Mrs Taylor starts on 1st December 2018

Dear Parents and Carers,

Following the announcement that Mrs Sharon Taylor has been appointed as our new Headteacher, I am very pleased to confirm that she will join us officially as from the 1st December 2018. Given that this is a Saturday, her first day in school will be Monday 3rd December 2018.

I know as parents and carers you will be keen to meet Mrs Taylor, and she is keen to meet as many of you as possible. With this in mind she will be attending both parent evening’s on 27th November and 29th November, and will also be at the Friends of Stanmore Christmas Fair.

In order to help ensure we have a smooth and effective handover in the leadership of the school, Mr Johnson will remain with us until the end of term, working with Mrs Taylor for a number of days each week.

These are exciting times for us, as we continue to move forward driving continuous improvements for the children and their learning, and work to ensure everyone in our school community is the BEST that they can be.

Yours faithfully,

Chris Lindsay
Chair of Governors

Anti-bullying week: 12th - 16th November 2018

Dear Parents and carers,

At present there is much national concern about bullying and how to prevent it. As part of our work to develop all children’s social, emotional and behavioural skills, we are holding a special focused week, to think about anti-bullying and how to treat others with kindness. 

I would like to emphasise that this is not because we have any more bullying than other schools. It is a planned part of the PSHE Curriculum that takes place every year at this time.

During the week, children’s timetables may change slightly, although they will continue to follow the National Curriculum. Most of their lessons during the week will have a focus on helping them to develop the skills, understanding and confidence to recognise and act when they see or experience bullying. The lessons will be varied and involve the children in many fun activities linked to this year’s anti-bullying theme, ‘Choose respect’ by designing and carrying out surveys, drama, dance, art, using and composing interactive stories, making books, reading and writing poetry. 

To share and enjoy all the work the children will have done, we will be holding special outcome assemblies. We would very much like to invite you to share these assemblies with your child’s class.

Assembly 1 for Juniper Class (Mrs Jones), Rowan Class (Mr Cascarini), Willow Class (Miss Hurley), Sycamore Class (Miss Norris), Beech Class (Miss Kingshott) and Oak Class (Miss Reed).

Assembly 2 for Maple Class (Miss Young), Hazel Class (Miss Bryce), Birch Class (Mrs Haumann), Aspen Class (Mrs Horkan) and Elm Class (Mrs Kempson).

Additionally, we will be holding a non-uniform day on Friday 16th November, when all children and adults working in the school are invited to wear blue to show their support for anti-bullying week. 

Your child may be bringing home some information and activities for you to share, talk about and enjoy at home. We look forward to welcoming you to the children’s assembly and working as partners with you in this important area.

With best wishes,

Liz Jones

PSHE Subject Leader

Cakes make money - £225 in fact

The FoS want to say "Wow"! What a fantastic sale! I don't think Harrods on Boxing Day could be any busier! Thanks to all the volunteers who served the fantastic number of children, parents and carers.

Thanks to everyone who baked cakes and a special mention to Jeanette Faulkner for spending weeks organising all the books, Helen Sumner for sorting through our secondhand uniform donations and Jen Lockwood for stepping in on my behalf. 

We made a booktastic, cakemendous, uniformazing £225!

Thank you, Rachel.

Year 1 - gaining traction this half term

We have had a very busy start to the second half of the autumn term! We have started our new topic, ‘Toy Story’, and have very much enjoyed reading ‘Traction Man’, which our current writing unit is based on. Traction Man has many different adventures and we have explored the exciting nouns, verbs and adjectives used to describe them. The children have also been learning about using the suffixes ‘ing’ and ‘ed’, and thinking of different synonyms (huge, large, enormous, gigantic instead of ‘big’). Next week we will be planning, writing and editing a new adventure for Traction Man, based in our classrooms! We can’t wait to read the amazingly creative ideas your children come up with!

