News from Cuckoo Hall
October 2018
From Head teacher, Nicky Ross
Dear Parents/Carers,
Welcome to our first newsletter of the school year. I will be writing to you at the end of each half term to keep you up to date on the school’s progress, share with you upcoming events and feedback on the exciting opportunities our children have taken part in.
Firstly, I’d like to thank all those who
came to the ‘Meet the Teacher’ events and to meet with me earlier this term. It
was lovely to meet you and to hear some of your concerns as well as your
positive comments about our school.
As you know we are on a journey out of ‘Special Measures’ and I have been
encouraged in my first half term by the hard work and dedication of the
teaching staff and the excellent learning behaviours of our children. I know
that with continued dedication and a focus on consistently high quality
teaching, together we will achieve positive outcomes for our children and our
school.
To move our school forward and accelerate children’s progress the school community is focusing on the following three areas of school improvement this year:
- Improve teaching and learning so that it is consistently good and much is outstanding
- Improve pupil progress and outcomes in every year group
- Create an inspirational Cuckoo Hall curriculum
So far this half term we have taken the following actions to make sure we achieve our goals above:
- Working with a maths consultant to improve teaching and learning in maths
- Bought new maths resources for every classroom to support children’s learning
- Involved in a Warwick University project to improve children’s writing
- Reviewing how we teach reading across the school and buying new reading books
- Created a team of teachers to review the national curriculum
I hope that you will soon begin to see some of the changes we are implementing having a positive impact on your children and supporting them in making good progress.
Parent and Teacher Meeting
On Thursday this week you will have the opportunity to meet with your child’s teacher. This is an opportunity for you to hear about your child and what they have been learning so far this term. It’s also an opportunity for you to ask questions, raise concerns and celebrate your child’s success. You should leave the meeting with a clear understanding of what your child can and can’t do. If you are un-clear please speak to a member of the Senior Leadership team who will be available throughout the day. If you haven’t yet made your appointment or are having difficulty accessing the online booking then please speak to your child’s class teacher. Teachers will follow up with any parents who haven’t attended the meeting.
You Said…We Did
During earlier meetings many parents raised the concern that they did not fully understand how to use our online homework tool, Reading Eggs and Mathletics. To support you with this we have organised drop in workshops On Thursday 18th October during ‘Parent-Teacher’ meetings. You can pop into the Upper Hall and staff will be there to show you how to access the online resources and show you the online tool effectively supports your child with their maths and reading at home.
We are also running sessions for parents of children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 to understand how to help young children to read and write. These sessions will be held in the Music room and staff will be there to support the Read, Write, Ink session.
Sporting Achievements
Netball
The netball girls played their first games on Wednesday 3rd October. The girls showed fantastic effort and determination which led to them winning the first game against St Edmunds 5-0 and winning their second game against Edmonton County 3-1. The girls showed fantastic teamwork, helping support and encourage those who were playing their first ever competitive game!
Football
The Year 6 football team ‘smashed it’ this week with a thumping of Houndsfield and a narrow win in a much closer fought game against Trust rivals Woodpecker. The 4-0 win over Houndsfield was comfortable with some fantastic finishes and team goals. However, the boys had to dig deep to pull it out of the bag against a strong Woodpecker team who took the lead in the first half. They fought back and held on to win 2-1 in the end.
After School Clubs
After the half term all After School Clubs will be
up and running. I apologise that it has taken us a bit of time to get these
started but we reviewed the process for booking children onto clubs in the hope
to make it a fairer system and give more children the opportunity to take part
and learn new skills.
There are a variety of clubs being run across the school by our talented team of
Teaching Assistants, from Zumba to cooking to art. We are also looking to
engage people outside of the school to run further clubs and extend the range of activities on offer so watch
this space for more exciting opportunities coming your way soon.
Road Safety at Cuckoo Hall
I have been monitoring the roads round our school at drop off and pick up times and I have to say that I’m shocked by the lack of road awareness shown by some of our community when dropping off and picking up their children. I have witnessed parents doing three point turns in the middle of a very busy road that just missing hitting children and parents. I have also witnessed many people parking on the yellow zigzag lines which is not allowed. On top of this I have parents and children darting in and out of traffic rather than waiting for a safe time to cross the road. This behaviour will lead to a serious accident happening to one of our children. Please help me make our drop off and pick up times safer for our children, by walking to school. If you live further away and it’s necessary to drive then please park five minutes away from school and walk the last little bit. Together I know we can make the roads round the school much safer. Thank you for your support in this matter.
Happy Half Term Break
I’d like to wish you all a very happy half term break. Enjoy the time with your children and encourage them to continue reading at home.
School reopens on Monday 29th October at 8:45am.
Nicky Ross