Volume 5 Issue 14 Newsletter Date 27.3.07

How Can You Help?
One of the questions that we are frequently asked in school is “How can I help my child with their learning?”
As a result of this, we want to let you know about a fantastic government website just for parents. The website includes lots of vital information for parents and carers including articles on behaviour and discipline, education and learning. The website includes some very informative publications which are available to be downloaded. These include:
A guide for supporting reading for parents of primary school children
*Getting the most from school reports
*How is your child doing at school?
*Making the most of time with your child
*Making the most of formal meetings with teachers
*Making the most of parents evenings
*Free early years education and the Foundation Stage
*Help your child to discover

The link for the website is on the newsletter links and on our school website.
We hope you find it useful and fun!

Please Help Our Neighbours
I am sorry yet again to report that I have received and continue to receive letters of complaint from local residents and parents collecting their child by foot, about inconsiderate parking.
Local residents report drives being blocked, grass verges being churned up and verbal
abuse from some of our parents.
Parents who have walked to school have also expressed concern about the inconsiderate parking and attitudes of some of our parents whilst waiting for children to leave school.
I am currently in discussion with the Highways Agency about Monteney Crescent and how possible solutions could reduce the parking and therefore problems we have on a very regular basis.
I do hope that with better weather people may decide to walk to school so, at least in the short term, we have a reduction in parking problems.


Congratulations To all our Family Learners
Earlier this term we were delighted to hear that a significant number of our family learners had either received recognition and certificates for their work in school or been awarded with Family Learning Awards at a recent Town Hall celebration.
Congratulations to Andrea Lamb, Michelle Hyatt and Sharon Kewish for their achievements.
Please look out for more family learning opportunities coming your way after the Easter break, including family learning in our new resource—the ex building supervisors house.

Developments on Site
Following ongoing discussions with the local authority and with all your comments regarding the possible use of the ex-building supervisors house on site, I am delighted to report that very soon you should see some major developments taking place there to benefit the whole school community.
The Local Authority have finally given us the go ahead to develop, in the first instance, the house to accommodate our family learning; develop meeting spaces, one
to one consultation rooms and the possibility of a base for all our parents activities until at least September. Some of our family learners have already volunteered their services to get the house up and running.
If you would be available, after Easter, and would be happy to come along and help “transform” the building into a space fit for a variety of uses, please pass your name to the office. We would love to hear from any painters or keen DIY’ers who would be happy to give a few hours of their time.
I look forward to the house being opened soon after Easter and us all benefiting from the dedicated learning space it will provide.

News In Brief

Easter Activities
As we are about to start a 2 week break from school I would like to remind all parents about accessing the Monteney Primary School website. If you use the address above you will find a lot of information and links to other websites with ideas about how to keep your child interested over the coming weeks

This Friday 30th March we break up for our Easter Holiday. School re-opens for all pupils on Tuesday 17th April as Monday 16th is an INSET Day for all staff in school.
Dinner money will be £6.40 for those 4 days.

Volume 5 Issue 13 Newsletter Date 7.3.07

City Award Winners

For the fourth year running I am delighted to report that nominations made for a number of categories in the Sheffield City Achievement Awards have been successful.
Representatives from school have won awards in 3 categories, Primary Teachers, KS1 Outstanding Progress and Primary Projects group.

As many of you know Jane Marshall and Nova Barnes not only teach Spanish at Monteney but in an innovative project
they work in 4 of our other local schools and also at Yewlands secondary. This work, part of the family of schools work has been recognised locally and nationally as outstanding practice so I am delighted they have jointly won the award.

Dean Wilson (Y2) was also nominated earlier this year for his hard work and effort with Mrs Trigg and his class teacher attitude to learning and using knowledge gained in lessons to support other learning.
Our final winners are the children who took part in the Blogging project with Mr Winter.
Mr Winter nominated the children for their enthusiasm and commitment to the project. All their efforts are now being used as examples of best practice.
All our award winners will receive their awards at the city hall on April 26th at a special award ceremony.

Uniform Consultation
I would like to thank all parents for the recent uniform consultation returns. We received 104 returns which gives us a good indication of peoples views. Based on the returns we have I will be consulting with staff and the pupils at student council about the findings of the consultation and how we move towards formalising our current school uniform.
94% of returns agreed that school should have a full compulsory school uniform and that this should take effect from September 2007. There was clearly mixed opinion about the colour
of the “bottom half” with grey, blue and denim receiveing a surprisingly similar number of votes, however black was the outright favourite.
The possibility of a staff dress code was more evenly split and further discussions are needed with staff to agree on a dress code, although many of you agreed that teaching is more important!

Reading Book Amnesty
Please can you check all bedroom cupboards, book bags, shelves and under bed’s at home. We are missing a huge amount of school books and do not have the funding to replace them all. Please return any school books so they can be enjoyed by others.

Dinosaur Picture by Dan & Jack Y3

News In Brief

RED NOSE DAY
Next Friday 16th is Red Nose Day.
Look out for information about how we can help support this charity event helping our pupils gain an understanding of how they can help others.
Please help us by joining in the fun.

Grease Is The Word
Calling all John Travolta and Olivia Newton John Fans!
For later in the Summer term (July 07) the family of schools are planning a performance of Grease.
Staff across the schools will collaborate on the production and we hope it will involve staff and pupils from all schools at all stages—performing, singing, costume design, scene making, music etc.

Please look out for more news about dates and ticket sales for the performance.

Reading Book Amnesty
Please can you check all bedroom cupboards, book bags, shelves and under bed’s at home. We are missing a huge amount of school books and do not have the funding to replace them all. Please return any school books so they can be enjoyed by others.

Be A Better Neighbour
Yet again I am sorry to report that I have received numerous complaints from local residents and parents coming into school about the inconsiderate parking of cars, especially at the end of the school day on Monteney Crescent, Tyas Road and Wordsworth Avenue.
With over 430 pupils leaving school at the end of each school day I appreciate that parents, especially in bad weather, want to park as closely as they can to school to enable a quick get away.
This however is having a huge impact on the local residents who have reported their drive being blocked, grass verges churned up and some abusive language directed at them from some of our parents.