A Message from Miss Cooksley
Welcome to the bulletin of the week. We hope you find the information informative and useful.
Briar Hill Primary School is extremely deserving of the wonderful write up in Chronicle and Echo. We couldn’t be prouder of the children, staff and community. Educating hearts and minds is my very simple mantra of a school built on love, and we're sure you'll agree that it works beautifully.
Last week was yet another incredibly successful one for all of our children. All the adults in school have prepared and provided wonderful experiences and learning opportunities for our children from trips to Hazard Alley, to making scientific observations in the school grounds, to accessing the woodland classroom, to building fraction walls, to imagining distant beaches and developing vocabulary, to even considering global trade- it has been a week filled with high quality learning opportunities for everyone!
Over the next coming days, you will also receive the Spring Term's newsletters from our Subject Leaders. These newsletters provide information about each subject within school and provide a whole school overview. In addition to this, the newsletters will also offer support for parents and carers, with links and ideas about what you can do at home to support your child.
Briar Hill rated OUTSTANDING!
' a culture of excellence' (Ofsted, November 2022)
Attendance Matters
Your child’s attendance at school each day is important – every day counts. We place a high value on classroom based learning at Briar Hill and expect every parent to share this commitment by supporting your child to attend each day and arrive on time. We ensure that from the start of school at 8.45 am, fast paced learning is taking place within all our classrooms and because of this, if your child is absent, they are likely to miss out on significant learning that day.
Government research has shown the impact that just a handful of days absence each year has on primary aged children’s attainment and progress. Below we have included a simple guide for parents indicating what each level of attendance means and hours of learning lost:
Our overall attendance for this week is 94.4%
We’re here to help! Your child’s learning and attendance at school is also important to us. Please let the school know as soon as possible if you require any support to ensure your children arrival at school or, if you know of any issues, home or school related, which may be preventing your child from attending each day. Thank you for your continued support to ensure your child attends school, on time, every day. If you require any further information or would like to discuss this further, please do not hesitate to contact Miss Leslie (Attendance Lead).
Our Uniform Expectations
The basic Briar Hill uniform consists of:
- Briar Hill logo grey jumper or cardigan (available from Karl Sports)
- plain white polo-shirt or plain white shirt
- black trousers or knee length skirt
- black shoes (not trainers)
- blue check summer dresses or smart black shorts (only in summer months)
- a Briar Hill school book bag
- Year 5-6 - will be given a teal tie - please see the office if you need to reorder one.
Our PE Uniform
- plain white t-shirt
- black shorts or trousers
- jumper or jacket can be worn outside
- trainers or plimsolls
A Lens into Learning at Briar Hill
In Year 6, the children had a wonderful time designing and creating their very one rainforest fruit drinks in preparation for their persuasive letter writing!
In Year 3, we are coming to the end of our first fractions unit. The children have worked hard to understand, identify and compare fractions and use mathematical vocabulary. The children created their own fraction walls and used them to compare equivalent fractions.
The Year 2 children have had an amazing time Hazard Alley and have learned so much understanding and so many valuable skills that will help them in the future.
We couldn’t be prouder of our talented Nursery children. They are super artists!
Reception loved exploring the ice this week at woodland classroom. They made dinosaur nests from natural materials linked to our T4W story ‘ The Little Dinosaur'
Year 5 are loving their weekly Ukelele lessons with NMPAT! We’re starting to string some tunes together now! Amazing work Year 5!
Year 1 have been gathering ideas ready for writing a sense poem in T4W. We listened to relaxing sounds of that you might find at the beach and looked at some images. The children are excited to write tomorrow!
Year 4 looked at trade and how far many of the products they use have come before arriving in their homes. We then played a game about the import of bananas.
Year 6 to be added
Take a Tour of our School
Messages from the Junior Leadership Team
Digital Leaders
Our digital leaders are keen to support children to continue to stay safe online and are going to be launching a project over this term to help the children understand PEGI ratings and why children shouldn’t use Social Media, or web based apps like WhatsApp. The digital leaders are going to be putting on an assembly, as well as a class based lesson to support the children and they will also be sending some information home too.
Please continue to look out for the updates regarding this project, as it will really help all of your family community.
Celebrations
Star of the Week
A huge congratulations to all the children who have been presented with a star of the week award. You are all shining role models and the school is incredibly proud of you all. Well done and THANK YOU.
