WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

SANDIWAY PRIMARY
SCHOOL
Number 6

Autumn Term 2015

www.sandiway.cheshire.sch.uk

Wednesday 14th October 2015

admin@sandiway.cheshire.sch.uk

01606 883298

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Friday 16th October

Year 6 Charity Day
The Year 6 have been busy
preparing for an afternoon and
evening for themselves and their
parents, where they will be raising
money to support St Lukes
Hospice.

Wednesday 21st
October
Y5 are exploring the book How the Raven Stole the Sun as
they celebrate the Native American Culture. This has
prompted some lovely writing from the children - here seen
writing a diary from the point of view of the raven...

Thoughts from the week

We all know the importance of
keeping our children safe. As parents,
we probably feel like we are nagging
about crossing roads carefully, not
speaking to unfamiliar people, being
careful with sharp knives in the
kitchen, etc. As a school, we are very
aware of all the aspects of
safeguarding as we take our legal
duties very seriously.

do you let your children use their

tablets/phones unsupervised?

do they have exposure to social

media (Snapchat, Twitter, etc) on
their personal devices?

the friends that are made through

games on Xbox/PS4/etc - are they
really friends? Do you actually
know them, to meet in person?

In recent times, these responsibilities

seem to have blurred; we all need to
support each other with keeping our
children safe on the Internet, playing
age-appropriate games and using
social media in a responsible way.

do you know how to make

changes to parental settings?

do you have open conversations

about Internet use?

how de-sensitised do you feel you

are to events in the news? Are
your children also de-sensitised?

This week, I have been spending a lot

of time making assessments about the
risk to extremism and radicalisation
that our children are exposed to. You
might not consider the risk to be high
- and in many respects, I would agree
with you. However, the more I thought
about it, the greater the risk
developed. I would like to ask you to
consider for a short time:

We will be supporting you with some

of these thoughts through an
information evening and information
on our school website in the coming
weeks.

PTA Halloween Disco

Please see fliers that have been
sent home today for full details.

Thursday 22nd
October
English Information Evening
for Reception and KS1
Parents
More information overleaf. We hope
this will be a very useful evening
(about an hour) for parents to gain
information and understanding
about reading and phonics in our
school. The evening will be
presented by our school sta and a
literacy consultant who has been
working with our school. We will
have some lovely examples of work
to share with you during the
evening.

An easy way to support the

school
Please visit
www.easyfundraising.org.uk/
causes/sandiwaypta/ and make
your purchases at a very wide
range of online retailers. The school
will receive a small amount of
money with each purchase at no
additional cost to you!

School events

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Can I remind you that children

should not be left
unaccompanied at the
beginning of the school day. The
bell goes at 8.45am (registers are
taken at 8.55am) which is when
we welcome the children into
school and take responsibility for
them. Before this time, children
should be accompanied by an
adult. We appreciate that you trust
older children to wait on their own
after you drop them at school, but
they should not be on school
premises too early (certainly not
before 8.35am). On the odd
occasion that you do need to drop
children any earlier, we appreciate
being informed so that we can
support you in their safety.
As the weather starts to get colder
and wetter, we anticipate more
parents using their cars to come
to school. This puts additional
pressure on the Parish Car Park.
Please take extra care to park
safely, drive slowly and only use
the drop-o zone for dropping o.
Please park responsibly on the
road, not blocking pavements and
drive ways. The safety of our
children is everyones
responsibility.

Homework
Over the last few weeks, a few parents have spoken
to me about homework: some say there is too
much...some say there is not enough. Some say its
too hard...some say its too easy. The same is true
when I start to look at the results of the parent
questionnaire - some parents talking about this being
an important life skill, others making the point that
primary school children are too young for homework. I
know from my own experience with my own children it
can either be a battle or a pleasure (often depending
on the activity and which of my children it is!).
As a school, we have looked at the homework
carefully and we are trying to achieve a balance in the
amount that is given and the reasons for it being
given. Each of the classes have a slightly dierent
expectation as the children are of dierent ages. We

expect all children in the school to have some reading

experience at home. In addition, the importance of
learning number bonds, time tables facts and number
facts is highlighted. We alternate between English and
mathematics homework and also use menu choices
for the older classes to give an element of choice in
the homework. This can also help when weekends are
full of family times, which I know is also very precious.
We do ask parents to support their child and the
teachers with the homework. We fully recognise that
some children dont like some aspects of homework,
but it is important that we teach the children the right
attitudes now so that as they get older, they continue
to apply themselves in their studies and do the things
that they dont always want to get done its just one
of those life skills that we all have to learn!