In maths, we have been working on number and place value, partitioning 2-digit numbers into tens and ones, and using this knowledge to compare and order 2-digit numbers. We have also been learning to read and write numbers to 20 and apply these skills to a variety of different problems.  Next week we will be learning about money, revisiting addition and subtraction, and practising fluency and problem solving with these skills. 

On Tuesday 6th November, we had a wonderful day out at Milestones Museum in Basingstoke where we learnt more about toys and games. We started to develop our skills of historical enquiry and chronology by comparing and contrasting old and modern toys, sorting toys from ‘then’ and ‘now’, and making a timeline of toys. We handled the artefacts carefully, noting the different colours and materials. The children behaved beautifully; this was commented on by other visitors to the museum. Many thanks to the parents/carers who accompanied us on the trip too!

In music, we are continuing with our ‘voice’ unit of work and are busy preparing for our concert on Tuesday 11th December.

We have started our ‘Book Club’ sessions in guided reading, which the children have settled into nicely. During these sessions, they will be working on their reading, phonic skills, comprehension, find/retrieve and prediction/inference skills. Book Club happens daily, apart from Wednesdays.

We are participating in the national Anti-Bullying week from 12 – 16 November and will be enjoying a range of activities around the theme of ‘choose respect’. You are warmly invited to see the results of our hand work on Friday 16th November at one of two assemblies (please see the newsletter for the time for Juniper and Maple classes).

Very many thanks for supporting your child’s learning at home. It is very pleasing to see so many of the spelling, homework and home learning activities completed. If you have any questions about homework, please do let us know.

A reminder that parents’ evenings are coming up and we can make appointments for you on our iPads, so please catch us after school to make an appointment.

As always, if you have questions, comments or concerns about your child’s learning, please do let us know as soon as possible - we will be able to make an appointment to meet with you after school.

Our new Headteacher

Dear Parents and Carers,

In July I wrote to inform you that we had started the recruitment process to find a new permanent Headteacher, and that we expected to be in a position to appoint someone in the Autumn term, with a view to them starting at the beginning of the Spring or Summer term.

On behalf of the governing body, I am delighted to announce that we have successfully concluded the recruitment process and that Mrs Sharon Taylor has been appointed as our permanent Headteacher.

Mrs Taylor brings a wealth of experience as a leader in education to our school.  She is currently a Primary Phase Inspector for Hampshire County Council, spent five years as Headteacher at Colden Common Primary, and several years as Headteacher at East Meon Primary before that.

Mr Johnson will continue to lead our school and be our Interim Headteacher until Mrs Taylor arrives, which we expect to be in time for the start of Spring Term.

I know you would like to join me in welcoming Mrs Taylor to our school.  Parents and carers will have the opportunity to meet with her in the coming weeks.

We look forward to working with Mrs Taylor to deliver our mission of providing purposeful and irresistible learning where our children are inspired to thrive and everyone is the BEST that they can be.

Yours faithfully,

Chris Lindsay
Chair of Governors

Condover Hall Residential Trip

Thank you to all the parents who managed to make it to the briefing meeting about the Condover Hall residential trip.

You can view the overview presentation we shared with parents and take a look at the videos below.

SPEAK choose their charity

On Friday 28th September 2018 SPEAK held their second meeting of the year where they voted for the committee members and discussed how things have been going since September. We would like to share with you highlights from the minutes of their first meeting.

Election of Chair and Assistant Chair

Sam gave a wonderful speech outlining why he would make a great chair of SPEAK and was duly elected.

Katie and Karra put themselves forward for the role of Assistant Chair and gave such great speeches that SPEAK decided to elect both to share the role!

Eben and Martyn were elected as secretaries and will take the minutes, type them up and distribute them. (A very responsible job!)

Adopted charity

Two charities were nominated by Karra and Katie; British Diabetic society and Young Carers. Both girls gave compelling reasons why the charities should be chosen and by a narrow margin, Winchester Young Carers was chosen as this years’ adopted charity. Winchester Young Carers does some fabulous work supporting young people who have a caring role at home.

