Monthly Archives: May 2015

Hello everyone and I hope you all have had a lovely weekend.  I can’t believe we have nearly reached half term and I would like to thank you all for your continued support.  I hope that you all have a well deserved rest next week and the sun shines for you.

Year 6 SATs

Well done to our Year 6 students for working so hard during last week’s SATs.  The whole school is extremely proud of  you for your extremely positive attitude and 100% commitment. Thank you to all the staff for their hard work leading up to and, as invigilators, during the SATs. We would also like to say a great big thank you to all the parents/carers for ensuring that the children arrived for school in time for Breakfast Club, had a good night’s sleep each night and had 100% attendance during SATs. The whole week was a brilliant team effort. Now we’ll be focusing on writing ready for the final assessments in June. Keep going everyone!

Under 9’s Drax Cricket Competion

Last week, 8 of our Year 3 and Year 4 pupils attended the under 9’s Drax cricket competition at Park Avenue cricket club.  They played against other local primary schools and won all their games to take first place and secure a place in the Drax Bradford finals.  On Thursday 21st May they will attend the finals and play against other teams that qualified in their groups.  It will be a tough competition but we feel our team is ready for the challenge.  Good luck Copthorne!!

This week at Copthorne

KWIK Cricket Competition

On Monday 18th May some of our pupils will have the opportunity to play in the Under 11’s KWIK cricket competition against other pupils from other primary schools in Bradford.  The competition will be held at Great Horton Church Cricket club.  This will be an ideal opportunity for our pupils to put their sporting skills into practice and interact with pupils from other primary schools in our area. We have a strong team who have been well trained and of whom we have high expectations. We are aiming to make it through to the Kwik cricket Bradford finals.

Year 5 Copthorne’s Got Talent Auditions

This week it will be the turn of Year 5 and Year 6 to show the judges what amazing talents they have when they audition for Copthorne’s Got Talent. The judges have told me that in the previous round of auditions the talent was amazing and I am really looking  forward to seeing the range of skills and abilities that our children have.

Important Dates

Spring Bank Holiday: Monday 25th to Monday 1st June inclusive

Teacher Training Day: Monday 1st June: School will be closed for children

Once again I hope you have a fantastic break and I look forward to seeing our children back to school on Tuesday 2nd June at the normal time.

Mrs Shepherd

Welcome everyone and thank you for looking at our blog.  This week is an extremely busy week in school as our Year 6 children take their SATs.  Please see below important information on how to help your children throughout this week.

This week at Copthorne

Key Stage 2 SATs

As you will already be aware, children in Year 6 have to sit very important end of Key Stage 2 tests.  These tests will start today and will run upto and including Thursday. The tests will cover mathematics, reading, spelling, punctuation and grammar. We want all our children to achieve their best and would ask that you support us by:

• Ensuring they attend school every day to take the tests
• Ensuring they get a good night’s sleep before the tests
• Ensuring they have some revision time and relaxation time, it is important to do both
• Ensuring they have had a good breakfast

In order to help we are offering all Year 6 children a free breakfast at Breakfast Club this week. We also ask that all Year 6 children arrive at school for 8.15am from Monday to Thursday of this week. This will allow us to register the children and settle them so that they are calm and happy before the tests begin.

Thank you in anticipation of your support and we would like to take this opportunity to say to each and everyone of our children – YOU CAN DO IT!  All the staff are behind you and willing you to do your very best.  Good luck everyone!
Year 1 Phonics Screening

During the week beginning Monday 15th June, children in Year 1 will undertake a short phonics screening check.  This check is a statutory assessment of your child’s progress in phonics and is designed to ensure that your child receives appropriate support with phonics and reading at school.  Your child will work with their class teacher to read a set of 40 words using their phonics knowledge.  The results of the check will be reported to the Department for Education and results will also be reported to Parents/Carers in your child’s end of year report. 

A meeting was held in school last week about this but unfortunately not all parents were able to attend. We have arranged for an alternative date and hope that you will be able to attend this important meeting on Wednesday 13th May at 3.10pm.  Although your child is not expected to do any additional preparation at home, to support your child with their phonics and reading skills please access Phonics Bug as often as possible and encourage your child to continue to complete the homework.  Thank you for your continued support.

Magic Moments

Working at Copthorne we experience  many ‘magic moments’ with our children. A special moment for me this week was over-hearing a conversation between a Year 2 child and a Nursery Nurse as they walked down the corridor together:

Child: I’m a learner aren’t I?

Nursery Nurse: You are indeed a learner

Child: I’m learning all the time aren’t I? We’re all learning aren’t we?

Nursery Nurse: Definitely. We are all learners here.

How wonderful that our children are so proud to learn and want to celebrate this at every opportunity.

