Monthly Archives: October 2013

Welcome, everybody.  Here we are at the end of another busy and very enjoyable half term.

Hawkshead Residential

Last week was an extremely exciting one for our Year 6 pupils as they spent 3 days at Hawkshead in the Lake District.  I joined them on Wednesday evening and spent half the day with them on Thursday during which we all had a fabulous time horseriding and grooming a number of ponies at an equestrian centre.

During their stay, the children visited the Hawkshead Grammar School Museum to learn about school life in the past and, especially, the 18th century. As part of the visit the children experienced a lesson in the school room as it would have been in the time of the poet, William Wordsworth who attended the school.

The staff at the museum made a secial point of saying how well behaved our children were and, in fact, the best behaved and most interested group of children they had met this year. We are all very proud of you.

The whole group returned to school safe and sound on Friday afternoon, keen to tell their families about their experiences and, staff included, ready for a big sleep after their adventures. Thank you to all the staff who organised and took part in the residential: Mr Darr, Miss Bray, Miss Nelson, Mrs Robinson, Mr A Khan, Mr H Khan, Miss Zaman and Mr Sajid. We really apreciate the time you gave to make sure that our children had such a wonderful experience. You deserve a week’s rest now!

Diwali Assembly

Last Friday our Year 5 pupils performed their Diwali assembly in front of the whole school and their parents. What a credit they were to Copthorne!  We all thoroughly enjoyed learning all about the Hindu culture and Diwali festival.

It was clear to see that the children have gained a great deal from the creative curriculum theme: India that they have been studying since September. The assembly demonstrated a range of subject knowledge and skills including History, Geography, Music, Dance, Art and, of course, RE. Well done, everyone! Thank you Mr Rizvi, Mr Sandhu, Miss Bhatti, Mrs Ludbrook and Mr Zaman for making this unit of work so inspiring for our children.

Half Term Holiday

Copthorne is closed this week for the half term holiday and will reopen at the usual time on Monday 4th November. I wish you all an enjoyable and restful break.

Next week at Copthorne

Mums Do Maths

On Tuesday 5th November from 8.45am we will be holding a ‘Mums do Maths’ morning for adult female family members of children in Years 5 and 6. During the morning, classes will be working on a variety of maths challenges. This is a great opportunity for mums to learn alongside the children and to find out about the way we teach maths at Copthorne.

Forest Schools

On Friday 8th November, Year 4 will continue with their Forest School activities as half the children from 4 Beech visit St Ives Woods with Mrs Robinson and Mrs Shah.  I know that the children are having a great time learning about the outdoor environment and how we should care for it. Keep up the good work everyone!

Life Channel Training

As you may have noticed, we have a number of TV screens both inside and outside school showing a range of short, public information programmes aimed at parents and pupils. The programmes are there to provide useful information to support parents, pupils and community members. 

Our  main intention, however, is to use the screens to show work produced by our children and daily and weekly news about Copthorne. This will be presented for example, in the form of photo stories and films produced by the children. In order to help us to do this a group of 6 staff members will be taking part in a training session in school on Friday 8th November. We are looking forward to then being able to share a great deal of the work our children are doing before the end of next half term.

On behalf of all the staff, we hope you all have a enjoyable and well earned break and look forward to seeing all the children back to school on Monday 4th November at the usual time.

Mrs Shepherd

Welcome to another exciting week at Copthorne and I hope that you all had a wonderful Eid.  Thank you to all of you who returned to school on time on Thursday. It was great to see everyone happy and relaxed after the very long weekend.

This week

Year 3 Residential Parents’ Meeting

There will be two short meetings for parents/carers on Monday 21^st October to outline the final arrangements for the Year 3 Exceed residential to Bewerley Park Outdoor Education Centre, Pateley Bridge, North Yorkshire. The meetings will be held at 8.45am and 2.30pm, during which you will be provided with details of what your child will need to pack and have the chance to ask any questions you may have. 

It is important for the parents of the children who are going on the trip to attend as there are  important medical consent forms for you to complete.  This is an exciting opportunity for our year 3 children and I am sure that they will have a fantastic experience at the centre.

