Dicken's Post - Friday 16th September

Dear Parent/Carer of <<First Name>>,

Learning is now in full swing and I am so impressed with how all the children have settled into their new classes. We still have children who are not dressed in the correct uniform and we have had several children who have struggled in the heat as they are over-dressed for the weather. Girls and boys should be wearing a similar number of layers – overdressed children will be encouraged to remove layers.

As a reminder, leggings are both unnecessary under skirts/dresses and are not school uniform.

Please do not send girls to school in woollen tights until the weather turns colder.

Governors

On Wednesday, we celebrated Nik Nicol completing his term of office as Chair of Governors. Nik has led with energy, commitment and determination to continually improve the school for all our pupils. Nik continues as a parent governor and we thanked him for time as chair.

We welcomed back Claire Maugham as Chair of Governors. Claire is a parent governor with daughters in Years 1, 3 and 5. Claire chaired an excellent strategy day on Wednesday. Governors scrutinised and then agreed the improvement plan for the year ahead (see below), learnt more about the school's emotional wellbeing initiative from Emma Gleadhill (parent governor) and Freddy Vanson (year 2 teacher and lead teacher for personal, social, health and citizenship).

Summer results

The Key Stage 2 results are not yet publicly available for our school but we wanted to share with you the great success achieved by the children in the summer when facing the difficult new tests and higher expectations. These results inform our focus for the coming year. I have included the national average for the same results for you to gain a sense of how very well the children did.

Number of pupils eligible for KS2 assessment	41	National Averages
Reading, writing and mathematics - attainment
Reading, writing and mathematics: % of pupils achieving the expected standard in all subjects	78%	53%
Reading, writing and mathematics: % of pupils achieving a high score	15%	5%
Reading: % of pupils achieving expected standard	83%	66%
Reading: % of pupils achieving a high standard	27%	19%
Writing: % of pupils achieving expected standard	85%	74%
Writing: % of pupils working at greater depth within expected standard	20%	15%
Mathematics: % of pupils achieving expected standard	93%	70%
Mathematics: % of pupils achieving a high standard	34%	17%
Grammar, punctuation & spelling: % of pupils achieving expected standard	85%	72%
Grammar, punctuation & spelling: % of pupils achieving a high standard	37%	23%

The focus for this year

This year we are focusing on writing, as this is the weakest area of our results. Our analysis has shown us that the children have fantastic ideas and language but they are not always accurate and precise in their writing. This includes spelling. Teachers are using a new approach to spelling and improving how we teach and feedback to children so writing is more accurate.

In other areas we are improving our provision for children with additional needs under the leadership of Mrs Una O’Gara, our new SENCo. This includes better identification and support or children with specific barriers to learning such as dyslexia.

We have an ongoing target of improving the learning outcomes of children from disadvantaged families. Such children do very well at our school compared to all pupils nationally but there is a small school gap between these children and pupils from non-disadvantaged backgrounds. We will use our government funding to improve the progress of these children further this year.

We are also building on last year’s work on emotional wellbeing. Teachers will be learning how to teach the language of emotions and how to help children recognise and manage a sophisticated range of feelings.

Click here to see the full school improvement plan including targets relating to the building works

Emails

We appreciate that you receive lots of emails from the school, however our new email system tells us that only 65% of parents are opening their emails. In order to help you identify those emails that require your response (giving permission for a trip etc), those requiring you to respond will now be marked ‘action required’.

Have a relaxing weekend and enjoy the cooler weather.

Mrs Cassie Buchanan

Headteacher.

Garden Update

A huge thankyou to miss Tyson for keeping the garden watered over the summer and well done to the whole school community for taking great care in the garden not to squash or pick any of our fruits and vegetables. We are saving the produce for the Borough Market harvest sale taking place on the 6th of October between 11.30-1.30. Save the date!

Dickens' Island Discs

This week's track is part of a global multimedia project Playing for Change.

Born in 2002, Playing for Change seeks to bring musicians together from across the globe to perform on a single piece of music. A Non-profit organisation, the Playing for Change Foundation also build music schools for children across the world.