Words of the week

In order to extend our children’s use and understanding of vocabulary I will be posting a Word of the Week for each Key Stage in our blog. Please encourage your children to find out what the word means and then to use it correctly in a number of sentences throughout the week. This will help our children to become more fluent readers and writers. Thank you.

Key Stage 1: Demand

Lower Key Stage 2 (Y3 and 4): Distinctly

Upper Key Stage 2 (Year 5 and 6) : Vulnerable

Have a lovely week everyone and remember Year 6 – You can do it!

Mrs Shepherd

Hello everybody and welcome back to a new term at Copthorne.  I hope you have all had a lovely Easter break and I am looking forward to seeing the children return to school, ready to learn.  This term is an extremely busy one and staff will be working hard with Year 6 and Year 2 children as they prepare for their SAT tests.

Comic Relief Day

Last term we held a fundraising day to raise money for Comic Relief. Comic Relief helps lots of projects worldwide, helping people who are living tough lives in the UK and around the World. We held lots of events in school, such as a bake off, selling red noses and “sponging the teachers”.  I am delighted to tell you that the total amount raised was £448.20. Thank you so much to everybody who supported this fantastic charity, it was a wonderful day and as usual, was supported so well by the school and our entire community.
Saturday Club

Last week saw the end of Saturday Club for this term.  To finish off the club the children had a small party.  Pupils attending the club for the past 9 weeks have had the opportunity to be involved in cooking classes, ICT, archery and youth club.  Mr A Khan has informed me that all the pupils have been a pleasure to teach and have shown real enthusiasm during the activities.  Thank you to all the staff involved in running Saturday club and to the children for being so wonderful.

A new round of Saturday Club will be starting in a couple of weeks’ time so please look out for the notices about this in school.

Rounders Competition

On Monday 23rd March, 10 pupils attended the Exceed rounders competition at Grange Technology College.  The competition included all 7 schools from the Exceed cluster, Copthorne had a very successful day as the pupils won all 6 games to take the title of competition winners.  Well done to the children involved as they put the skills learnt in the after school rounders club into practice in the competition and showed great sportsmanship.  Well done Copthorne!!

This week at Copthorne

Year 2 – Forest Schools

This week Year 2 will be visiting St Ives Woods in Bingley as part of their Copthorne Curriculum theme.  The children will be looking at nocturnal animals and their environment.  The children are really excited and looking forward to this trip.  This visit will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.  I hope you have a lovely time Year 2.

I hope you have a lovely week and once again, thank you for your continued support.

Mrs Shepherd

Hello everyone and I hope you had a lovely extended weekend and spent some wonderful time with your families.

This week at Copthorne

Reception Circle Time

Over the next couple of weeks, our Reception classes will be carrying out a special Circle Time topic.  This is the time where the classes will be reflecting on personal views and opinions and staff will be encouraging children to express their feelings.  The classes will be looking at baby pictures of children and how they look and develop over time.  We would be grateful if parents could bring their child’s baby pictures into school so that we can share this with all the children and reflect on how different children develop.  Please could you bring the pictures to school on Wednesday 6th May. Thank you.
Year 3 trip to Saltaire

On Tuesday 5th and Wednesday 6th May, Year 3 will be going on a trip to Saltaire to learn about the history of Bradford.  The children will be travelling on a train and then spending the day walking around Saltaire identifying the historical and geographical features of the village. This trip is linked to the children’s current Copthorne Curriculum theme: the history and geography of Bradford.  I am sure this will be an enjoyable and learning-filled day out for the children.  Have a lovely time Year 3!

Nursery trip visit to St Leonards Farm

On Thursday 7th and Friday 8th May, Nursery classes will go on their annual visit to St Leonard’s Farm.  This visit has been arranged in order to support the theme of work carried out in Nursery. This is always an enjoyable day for our young children, where they can learn, first-hand, about the range of different animals that they hear so much about in nursery rhymes and stories. I know that our children and staff are really looking forward to it.  I am waiting in anticipation to hear all about their adventures.

Cannon Hall Farm Trip – Reception Classes

As part of their topic “Doing the Animal Bop!”, our Reception classes will be visiting Cannon Hall Farm on Thursday 7th May.  Children will be looking at the different kinds of animals, learning about the noises they make and about how they change as they grow. Each child will also be having an ice-cream! This is always a lovely trip for the children and I know they are very excited about it. I lok forward to seeing the work they do about this visit on their return to school.

Under 9’s DRAX Cricket Competition

We are delighted to be able to offer our children the opportunity to play in the Under 9’s DRAX Cricket competition against pupils from other primary schools in Bradford. The DRAX cricket competition will be held on Thursday 7^th May.  The competition will be held at Great Horton Church Cricket Club and we will travel to and from the venue in the school minibus. We feel this is an opportunity for our pupils to put their sporting skills into practice and interact with pupils from other primary schools in our area.

