Taking Stock: 11th March 2024
My goodness, I cannot believe that we are half way through this half term and that the Easter holidays are rapidly approaching. Where does the time go?
The week beginning 26th February was Spanish week. The children took part in a project organised by the British Council called 'A View From Our Window'. Ms Donoso, our Spanish tutor, and Ms Monet, the BJS Federation Spanish lead, organised and led the week of learning. Ms Monet also ran a Spanish workshop for parents. Thank you to everyone that attended.
On Monday 26th February, we facilitated a workshop about online safety, which was run by the NSPCC.
If you were unable to attend, but would like to find out more, please click this link to watch the webinar: Online Safety Webinar.
The NSPCC also provided some helpful resources following the session. These can be found below.
As the day progressed, so too did the reading focused activities. Ms Thomas organised a day of fun, with mask making, a reading assembly and a teacher reading relay taking place throughout the day.
The day ended with a wonderful book swap. Every child, who donated a book, was issued with a voucher that they could use at the swap to get a new book.
It was a wonderful day celebrating reading, and we look forward to the next one. Thank you to Ms Thomas and the librarians for organising and running such a wonderful event.
Don't forget to spend your World Book Day vouchers.
International Women's Day
On Friday, we honoured International Women's Day. The theme for International Women's Day this year is 'Inspire Inclusion'. The aim for the day was to show that women's roles in society are essential each and every day.
This year, we asked female parents and carers to come in and talk to the children about their roles in society. Some spoke about their jobs, some spoke about hobbies and some spoke about aspirations for the future.
The aim was to show the children that we have a host of talent within the Stockwell community. There were so many wonderful Mums, Aunties, Friends, Grandmothers and Carers willing to share their experiences.
And what a wealth of life experiences was shared! We had finance professionals, surveyors, a news broadcaster, nurses, ex-nurses, auditors, carers, party planners, bakers, invigilators and so many more in to speak to the children.
Our volunteers did a brilliant job and the staff and children were full of excitement throughout the day as a result of them sharing their stories. I cannot thank them enough.
It is so daunting to be faced with a class full of children when you're not used to it, so I appreciate the efforts that went into preparing resources, printing pictures, finding unforms, creating presentations and identifying props that would engage the children.
We ended the day with our International Women's Day workshop. Children and their parents got to take part in art activities, write letters to their future selves, play a game designed to highlight the pay gap and find out about Inspirational Women. Groups of children will be continuing to explore these activities this week. Thank you to Ms Rattigan for her hard work in getting this organised.
International Women's Day at Stockwell highlighted the incredible women that are part of our community. Every single person makes a positive contribution to the Stockwell community and everyone has their part to play.
Eco Squad
The Conservation Volunteers came in to work with the Eco Squad, planting trees in the courtyard.
The squad planted the Greener Cities Pack, which is designed to limit the impact of climate change in the urban environment.
They planted:
- Crabapple trees
- Hazel trees
- Rowan trees
- Elder trees
- Dogwood trees.
Ferndale Football League
Last week, Stockwell Primary suffered two painful defeats.
Streatham Wells 2-0 Stockwell
Goals: -
MOM: Marco
Stockwell seemed to be lethargic in their approach to the ball. That meant that the Streatham Wells players had enough space to control the tempo and picked the time to score their goals. Despite Stockwell players trying to regain control of the match, they were unable to gain control.
Sudbourne 5-0 Stockwell
Goals: -
MOM: Marco
The Stockwell players started well, beginning to pressure the opposing team. They had some shots but were easily countered by the opposing goalkeeper. After a missed pass from our goalkeeper, Sudbourne scored. The Stockwell players' mindset was affected and they started to attack with no control. This left them open at the back and Sudbourne were lethal on their counterattacks.
Even though this wasn't our best round, Stockwell is still in first place tied with Streatham Wells and Loughborough.
Our monthly value for March is 'Friendship'.
A friendship is a relationship between two or more friends.
You use friendship to refer in a general way to the state of being friends, or the feelings that friends have for each other.
He struck up a close friendship with Desiree during the week of rehearsals.
After seven years of friendship, she still couldn't tell when he was kidding.
Steve really values your friendship more than anything else.
Synonyms: attachment, relationship, bond, alliance, link, association, tie
Phonics
As a school, we know the importance of getting all of our children to read well as quickly as possible, giving them the confidence to become independent readers and engaged learners. With this in mind, we have chosen the DfE validated scheme 'Essential Letters and Sounds' as our phonics scheme.
The principles of ELS are based upon:
- the delivery of high-quality first teaching with well-structured daily lesson plans
- the use of consistent terminology by teachers, children and parents
- the use of consistent resources that support effective teaching
- repetition and reinforcement of learning
- regular and manageable assessment to ensure that all children ‘keep up’ rather than ‘catch up’
Children are taught phonics lessons daily from their second week in Reception (once our Reception baseline assessment has been completed). From then on, they work through the different phases as outlined in the progression documents.