- Nursery - Rosie
- Year R McKee – Mahrosh and Alex
- Year R Donaldson – Savannah
- Year 1 Rosen – Ariana
- Year 1 Ahlberg – Macey
- Year 2 Potter – Max
- Year 3 Dahl – Emilio
- Year 3 Horowitz – Ana Sue
- Year 4 Rowling – Adil
- Year 5 Tolkien – Ruby
- Year 5 Morpurgo – Declan
- Year 6 Pullman – Mia
Excellent Behaviour and Attitude Award from Senior Leadership Team
Lorita - Year 4
Reading Rocks Winners
- 1st place - Year 1 Ahlberg
- 2nd place - Year 3 Dahl
- 3rd place - Year 1 Rosen
Attendance Winners
- 1st place - Year 1 Rosen
- 2nd place - Nursery
- 3rd place - Year 5 Morpurgo
Behaviour Winners
- 1st place - Year 4 Rowling
- 2nd place - Year 3 Dahl
- 3rd place - Year 5 Tolkien
Uniform
The class who made the best effort with wearing the correct uniform this week is Year 3 Horowitz - well done!
Mr Bump
The class with the fewest accidents this week are Year 5 Morpurgo – Well done!
Handwriting Award
- Year R McKee – Messiah
- Year R Donaldson – Zofia
- Year 1 Rosen – Haider
- Year 1 Ahlberg – Luca
- Year 2 Potter – Zahran
- Year 3 Dahl – Aleksandar
- Year 3 Horowitz – Amelia
- Year 4 Rowling – Ayaan
- Year 5 Tolkien – Sumaiya
- Year 5 Morpurgo – Timas
- Year 6 Pullman – Nina
Positive Points
How can you be rewarded for being positive?
Being POSITIVE is so important here at Briar Hill. Having brilliant behaviour is a skill for life and we support children in this. Children can earn these positive points throughout the school day. Once they reach each threshold, they will be awarded a special certificate. At the end of the academic year, the bronze, silver and gold winners will all receive a special treat!
Bronze Certificate Winners
- Faith Year 3
- Paddy Year 3
- Renesmae Year 3
- Aleksandar Year 3
- Cecilia Year 3
- Liliana Year 3
- Amelia Year 3
- Matteo Year 3
- Retaj Year 3
- Isabella Year3
- Ion Year 3
- Shai Yaer 3
Reading Rocks at Briar Hill
At Briar Hill Primary School, we expect all children to read at home five times per week for 20 minutes. Reading is promoted, within school, in a number of ways, including reading for pleasure sessions, class novel time and the DRET Reads reading for pleasure challenge.
Reading books are sent out on a Friday and are to be returned on a Thursday. We expect that all home reading to be recorded within your child's reading log, this allows us to monitor reading at home and also helps to decide which class wins our weekly reading competition 'Reading Rocks'.
House Teams
The house system is an integral part of Briar Hill and is predominately utilised during inter-school competitions, each with a different focus.
Our children are proud to be part of their house teams. Every child and member of staff is allocated to one of four houses, which they then support. Our houses teams are grouped vertically which enables children to socialise and engage with peers and staff beyond their everyday environment. It is an essential part of school life as it facilitates a growing community spirit and enables children to participate collectively, involving children from all year groups who are contributing to something bigger than themselves.
It was important for the house teams to be named after relevant, diverse and inspiring individuals, from different backgrounds. Therefore, the houses are all named after four successful artists. These artists each have a different discipline within art, they are: Gormley, Hockney, Banksy, Wiltshire. The House captains each year are members of Year 6.
Food Allergy Information
Please remember that at Briar Hill children are not allowed to have nuts or nut products at school. If staff see products containing nuts, the will need to remove these. This is in order to protect pupils at school who have nut allergies.
Dates for the Diary
- Wednesday 25th January - Year 5 Royal Opera House Trip
- Monday 30th January - Special Day to remember DYLAN - Mufti Day as Superhero £1 donation for charity and a few stalls after school to raise funds for such a worthy cause (see letter already shared)
- Tuesday 31st January - Year 6 University of Northampton trip (letter already shared)
- Monday 6th February and Wednesday 8th February - 3.30p.m. - 6.00p.m. in the school hall
- Thursday 9th February - Safer Internet Day
- Friday 10th February - Mufti Day to raise funds for Playground equipment - £1 donation
- Friday 10th February - Year 6 Residential
- Friday 24th February - Book and Biscuit 8.45 for all parents
Home Learning
Useful Links for Parents and Carers
Sunshine Club (Breakfast Club) Stargazer Club and (After School Care)
Breakfast club and after school care is extremely popular and is regularly full. Please book in advance as we are sometimes unable to accommodate late bookings.
If you require breakfast club and after school care please read and sign the terms and conditions to ensure we can accept your booking. Bookings must be made in advance of when care is required.
Breakfast Club is available every school day during term time.
Breakfast club opens at 7.45am and closes as the school day starts at 8.45 am. The club costs £3.00 per day and children are provided with a healthy choice of breakfasts and drinks.
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