Please find our September Newsletter here
News from Ms.Stewart
It has been a very busy half term and our children have blown us away with their hard work and fantastic enthusiasm. We have been delighted to have Ms Michaela Calder working with us three days each week as a Higher Level Teaching Assistant. In addition, are also delighted to have Mrs Hannah Coe working in the office at Harbottle and Thropton across the week, joined by Mrs Katherine Singer.
In school we have started to use Class Dojo points to reward excellent behaviour and attitude to learning. The children have responded really well to this. Each class has a number target to reach collectively and they then earn a treat of a movie afternoon with snacks before the October half term. Each week, there is a Class Dojo Champion who receives a certificate and gets on the Class Dojo Wall of Fame display. Last week’s winners were James and Jessica. When a child is awarded a Dojo you are sent a notification. The Class Dojo system is completely free; both for you and us to use and so please do not sign up for any of the payment schemes which allow you to award Dojo points as this is being used to reward excellent behaviour and attitude.
You will see that children are awarded Dojo points for a variety of reasons such as excellent reading, Marvellous Maths and phonics. Likewise, children can be awarded minus points for negative behaviour. We award these negative points if behaviour has not been at a high standard. If the incident is serious enough, they can be awarded yellow cards (warning) or red cards. Such instances would include hitting, kicking or using bad language. The cards are just like those used in football and provide a visual reminder of our expectations. If your child receives a red card then you will be contacted via telephone or face to face to explain why. If your child receives a yellow card then you will be contacted via email to explain why. The children have responded brilliantly to this and are very motivated by the cards and Dojo points.
Our upcoming Harvest Festival is on Thursday 23rd October and you are invited to come into school for some Harvest celebrations from 2:30pm. In light of this we are accepting harvest festival donations. We will send these donations to the Alnwick Foodbank where they will go to families in need.
We had a very special visit this week from the police who came in to talk to the children about car safety and the importance of wearing seat belts. Children were invited to walk under a Child Safety Seat Bridge to see if they needed to wear a normal seat belt or by law, use a booster seat. They were given a coloured sticker to confirm the outcome in either red or green.
In English the children have been investigating mysterious sightings of dragons in the area! We surveyed our school and found that a dragon had made a nest and laid eggs in the school garden! We recorded our findings and sent them into the BBC News team who rescinded with information about the Harbottle Ridge-Back dragon! We have all become ‘dragonologists’ by learning lots of facts about different types of dragons. We are going to use this to write an information leaflet about a dragon.
In Maths, we have been learning about Place Value and have been using number lines to help us understand the order of numbers. Year 4 has been looking at numbers as big as 10,000! The Bears have been looking at sorting objects and this has also linked into our Science lessons.
Over the summer, there has been some sorting out of the library area and so the children have now been enjoying some library time both in the mornings before school and after school. Our new librarian Peter has taken on the role with diligence and we have been impressed with his hard work. We would like to take the opportunity to say well done to our pupils and you at home for helping to support them in their reading journey.
There will also be the half termly sports festival at Dr Thomlinson Middle School for all to attend. Every Monday, the children are swimming at Willowburn Leisure Centre and they have been working hard in all of their strokes – well done!
We look forward to seeing you at the Harvest Festival.