Parents’ Evening

On Tuesday 22nd October between 3.15 and 6.00pm we will be holding our parents’ evening.  We are looking forward to seeing as many parents’ as possible at the first parents’ evening of this academic year.  During the evening you will have the opportunity to talk to your child’s class teacher about how your child has settled into his/her new class and to hear about his/her targets for this term.  I will also be collecting your views and ideas for Copthorne during the evening. I look forward to seeing you there.

Hawkshead Trip

From Wednesday 23rd to Friday 25th October, 42 of our year 6 pupils will be taking part in the residential visit to Hawkshead in the Lake District.  The children will be accompanied by Mr Darr, Miss Bray, Miss Nelson, Mrs Robinson, Mr A Khan, Mr H Khan, Mr Sajid and Miss Zaman. 

This trip is very important in helping our children work together as a team and in giving them the opportiunity to stay away from home for the first time in a safe but new environment. During their stay the children will be carying out work to deepen and extend their lerning in a number of curriculum areas including Geography, History and Art.  We wish all the pupils and staff an enjoyable trip. I will be driving up to the Lake District on Wednesdy evening to see the children and hear all about their first day’s adventures.

Visit to All Saints Church, Bradford

On Thursday 24th October, the remainder of the year 6 children will be visiting All Saints Church in Bradford as part of their work for R.E.  The children will learn about what the different parts of the church symbolise and what a traditional Christian service involves.  Once again I am sure our children will be wonderful ambassadors for Copthorne.

Half Term Holiday

School will close for half term at the end of school on Friday 25th October and re-open on Monday 4th November at the usual time.  We wish you all an enjoyable rest.

Holiday Challenge

The theme for this holiday’s challenge is ‘Autumn’.  Children are asked to produce a piece of work – this can be anything from art work (drawings, painting, models, collage etc.)to any form of writing or even a film or photographs – about Autumn.  Completed work should be taken to class on Monday 4th November. I will will view the work during that week and samples will then be presented to the whole school in assembly.  Good luck everyone!

Dates for your diary

 Mums Do Maths

From 8.45am to 11.30am on Tuesday 15th November we will be holding our first Mums Do Maths session for female family members of children in year 5 and 6.  Mums and/or any adult female members of the family are invited to come into school that morning and work alongside their children on a variety of maths challenges.  This is a wonderful opportunity for mums and family members to develop a clearer understanding of how maths is taught in our school.  We look forward to welcoming you all to this event.

Wishing you all a great week, hoping that you are keeping warm now that the weather has become very autumnal!

Mrs Shepherd

Well, it’s going to be a very short week at Copthorne this week but, as usual, it will be busy and involve lots of exciting learning oportunities for our children.

Last week we were fortunate in being able to welcome a group of visitors from Ghana.  The group presented an assembly to KS1 about life in Ghana and then visited individual classrooms, where they answered children’s questions and taught some traditional Ghanian dancing.  This visit supports the work we are doing in school for the Stephen Lawrence Education Standard award and was thoroughly enjoyed by all our children and staff. It was also an opportunity for Miss Armitstead to revisit her experiences from this summer as she spent her holiday in Ghana doing charity work.

A great big thank you to our visitors.

 Football Tournament

Last week our football team came first in the Exceed Football League.  Well done to our players for such excellent team work.  You all looked so smart in your new kit too.

Asian Dress Day

Thank you to all of our parents for sending the children to school last Friday dressed to celebrate Eid.  Children enjoyed parties in the afternoon and it was great to see all of our staff joining in with the theme of the day looking so smart and sparkly.

This week at Copthorne

Eid Holiday

School will be closed on Monday 14^th October to Wednesday 16^th October inclusive.  We look forward to welcoming the children back to school at the usual time on Thursday 17^th October 2013.  I would like to wish everyone an enjoyable break with your family at this very special time.

Visit to Poland

From Monday 14^th October to Friday 18^th October, our Assistant Head Teacher Mr Lloyd and our Diversity Co-ordinator Mrs Van Tol will be visiting Poland for the first meeting between the 10 schools involved in our Comenius Project.  We will be working with schools from Poland, Romania, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Lithuania, Portugal, Cyprus and the Netherlands.  As part of this project, staff will visit each of these countries and our children will have the opportunity to take part in some of these visits.  In return we will be welcoming staff and some children from each of the 9 schools. Together we will bw working on a project to develop pupils’ literacy skills through the use of traditional tales. We look forward to taking part in the project and to learning more about the culture and customs of each of the other countries.