Our belief is that all children can succeed within our phonics sessions. We assess and monitor children throughout lessons and provide in lesson support to ensure no children fall behind. Regular, half-termly assessments provide us with further knowledge of the children's understanding and ensure that, should any children fall behind, we can provide timely interventions to catch them back up as quickly as possible.
Embed – The Theory and Pedagogy behind ELS
ELS teaches children to read using a systematic synthetic phonics approach. It is designed to be used as part of an early learning environment that is rich in talk and story, where children experience the joy of books and language whilst rapidly acquiring the skills to become fluent independent readers and writers.
ELS teaches children to:
- decode by identifying each sound within a word and blending them together to read fluently
- encode by segmenting each sound to write words accurately.
We know that for children at the end of Key Stage 1 to achieve the age-related expectations, they need to read fluently at 90 words per minute. As children move into Key Stage 2, it is vitally important that even those who have made slower progress are able to read age-appropriate texts independently and with fluency. For children to engage with the wider curriculum, they need to be able to read well, making inferences and drawing on background knowledge to support their
developing understanding of a text when they read. To do this, they need to be able to draw not only on their phonic knowledge but also on their wider reading and comprehension skills, each of which must be taught. The first step in this complex process is the link between spoken and written sounds.
Every ELS lesson has been designed to ensure that the minimum cognitive load is placed on the learner. The structure of the lessons allows children to predict what is coming next, what they need to do, and how to achieve success.
- 11th March - 15th March - Science Week
- 11th March - Science Parent Workshop
- 11th - 22nd March - Big Walk and Wheel
- 13th March - 1T Class Assembly
- 14th March - 1S Class Assembly
- 15th March - Red Nose Day
- 15th March - Year 3 Trip to Science Museum
- 15th March - PTA Movie Night
- 20th March - RA Class Assembly
- 21st March - RB Class Assembly
- 22nd March - Spring Enterprise Event
- 25th - 28th March - Pre-School Parent/ Teacher Consultations
- 26th and 27th March - Parent/ Teacher Consultations
- 27th March - Topic Dress Up Day
- 27th March - PTA Cake Sale
- 28th March - EYFS/ KS1 Easter Bonnet Parade
- 28th March - END OF TERM: 1:30pm
Friends of Stockwell PTA
We have an active PTA, called Friends of Stockwell, who do a brilliant job of fundraising for the school and bringing the community together. Last year, every child was given a £5 donation to reduce the cost of trips; the PTA contributed to class Christmas presents; they also raised money for vulnerable families at Christmas.
It is great to see new faces getting involved. Every parent is a Friend of Stockwell. I ask that everyone gets involved. If you can spare an hour per term (that's three hours per year), your contribution would make a huge difference.
Please email friendsofstockwell@gmail.com to get involved.
Central to raising standards in all schools and ensuring all pupils can fulfil their potential is the need for children to attend school regularly to benefit from their education.
There is a strong link between good learning, high achievement, rapid progress and developing good social skills with excellent attendance.
We want to take this opportunity to outline our expectations for school attendance this academic year.
If your child arrives at school from 9.02am they will be marked as LATE, if they arrive after 9.30am, they will be classed as “late after the register is closed” and their attendance is classed as absent for the morning session. As the registers would have already been returned to the Department for Education.
Regular poor punctuality can also have a negative effect on your child’s attendance as well as their academic learning. Being 6 minutes late each day equals 30 minutes of missed learning every week.
If your child’s attendance drops below 90%, we will need to share our concerns with the Local Authority Education Welfare Officer at Lambeth Council.
School Uniform
School uniform should be worn throughout the school day. While we do not enforce that all school uniform should be branded, children should be wearing the correct colours (white t-shirt tops, navy trousers/ skirts/ pinafore dresses, sensible black shoes). Football boots/ coloured trainers are not school uniform and should not be worn.
Children should be changing into their PE kits for PE lessons (blue or black tracksuit bottoms, plain white t-shirt, trainers). We have made arrangements for girls and boys to be able to change separately, so the expectation is that all children change for PE.
While our supplier of school uniform is WearAbouts, we do have some items available for sale from the school office. Please check with us to see if we have what you need in stock.
If you have a concern, please see your child's class teacher in the first instance. If they are unable to resolve the problem, please speak to your child's phase leader.
If they are unable to help, please see one of the school's Assistant Headteachers.
If you are still dissatisfied, please see the Acting Head of School.
We let space around the school.
You can hire the school hall, and grounds, on a regular basis or as a one off.
Need a space for a party?
Looking for a pitch for your team?
Contact the school office on:
clericalofficer2@stockwell-pri.lambeth.sch.uk
to make an enquiry.