Later in the year SPEAK will organise a fundraiser for Young Carers.

What is going well

SPEAK reported that the children were really enjoying their learning.

They really liked the behaviour system because you had to work hard to move up the traffic lights and they felt it was encouraging children to behave well.

The children reported that they enjoyed getting the Headteacher’s merit awards and this encouraged them to work hard.

The children were enjoying the PPA sessions with MLT coaches and enjoyed the range of activities they offered.

Even Better If ….

SPEAK reps reported that they would like more structured activities to play at break times and would like to go in the Quad area more.

The children reported really enjoying the Golden Mile track and asked if they could do it daily, with the scores recorded.

They also reported they are meeting with Mr Johnson to discuss these two points and will share how they get on after their next meeting.

Cake sale raises £213.21

A huge, sunny thanks to everyone who supported yesterday's cake sale. We had the most fantastic selection of cakes and biscuits, KS1 are clearly a talented bunch of bakers!

Whether you set up, baked or bought, we raised a wonderful £213.21 - what a great start to our fundraising year!

Assessment information evening

This evening was for parents and carers, and gave an overview of assessment within our school.

Mr Johnson and the team gave an overview of the curriculum, the Hampshire Assessment Model (HAM), Assessment for Learning (AfL), our data milestones and phases, Mastery and SATs.

During the evening there were a number of resources highlighted. Links to those resources can be found below.

English

The National Curriculum for English sets out the statutory programmes of study and attainment targets for English at key stages 1 and 2. The two statutory appendices – on spelling and on vocabulary, grammar and punctuation – give an overview of the specific features that should be included in teaching the programmes of study.

Useful external links:

First 100 words | Next 200 words | Support for spelling | Phonics terminology | Grammar glossary | BBC Bitesize - Key Stage 1 English | BBC Bitesize - Key Stage 2 English

Maths

The National Curriculum for Maths sets out the statutory programmes of study and attainment targets for Maths at key stages 1 and 2.

Useful external links:

MyMaths | BBC Bitesize - Key Stage 1 Maths | BBC Bitesize - Key Stage 2 Maths

Please be aware that whilst every care is taken to monitor the security and content of the links on this page, we are not responsible for the contents or reliability of any other websites to which we provide a link and do not necessarily endorse the views expressed within them.

Parent Governor Vacancy

Due to a recent resignation, we have a vacancy for a parent governor.

Stanmore Primary School has always aimed for a partnership with parents which undoubtedly brings great benefits to the children. One of the most significant ways you can help in promoting this aim is to volunteer to be a parent governor. 

The governing body's main tasks are:

• to ensure that the school has a clear vision, ethos and strategic direction;

• to hold the headteacher to account for the educational performance of the school and its pupils;

• to oversee the financial performance of the school and making sure its money is well spent. 

Parent governors are welcomed as valued members of the team and play a vital role in ensuring the governing body is aware of the views of parents and the local community. We feel sure that there are parents prepared to take on this important role and give their time and commitment to helping us to continue to improve the school's performance.

In looking to fill this vacancy the governors of the school have identified the following skills, experience and attributes that they feel would help strengthen the governing body:

• experience in education and/or curriculum development

• experience in HR

• experience in customer service / hospitality / communications

Training and support will be available to help you develop into the role. This will include in-house mentoring and support as well as access to external governor training. 

If you feel you can help in this capacity please download an application form or contact the school office for a copy of the form, which will need to be completed and returned to the school, care of the Headteacher, by 12.00 noon on Friday 24th May 2019.

The guidelines giving full details about how vacancies are filled can be found on the information for prospective governors on the Hampshire County Council website. You will find video, e-learning and written information on the site and all of these will provide you with further details about the role.

Please note that for the protection of children all governor appointments are subject to an identity check.

If there are more applications than vacancies, we will hold an election and you will be sent a voting paper in due course. You may return the ballot paper either via your child or by post.

Yours sincerely 

Chris Lindsay
Chair of Governors