Dates for your diary

Parents’ Evening

There will be a parents evening on 22^nd October 2013 from 3.15 – 6pm..  Please could parents’ return their appointment slips to the class teachers by Thursday 17^th October 2013. We look forward to seeing you all and working with you to both celebrate the work of and plan the next steps for our children.

I hope you all have a lovely week with your families.

Eid Mubarak!

Mrs Shepherd

Last week we enjoyed another great week at Copthorne and I am sure this week will be just as exciting. It is always such a pleasure to walk through our school and experience such a calm, learning atmosphere. I visited a number of classes last Friday and was thrilled to see all of our children working so hard and enjoying the inspiring lessons being delivered. It was especially pleasing to hear the mathematical language that the children in 6 Sycamore were using and the way that each one of the children could clearly explain what the terms meant  – Keep up the wonderful work, everyone!

Autumn Fayre

Once again thank you to the whole of our community, pupils and staff for making this event such a success.  I am thrilled to report we raised £952.46 which will be used to provide even more exciting learning activities for our children. One group of children have come to me with a great plan for building a greenhouse which would be used to grow seedlings to plant in our allotment and make a community vegetable garden. I think this would be a very good use for some of the money raised. The School Council will be able to discuss the idea this week and, hopefully, with their agreement, we can make a start on the project.

Safeguarding Audit

Last week the school underwent a rigorous audit of its safeguarding policies and procedures.  Safeguarding includes the arrangements in place to protect all of our children and staff both physically and emotionally.  The audit found that our practices and procedures are outstanding and comply  with all relevant laws and regulations regarding child protection and health and safety.  Thank you to all children, staff and parents for working with us to ensure Copthorne is such a safe and happy environment to work and learn in.

This week at Copthorne

Head Teacher’s Performance Appraisal

All staff including Head Teachers go through an annual staff appraisal process.  This involves targets being set related to each individual’s role in school.  Staff then work towards the achievement of these targets and their performance against these is evaluated annually. Today, Monday 7th October,  both Mr Jacques and I be taking part in our appraisal review and we will be setting our  targets  for the following year. If anyone is interested in finding out about how our targets are set and appraised feel free to ask or visit http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/leadership/deployingstaff/b00201884/new-arrangements for further information.

School Council Meeting

On Monday 7th October at 12.30pm the next School Council meeting will take place. We look forward to hearing all about our pupils’ ideas for the future at Copthorne.

Governing Body Meeting

This Wednesday, 9th October, at 4.30pm there will be a meeting of Copthorne’s Governing Body.  As you will know our Governors are  very important partners in the work we do at Copthorne and I look forward to sharing with them developments and plans since our last conversations.

Forest Schools

Half the pupils from 4 Beech will continue to take part in our Forest School Programme this Friday, 11th October.  Last week the group had an exiting time in spite of the rain – it turns out that mud is a good thing when you are wearing the right clothes! I am sure that this week’s experience will be just as positive.

Eid Parties and Asian Dress Day

On Friday, 11th October we are inviting all children, staff and volunteers to come to school in Asian dress. This will form part of our Eid celebrations. We will also be holding an Eid party in each class during the afternoon and Mrs Ramsden also has a special Eid meal planned for everyone.

Eid Holiday

School will be closed from Monday 14th to Wednesday 15th October inclusive. This includes an additional day to those published on our holiday calendar as Eid will now take place on Tuesday and Wednesday rather than  Monday and Tuesday as originally thought by the Local Authority.  Eid-al-Adha, which commemorates Ibrahim’s (Abraham) willingness to sacrifice his son to God. This festival also marks the end of the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and is celebrated by a large proportion of our community. We have, therefore, used one of our training days to extend the holiday for parents and children and so allow our community to celebrate Eid at home. Teachers will be directed to carry out specific work at home during one of the 3 days.

School will reopen at the usual time on Thursday 17th October.

I hope you all have a wonderful week and enjoy a very happy Eid next week. Eid Mubarak!

Mrs Shepherd