It's a brilliant project and the results are superb. Here's 'Don't Worry'. Hope you enjoy!

https://youtu.be/nIHWfCUDpPc

Year Five and Six

It's been a busy week in Micawber - we have been using descriptive language to retell sections of Oliver Twist. We've also been very much enjoying the film! In P.E., we began working with our dance teacher Delene; Elisha showed some excellent dance skills and elegance. We also practiced for our forthcoming cross country run with Ms. Worley. Our science topic this term is Light and Electricity; we kicked off by thinking about what we already know about these two mysterious features of the Universe.

Summerson class has been busy re-telling part of ‘Oliver Twist’ and there have been some wonderful, colourful descriptions of Victorian London. Miss Jacobs was particularly impressed with the Dickensian writing from Summerson’s very own Oliver (Micic-Land not Twist)!

In Barnaby, we have been immersed in the Victorian world of Oliver Twist and using noun phrases to describe the bustling London streets. Aya and Ne'shaun produced some particularly excellent prose!

In PE, Amal and Olivia are looking well set for a strong showing in the imminent cross country run.

In Peggotty we've been learning all about place value in Maths.

Mr Windle

Year Three and Four
It's been a very busy first full week back in the fabulous world of year 3/4. Paleontology has been explored, numbers of been examined and reading has been celebrated....

In English lessons, the children have been learning about the 19th century paleontologist Mary Anning. We have studied her early life in Lyme Regis finding fossils as well as her first major discovery of the first ichthyosaur. The children are in the process of writing a recount of her life including all the interesting details of this famous Dorset resident. To get us in the spirit of fossils and exploration, year 3/4 became fossil hunters! The children got to chip away at rocks to try and find the fossils within (see the pictures for details).

In Maths, the children have developed their mental maths skills, counted in different steps and rounded numbers to the nearest ten and one hundred.

Reading has had a great start to the year! A massive well done to all those children who have brought their reading journals in every day!

Mr Huxley, Assistant Headteacher

Year One and Two
This week in Years One and Two, we have continued to get to know each other. In Nickleby class, the children worked together to finalise their class ethos and were very pleased with the result - they know that it is going to help them to become a brilliant team! In Copperfield class, the children wrote about their families, the school and their beliefs, ready to make a beautiful 'All about me' books.

In Year One, we have also been sharing information about ourselves and learning to work well together. Mr Oxenham was impressed by the way in which the children used their ball skills to play some team activities and, in Bumble class, Mrs Jenkins and I have been delighted to see children putting their writing and colouring skills to good use when talking about the book 'Elmer'.

We were also lucky to receive our annual visit from Mrs Treasure, who visits the school to bring us some bread that she kindly bakes for us each year. We learnt about harvest and how this is a time for thanksgiving, where we show our gratitude for all of the food that we have.

Next week, we are looking forward to our trip to Kew Gardens - please remember to complete the permission form online if you haven't yet done so!

Ms Alcock, Assistant Headteacher (Head of Key Stage 1)

Early Years
As the summer holidays are now a distant memory, the children are very quickly getting to know their new spaces and make new friends. The children in Nursery have continued to settle, growing in confidence to say goodbye to parents and carers and enjoy their days. The staff in Nursery have been particularly impressed with the children's interest in coming together as a group.

The children in Reception have been learning all about how to be super listeners. It is amazing the sounds you can hear if you really tune in and listen carefully to the world around you, for just a moment. We have also been exploring the world of numbers, why they are important and what they look like. We have been very impressed with the children's ability to recognise numbers and count groups of objects accurately.

We also had our first French sessions with Miss. Lucille and our first art sessions with Mr. Yusef. Please have a look outside the classrooms for some fabulous examples of portraits that the children have been completing. We have also been very impressed with the home learning that is coming back to school! Please take time over the weekend to complete this in your child's home learning book, as we will be sharing these next week.

Ms. Henderson, Head of Early Years

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Charles Dickens Primary School · Toulmin Street · London · Southwark, SE1 1AF · United Kingdom