I hope you have a lovely week.

Mrs Shepherd

Hello everyone and welcome to our blog.  As you will be aware, the Year 6 and Year 2 SATs tests are nearly upon us.  The children and staff are working extremely hard to make sure that our children are ready for these important tests. Thank you to the parents and carers of children in those year groups for all the support you are giving to your children.

Delivery of Chicks

We were very excited last week to welcome the annual arrival of a set of fertilised eggs.  I am delighted to tell you that the eggs have now hatched! We now have 6 chicks in school that we are looking after. We were asked to keep a special eye on one of the eggs as it was a rare breed from Belgium. Apparently this type of egg is really difficult to breed and it is identifiable because it has a purple spot on the egg. Once the chick has grown it will lay white eggs. The children have been really excited about our visitors and have been watching the chicks in the brooder box as they eat and sleep.  We will keep the chicks for a couple of weeks so that the children can observe them growing and changing. Then they will be taken to a small holding where they will live a lovely free-range life. We will be kept regularly updated on their progress.

 This week at Copthorne

Comenius trip to Romania

Today Mrs Whalley and Miss Richards will be travelling to Romania to visit our Comenius Partners.  They will be meeting representatives from the 9 other countries in the project.  Whilst in Romania they will be visiting the Romanian school, learning all about the culture and visiting local landmarks. We wish them both a safe and enjoyable trip and look forward to hearing all about their adventures on their return.

Linking Schools

On Monday 20th April, 4 Poplar will visit All Saints Primary School in Ilkley as part of our Linking Schools project.  The children have already met when we joined them for an exciting day at Cartwright Hall.  Later on this year the children from All Saints will be visiting our school.  I am sure this trip will be a great success and know that the children are very excited about meeting their friends at All Saints Primary once again.

Reception Visit to Pets at Home

Our Reception children will be making a visit to Pets at Home on Forster Square Retail Park on Tuesday 21st April. The visit forms part of their topic this half term which is called ‘Doing the animal bop’.    I know the children are extremely excited about this visit and I am looking forward to hearing about all the different types of animals the children have seen.

Exceed Debating Competition

On Tuesday 28th April, Mr Khan, Mr Rizvi and myself will be taking a group of our pupils to Bradford University for a debating competition between all the Exceed schools.  The schools will be debating aginst each other in sets of two teams and will be judged by a panel consisting of members of staff from the schools. The motions to be debated include: ‘This House believes that school summer holidays should be limited to 3 weeks’, ‘This House believes that school uniform should be banned’ and ‘This House believes that footballers are not worth the money they are paid.’ 

The aim of the event is to improve language and speaking skills. All participants will receive a medal and a certificate.  I am sure it will be a very interesting and enjoyable afternoon.

I hope you have a lovely week and once again thank you for your continued support.

Mrs Shepherd

Hello everyone and I hope you have had a super weekend.  It is lovely to see all our children working so positively  The weather has now started to improve slightly and I am sure you are all making the most of it. 

This week at Copthorne

Year 1 Multi-Sports

We are delighted that some of our Year 1 pupils have been chosen to participate in a multi-skills activity at Grange Technology College on Monday 20th April.   Mr Khan will accompany the children and they will join up with other local primary school children.  We hope that our children enjoy the games and have a great time as well as getting lots of exercise.

Year 3 – Tour of Bradford

As part of our Copthorne Curriculum theme about Bradford, Year 3 will be touring a range of places in Bradford.  The trip will take the children up to Haworth, across St Ives in Harden and on to Baildon Moor, finishing with a drive through Thackley and Thornbury then back to school.  The trip will take a full day as children will have the opportunity to explore these areas with their teachers.  3 Larch will be taking the tour on Tuesday 21st April and 3 Alder will be going on Wednesday 22nd April.  I am sure the children will have a fantastic learning experience.

Copthorne’s Got Talent

This week we begin the first round of auditions for Copthorne’s Got Talent.  It will be the turn of Year 1 and Year 2 this week to show the judges what amazing talents they have.  This is a very popular event and I look forward to seeing the range of skills and abilities that our children have.

Year 2 SAT Tests

The Year 2 Key Stage 1 SAT tests will very soon be upon us.  I know that the staff are working extremely hard to make sure that our children will be able to achieve great results. There are a number of ways in which you too can help to support your child in attaining the best possible results.  These include: 

• Listening to him/her read each day and asking him/her questions about what they are reading
• Practising the times tables daily with him/her – just 5 to 10 minutes daily can be very effective.
• Ensuring that he/she goes to sleep at a reasonable time each night 

In order to provide you with more information about the tests, we are holding a very important meeting for parents on Thursday 23rd April at 9am.  It is vital that as many of you as possible attend this meeting and I look forward to seeing you.

Thank you for your continued support, I hope you all have a great week.

Mrs Shepherd