Mr Choueke’s Newslettter – May 2022

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome back to the new term, I hope you all had a good holiday.

Chair of Governors

Due to a change of circumstances, Lorraine Gerrard has stepped down as Chair of Governors and from the Governing Body.  While we look to appoint a successor, our current Vice-Chair Debby Kuypers has assumed the role of Acting Chair.

On behalf of the whole school community, I am sure you will join me in thanking Lorraine for the dedication, time and outstanding support she has given the school throughout her many years of involvement with the school’s Governing Body.

National Well-being Award

I am extremely proud to announce Coleridge has been shortlisted for the Pupil Mental Health Initiative of the Year category in the 2022 TES Schools Awards. The winning school won’t be announced until June; however, I am extremely proud that we have been shortlisted and recognised for all the outstanding work that Coleridge undertakes in supporting our children and families.

Curriculum update

Over the last couple of years we have been working to further develop our school curriculum to ensure that all our children continue to be engaged and enthusiastic learners. We have made great progress in all areas.

In my last newsletter, I explained about the progress we have made to date ensuring we have a fantastic music offer for all our children. To read this update, please click here

History and Geography

We have had a focus on developing our History and Geography teaching.

Our history curriculum enables our children to understand their place in the world by learning about how and where they fit in with the long, fascinating story of human development. Teaching and learning in history ensures our children are able to make sense of the similarities and differences in human experiences across time and place. Throughout their time at Coleridge children are taught about history chronologically, and look at a range of cultures and civilizations, ranging from looking at Islamic civilisations, the Vikings, up to World War 2 in Year 6. To see our curriculum map, please click here.

During geography lessons, we aim to enable our children to make sense of the world and its people, learn about places and environments, and study the relationships and processes present in our natural world. Caring is one of the school’s core values. We therefore want our children to develop a solid understanding of the impact society can have on our planet. We therefore teach children about issues such as climate change, our impact on the world’s oceans and also deforestation in the Amazon.

To see our curriculum map, please click here .

The teaching of language at Coleridge

At Coleridge, we strongly believe that the learning of Latin supports the development of deep rooted language skills and builds a strong foundation for literacy, providing our children with a solid foundation for learning other modern foreign languages when they attend secondary school.

Latin is currently taught in Year 5 and 6. We have plans to extend our Latin provision and include it in the Year 3 & 4 curriculum; we hope to have in place next year.

By teaching Latin, children develop/are taught:

• a greater understanding of grammar by exploring the Latin roots of English
• rich and diverse links to other curriculum areas, supporting children’s learning in history, geography, art, maths and English
• children study Ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, and the Classics lessons offer a different perspective on history and culture
• to a combination of written and spoken language to learn vocabulary, alongside classics education

For more information about what our children are learning in Latin please click here

There are other languages on offer at Coleridge at before and after school clubs where children have the opportunity to learn, Spanish, French and Italian. Please check the school website clubs page for more information.

Parent survey results

A parent survey was recently conducted, thank you to those of you who completed it. Below is some data from the survey.

There was positive feedback with 95% of parents reporting that their children are happy and feel safe at Coleridge. 85% feel that their child does well at the school.

The results of the survey raised an issue that some parents are not clear about the full range of subjects taught at Coleridge. Hence, in all my newsletters, I will be updating you on different areas of our curriculum. However, if you would like more information please do have a look at the learning section of our website, where you can find more information on all subjects taught by clicking here.

Historically, pre Covid-19, we ran curriculum events for parents led by staff. At these events staff presented to parents about the curriculum. We have reintroduced these events this year for parents, and have run sessions for parents on:

• Reading
• How-to-talk-to-your-child-about-neurodiversity and how SEND and Intervention work at Coleridge
• How Children at Coleridge Learn About Online Safety – Coleridge Primary School
• Head’s Welcome – Coleridge Primary School Scroll to the bottom of the page to see my presentation.

Where possible, we always record sessions for you to watch or see the slides from the presentations we run. We will of course be running more of these sessions and will keep you posted on dates.

There were parents who responded to the survey who felt that that they would like more information about how their children are doing at school. This is not a surprising result as over the last couple of years we have not been able to communicate with parents in the same way as we have historically. We will be looking at this in more detail over the course of this term. This year we have successfully used SchoolCloud to run our parent meetings and in doing so have seen an increase in the number of parents being able to attend the sessions. However, we recognise that face to face meetings are also important, and will be looking at how we can reintroduce this to our annual calendar. Teachers are currently in the process of planning and writing your child’s report to be ready for July before the final parent meetings.

Stay and play/parents visiting classrooms

Parents in Coleridge East and some year groups in Coleridge West have been invited to spend some time in their child’s classroom after drop off. It has been wonderful to be able to have you back in school and the buzz around school was fantastic on the mornings when children were showing their parent/carer round their classroom.

Reading Festival

Our month long festival of reading was a huge success, which culminated with a fantastic event in school. On the day there was a book swap, events run by authors and children’s literacy experts, plus Coleridge staff read stories for the children throughout the day. Thank you to all of you who participated or helped out on the day.

Throughout March we also ran a poetry and story writing competition for the children. All the entries have been compiled into a beautiful book which is in all classrooms and the school libraries. If you would like to buy a copy of the book, I believe there are still copies available which can be bought by clicking the following link – The Coleridge Storybook — Coleridge Families Shop

A huge thank you and well done to all the children who submitted an entry and congratulations to the winners!

Staffing update

We have had some recent changes to the staff team. Charlotte Green (part-time teaching assistant) left Coleridge at the end of the spring term to pursue her career. We were sad to say goodbye to Charlotte, but we wish her well. We welcome Sissily Waite who is now working with us as a part-time teaching assistant.

As you are already aware, Nina Grimes (deputy head) will be leaving at the end of this term as she is relocating to Yorkshire. Kyle Grimadell (Year 6 leader and teacher) will also be leaving Coleridge as he is relocating to Norfolk. Kyle has been appointed to join the senior leadership team at his new school and we are incredibly proud of him, it is a well-deserved promotion! We will miss them both, but wish them well.

Their departing, has created some job opportunities at Coleridge and we are currently in the process of recruiting some new staff to start in September. I will write to you again next half term with a full staff update.

Parent Code of Conduct

We already have a staff and volunteer Code of Conduct. We now have a new Parent Code of Conduct, for all parents; this is available on the school website. Please take a few minutes to read the new document: Code of Conduct – Coleridge Primary School

Every parent who has a child/children at Coleridge will be sent this when they first join the school.

Up and coming this term

Sports Day – Thursday 30^th June at Hornsey Cricket Club. For new parents, this is a whole school event and parents and carers are welcome to join us.  Nursery and Coleridge East (infants) children have their activities in the morning, then Coleridge West children come and join us for a picnic, before their activities in the afternoon. We will send more information about how the day runs nearer the time.

Cultures of Coleridge – week beginning Monday 4^th July – the week will provide many opportunities for children and our school community to learn more about the heritage, language and culture of one another and celebrate the cultural diversity within our school – more info to follow

Healthy Living Week – week beginning Monday 11^th July – this is a week when children get to do a huge variety of activities about the importance of mental and physical health. Past activities have ranged from, orienteering, yoga, circuit training, mindfulness, dental hygiene, plus many more.

The Coleridge Summer Fair will be on Saturday 25^th June

I look forward to seeing you at one of our many events over the course of this term.

Best wishes

Leon Choueke

Headteacher