved Uniform Sale - Please visit the Friends of North Tawton School page on social media to find all of the items for sale. Everything is just £1. We are also accepting donations of any uniform in good, clean condition, with or without the school logo. Get ready for the warmer weather or prepare for September with some pre-loved uniform. Thank you for your continued support FONTS committee. Email [email protected] Or message FONTS on Class Dojo |
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