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22 Feb Mr Choueke’s Newsletter – February 2022
Dear Parents and Carers,
Welcome back to what promises to be an extremely exciting and busy half term.
Festival of Reading
Reading has been a focus of our school development plan for a year; we have been working diligently to update our stock of books in school, ensuring they are representative of our school community, and that they are current, exciting and inviting. A huge amount of time has also been invested into further developing our reading curriculum, including dedicating time to the professional development of all our staff in the teaching of reading and phonics.
I am extremely excited to announce that throughout March, together with Coleridge Families (our Parents Association), we are hosting a Festival of Reading, with a number of exciting events to take place. You will have already received publicity about our story writing and poetry competition, ‘Coleridge Loves Reading.’ All children are invited to submit a story or a poem, which should be no more than 500 words. The deadline for the competition is Thursday 3rd March. All the entries will be collated into a special book that will go on sale later this year.
World Book Day is on Thursday 3rd March, and children can come into school dressed as their favourite book character. To help us celebrate World Book Day, throughout March, there will also be a number of author and illustrator visits in school.
We are also going to be relaunching our story podcasts series and are asking that parents, staff and children record themselves reading their favourite stories.
On Saturday 26th March, we are holding a Book Swap event in the playground on Coleridge West – please do put this date in your diaries! In the run up to the book swap, we are asking that if you have books your children no longer read, or are too old for, you bring them into school during the week beginning 21st March so that they can be sorted, ready for this event. More details to follow.
From 4th to 7th March we are fundraising for new book corners for all of our classrooms. Currently, we have a range of old furniture which make up our book corners. We want to create and make bespoke and inviting reading spaces in all our classrooms. All money raised will pay for new furniture and books to fill the corners. More information on this to follow.
I would like to especially thank Coleridge Families for all their support and time planning these exciting events for us. It has been difficult for us to come together as a whole school community over the last two years, but now, as the situation seems to be improving, it would be lovely to see as many parents as possible participate and join in all events planned. Thank you for your support.
Parents Questionnaire
Thank you to those of you who responded to our most recent parental survey – we are very grateful for the strong response rates we receive, as your views are invaluable when developing and shaping our ideas and thinking. We have now extended the deadline for the survey to Friday 25th February.
Children’s Voice
As mentioned in my talk last term, and in previous emails to you all, it is vital that we, as a school, equip and enable our children to be able to thrive and effectively play a part in shaping their school community and wider society. In my last newsletter, and in my Headteacher’s talk, I spoke about our new Eco committee and our ambition to become a Green Flag School. We had a huge number of children all wanting to be involved in this initiative. We have decided that, to begin with, there will be a committee of fifteen Year 6 children whose job it will be to create an action plan to drive the school forward in becoming more sustainable. They will also have to come up with ideas on how we can include all those other children who applied to be on the committee and who did not get chosen.
This term Mr Shiel and Mr Grimadell will be relaunching our School Council. Amongst other work, the children will be discussing ways to promote the school’s core values.
Musical Development at Coleridge
Over the course of the last couple of years, we have been working to ensure we have both an exciting and innovative music curriculum at Coleridge. All staff have participated and received training to better their teaching of music. All year groups now have a set of instruments which have been bought to support lessons. Such is the dedication of the teachers, all Year 3 teachers have been learning to play the ukulele and are now teaching regular Uke lessons to all children in their classes.
There are regular singing assemblies, and the choir and the orchestra are back rehearsing weekly following on from an extended break due to Covid. We continue to work with Haringey Music Service, and their peripatetic teachers are in Coleridge weekly teaching groups of children a variety of instruments. If you would like your child/ren to learn an instrument, please contact Haringey Music Service directly at Haringey Music Service. Rehearsals to participate in Haringey’s annual concert at the Royal Albert Hall are underway. More details on this to follow.
Punctuality
Thank you to all those of you who have made a real effort to improve your child’s punctuality. Please ensure that your children all arrive in school at 8.55am so they can be ready and in the classroom by 9am to begin their school day. Persistent lateness leads to a significant loss in learning time; if your child is late, they can often struggle to catch up and participate in the lesson fully, as they have missed the introduction to a lesson. The majority of our children arrive at school early or on time, but there are still some children who arrive late to school on a regular basis. Arriving on time, ensures your child is able to settle and prepare themselves for the day ahead. When a child is late for school, it causes disruption to the teacher and other children in the class, in addition to causing your child embarrassment.
Future Events at Coleridge – Dates for Your Diaries
Online Safety talk for parents Children at Coleridge are provided with a wide variety of opportunities to increase their awareness of potential dangers online, and to develop the skills they need to act safely. We ensure children gain an understanding of what it means to behave respectfully toward others and to know that they, themselves, have the right to be treated respectfully as well.
On Thursday 24th March in the Hall in Coleridge West from 9-10am, Mr Breuer will be giving an Online Safety talk for parents and carers detailing how we teach children to live knowledgeably, responsibly and safely in a digital world as well as answering any questions you may have. For those unable to attend, there will be a video of the talk posted on the Coleridge Website shortly afterward.
This is an incredibly important area; if you would like further information, please read the blog written by Jamie Breuer and see our new Online Safety Policy on the school website.
Parent meetings this term will be taking place on 29th March and 30th March between 4-6pm online on SchoolCloud. We are aiming to return to face to face parent meetings during the summer term, but it will be in a reviewed format. More details on this to follow. Please also note that if you have a review for your child, e.g. SEND review, Well-being review, teacher review, you do not need to book to attend a SchoolCloud session.
The SEND team will be hosting a Coffee Morning in the East Hall on Thursday 31st March, 9-10.30am. There will be two presentations at the Coffee Morning – ‘How SEND works at Coleridge’ and ‘How to talk to your child about Neuro-diversity’. All interested parents are welcome. Further information to follow.
Free second-hand bike market on Friday 18th March from 8-9:30am run by an organisation called Peddle my Wheels – more info to follow.
Cultures of Coleridge Week, Healthy Living Week and Sports day – these are all events that have had to be cancelled over the past couple of years and we are really looking forward to be able to have them this year and to be able to invite you to come and join us. Please look out for further details.
The Coleridge Summer Fair will be on Saturday 25th June.
Best wishes
Leon Choueke
Headteacher