Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our families. We have thoroughly enjoyed being back at school and working with all pupils this term. As ever, it has been an extremely busy one with lots of goings on. It has been a pleasure to see so many classes go on trips outside of school and have experiences in school. Long may this continue. We look forward to seeing all the fantastic learning they take part in from January. We wish all our families a safe and happy Christmas and cannot wait to welcome our pupils back on Wednesday January 5th 2022.
A huge thank you to the Trust - HCAT - for all their support this year. Also, we would like to thank our governing body, they have started this year as a new governing body and have already been heavily involved with school improvement. Another huge thank you to all our staff who, as ever, have worked tirelessly to ensure the best possible safety and education for all our pupils and families.
Read on to see what your children have been up to this term and what fantastic and exciting learning opportunities they have been a part of. We also have key dates for Spring term and a quick survey about our Christmas shows if you could spare 2 minutes to give us some feedback to help us continually improve...
Mrs Trickett - Head of school
As you are aware, new measures came into force on Monday 14th December 2021. We are still living in uncertain times and we thank you for your continued support with maintaining safety measures and following our risk assessment. We need to ensure our pupils, families and staff are kept safe at all times. If you would like to see the risk assessment, you can view via our website here:
As ever, we are always available if you need any assitance or advice, please call on 01226710329 or email MFPS.parents@hcacademytrust.education Thanks.
A HUGE thank you to everyone who purchased books from the Scholastic Book Fair this half term. We really appreciate you coming into school and spending money on what we like our pupils to do - read! It is vitally important that they continue to grow their love of reading and thank you so much for helping them to do this. We raised £200 in book sales this time and the book fair will return just before the Easter holidays.
I am proud to announce that we have recently been granted a large sum of money to purchase new books for our school library from the Foyle Foundation. A large injection of £5,000 will be spent on your children's love of reading. I will ask pupils which authors they love the most and purchase these books after Christmas.
Can I ask that all pupils continue to read regularly at home and swap their books in our library? We would really appreciate you looking around the house for any books with our school stamp in and returning after Christmas.
Another positive on the reading front, we have been selected as a charity to vote for in our local Tesco store at Hemsworth. From January, use your blue tokens every time you shop and vote for the Milefield reading scheme at the voting point. The more people who vote, the more money we get for even more books!
Due to many various illnesses this term, our attendance figures have fluctuated but we are confident, after the Christmas break, these will rise again to above our target of 97%. Please call school for advice, support or with any questions if your child is ill at home. We still need to remain vigilant in relation to COVID-19 and measures in place. See below for figures this term:
Week 1: 96.1%
Week 2: 95.1%
Week 3: 95.8%
Week 4: 93.2%
Week 5: 95.9%
Week 6: 96.6%
Week 7: 94.9%
Week 8: 95.9%
Week 9: 95%
Week 10: 94.4%
Week 11: 94.7%
Week 12: 93.3%
Week 13: 94.0%
Overall Attendance Autumn term: 95.5% Our target is 97%. I know we can do better from January 2022!
In class 2, we have been taking part in a range of exciting learning opportunities...
LKS2
In Year 3, we have been learning about physical features and the natural disasters which can occur around the world. Have a look at our photo grid to what else we have been up to this term.
In Mr Branigan's/Mr Watling's classes (3/4 & 4), we have been studying our local area and using aerial photographs and maps to decide which location would be best for a relocation of Knowsley Safari Park. We have studied the human and physical characteristics of each area and decided on which would suit a re-housing of many different species of animal based on their diet, habitat needs and safety. We then pitched our proposals to the Dragons to decide on which area would work best.
We even created our own sketch maps to show how we would map our own safari parks out using the land area we had available.
As part of our topic, we visited Knowsley Safari Park to see what a real-life park runs like and see the animals' enclosures in real life. We also learnt about the animals that could live in the UK and what they would need.
UKS2
Class 5
Another month of fantastic learning opportunities in Y6! Here is a small selection of what we have been up to...
Miss Jones has led sessions in KS1 & KS2 about how to keep safe by speaking up. Children learnt how to speak to trusted adults and keep themselves safe. These sessions helped pupils to understand abuse in all its forms and to recognise the signs of abuse in a child friendly way. Children were also made aware of Childline and what services they offer.
Our houses are named after 6 of our planets in the solar system. This was decided on by a group of pupils from Y2-Y5 last year. This year we used a house points system which was linked to positive behaviour management in school. Pupils were all placed into one of six houses at the start of the year and every class teacher was given 6 coloured tokens to correspond with the house colours. Team captains and vice captains were then allocated in y5 and y6. These pupils did a fantastic job of collecting tokens weekly and recording them for Mr McClure. Gift vouchers were awarded to 2 children per key stage from the winning team at October half term and even more were awarded at Christmas. A grand prize of a laptop was also awarded to one lucky winner in the winning house!
Next term, all points will be reset and all houses will be asked to go above and beyond to keep earning those points and get to the top of the leaderboard. Don't forget to ask your child(ren) daily how many house points they've earnt for their team! The leaderboard is posted weekly via Twitter @MilefieldP
We were so happy with how well our Christmas concerts went this year! All our pupils made us extremely proud and they worked incredibly hard to put on an amazing show not once but three times per key stage! What an achievement! We would like to thank all parents/carers who attended and showed their support. A huge thank you to all staff who worked hard to ensure the shows went smoothly and a special thanks to Mr Trickett for providing the music to all shows. All monies raised will go into our school fund to pay for extra resources and subsidise trips for pupils.
Please take 2 minutes to provide feedback on these shows so we can improve for next year...
Once again, your generosity is second to none! Our families in need are very lucky to have such kind staff and families who have donated so much to our Milefield community. A huge thank you to Miss Jones for organising this event and we hope those families in receipt of this generous gift have a wonderful Christmas.
Yet again, this year's Rudolph Run for Barnsley Hospice was a phenomenal success! Largely down to your fantastic, generous contributions! We have raised £1,796 this year for a much needed cause and one that is close to our staff and families' hearts. A massive thank you to all people who donated to this worthy cause. A huge congratulations to all pupils who took part and chased a very tall Santa around the school track!
Please note, these clubs have limited spaces and may only be booked on Arbor from Monday 13th Dec at 4pm...
These clubs will have letters sent home to specific pupils and will require a permission form returning...
If your child has a space, Arbor will email you or the teacher in charge of the club will send a text/letter to confirm place. Please ensure your child attends all clubs allocated as these will run for 10 weeks from the 2nd week back after Christmas until the week before Easter holidays.
Spring Term Dates for your diary
Tuesday 4th January - INSET Day - Closed to pupils
Wednesday 5th January - School re-opens to all pupils
Thursday 6th January - KS2 Young Voices - Sheffield Arena
Monday 10th January 2022 - Y4 swimming continues weekly
Wednesday 12th January - Y1/2 & Y2 - Yorkshire Sculpture Park Visit
Friday 14th January - Parents' Coffee Morning
Monday 24th January - Y5/6 Able Maths Day @ Grove Lea Primary School
Monday 31st January - Y4 Final Swimming session
Monday 7th February - Children's Mental Health & Online Safety Week
Tuesday 8th February - Safer Internet Day
Thursday 10th February - Y2 & Y6 SATs workshop for parents
Friday 11th February - Parents' Coffee Morning
Monday 14th February - EYFS Parents' Open Evening
Tuesday 15th February - LKS2 Parents' Open Evening
Wednesday 16th February - KS1 Parents' Open Evening
Thursday 17th February - UKS2 Parents' Open Evening
Friday 18th February - 3.15pm - School closes for half-term break
Monday 28th February - School re-opens for Spring Term 2
Do not forget to add us on twitter @MilefieldP or @mfps_parents You can also contact our dedicated email for parents - MFPS.parents@hcacademytrust.education
Credits:
Created with images by Daria-Yakovleva - "christmas background flat lay" • padrinan - "coronavirus covid medicine" • AhmadArdity - "books bookshelf library" • Tumisu - "graph chart investment" • Mysticsartdesign - "library heaven birds" • Comfreak - "solar system sun mercury" • bluartpapelaria - "bank christmas light" • congerdesign - "christmas christmas decoration advent" • Hans - "napkins rudolph serviette rudolf" • Firmbee - "guitar guitarist music" • Bessi - "marguerite daisy flower"