Head’s desk

We have all had a busy and highly productive start to the Autumn term. The class

pages enclosed will delight as ever.

To begin a big thank you to the 52 families who returned their parent questionnaires.

The results demonstrate a very high level of satisfaction and we are grateful for

your positive feedback (further details to follow shortly in a separate letter).

We have had one parent chat this half term where we discussed some of the

headlines in our new school development plan (SDP). The SDP is really a road map of

how we develop as a school where we want to be in the future. It details specific mile

stones that we will work towards. We will be circulating an over view soon of the

school development plan having consulted with all parts of our school community.

How to communicate most effectively with our parents is always something we keep

under review. As a direct result of an idea at parent chat, Wen Mann has volunteered

to produce a parent diary which is circulated weekly. Also we a several steps closer to

our new website which is in demo form and awaiting the finishing touches.

With our first parents evening of the year now complete, we will be looking to adapt

the format for the spring term to enable both you and your child to be as fully

involved as possible.

Our cultural activities continue to enrich our children’s holistic development and with

a cinema visit to listen to classical music (Y3 and 4), trips out to the Victorian

classroom in Hitchin (Y2) , Celtic Harmony(Y3), Stow Anglo Saxon village (Y4) and

‘history off the page’ visiting (Y1 ) we believe your children access high quality

provision above and beyond the basics. For an overview of how we are implementing

Thursday 23rd October 2014

the new National curriculum do visit our class pages on the website for the curriculum

maps at www. layston.herts.sch.uk

Our sporting provision goes from strength to

strength and it is a delight to announce that we have

been awarded a Gold Sports Kite Mark from the

Sainsbury's School Games initiative. This is a

Government led awards scheme launched in 2012 to

reward schools for their commitment to the

development of sport competition across their

school and into the community. It also promotes and

celebrates the provision of high quality sporting and healthy life style opportunities

in schools. The gold standard is the very highest award to achieve and relatively rare

for a smallish First school. We are therefore thankful to the NE Sports Partnership,

Sports Link, local sports clubs and to our own PE

coordinator and staff at Layston who provide such a

range of activity everything from BMX to Sports

Olympiad, multi – skills and swimming festivals to

football, netball, gym and fit for life clubs. Finally of

course we thank our children who week by week good

naturedly and with determination participate with such

gamesmanship and enthusiasm.

As always our Christian ethos is

enriched by our links with St

Pater’s church and it is always a

great pleasure to welcome so many

families to our annual harvest

service there. With nearly 300

adults and children as

congregation, the service was a

joyful and uplifting reminder of

all that we have to be thankful

for, not least the children’s own

gifts and talents. Each child brought a food

contribution to be laid on the altar and afterwards the produce was

distributed to our nearby sheltered housing community by our year 4 children. Thank

you cards from residents to the children are a reminder of the gratitude felt by the

recipients and how little acts

of practical support and

kindness can never be

underestimated

As we conclude our half terms

study on the Christian value

of thankfulness, we have

indeed so very much to be

thankful for; as one of our

youngest children has

written:

Dear God,

Thank you for our world and for making

us in it.

Amen

Kind regards

Myra Bloomfield

Reception

We started by looking at the work of Jackson Pollock and then

decided to make our own pictures in the same style. I am sure

many of the children came home with paint in their hair but

look at the

photographs. I am

sure you can see we

all had great fun.

We had to think of

others as we flicked

or dripped our paint

on the paper. We had

to think about where

other people were standing and where the paint would land.

Surprisingly Mrs Handy did not get too messy!! All our fantastic

pictures are on display in class so please pop in and see them.

We have also been

spending time settling

in to our class and

getting to know each

other. The children

have taken advantage

of the fantastic

weather to take most

of their learning

outside.

We have been learning how to help

each other and to encourage each

other. Can you make a track for the

train to run on? Can we share the carriages so that everyone

can play?

We discovered that if you are making the tallest tower that you

can, you need the help of a tall person to reach the top.

We also enjoyed making up

imaginary underwater

stories.

Mrs Handy, Mrs Chowdrey

and I look forward to a very

rewarding year.

Year 1

In Year 1 we have been thinking about how a space shuttle manages to launch into

outer space!

We discussed how rockets need a special fuel to create enough energy to lift a heavy

rocket off the ground.

Several members of Year 1 assisted Mrs Freeman in creating our own rocket and

exploring how we could create our own lift off!

We discovered that because a balloon is much lighter than a rocket we were able to

create our own 'blast off' using the air in the balloon as the energy, which created a

thrust, when we let the balloon go.

We had tremendous fun counting down from 10 to 0, shouting 'blast off' and

watching our balloon rocket soar to.....the other side of the room!

We have also been trying our hands at becoming weather reporters! We have been

thinking about the words we use to describe the weather and practiced recording it

too. We each took home a weather recording sheet and marked down what we

observed over a week. We were pleased to report that the sun came out a lot that

week! Not too much precipitation and visibility was good!

Year 2

We’ve had a lovely start to the year in

Year 2! We’ve all got to know each other

and have made our classroom ‘ours’ by

making our own owl table signs, finding our

own table space and earning our super

bolts for our super heroes!

With so much going on that we love like recorders with Miss Lomax and Mrs

Doncaster, music time with Mrs Watkins, times table practise through fun maths

songs, writing workshops, P.E with Mr Green, swimming on Wednesday afternoons, Art

with Mrs Cooper and practising our Harvest song we have so much to tell you about!

Instead of talking about it all, we have chosen to talk about our favourite – The

Victorians!

We have been learning lots about Victorian clothes,

homes and toys as well as school life in the Victorian

times.

“We had lots of fun at the Victorian school museum!”

(Oliver K)

“We’ve been doing lots of writing too! Every week we

have been describing the Victorians and writing down

what we have learnt.” (Emily)

“We’ve been watching Mary Poppins too and wrote our

own nanny advert.” (Jonny)

“I like the songs from Mary Poppins. Miss Bowman lets

us sing along!” (Aiden)

We are all very excited for the year ahead especially

after making such a wonderful start! Well done and

thank you to YEAR 2 for working so hard!

Year 3

We’ve had a busy start to the year, but everyone seems to have settled into Year 3

really well which was confirmed during a short conversation I had with Jake last

week.

Jake: “You’re the best man teacher I’ve ever had.”

Me: “Thanks Jake. Have you ever had a male teacher before?”

Jake: “Well… no.”

Back in the first week of September the

children were let loose outside with the

iPads, where their filming and directing

skills were put to the test. With a little

editing, we managed to produce a class

video which the children have really

enjoyed watching in class.

The children did a

fantastic job with their

first homework. With

topics including Lego,

hairdressing, Costa

Rica and the Premier

League, we enjoyed

watching a diverse

range of presentations. I was

delighted with the enormous

amount of effort that had clearly

gone into them so very well done!

With the new National Curriculum comes a greater

emphasis on teaching programming as part of the newly

renamed ‘computing’ subject. As a result, we have been

learning how to code using Espresso Coding. This is an easy

to use program which, step-by-step teaches children basic

coding techniques in a fun and engaging way. Within a

couple of weeks, lots of the class had already designed

and published their own apps on the website. If any of

the children would like to use this

at home that is allowed as part of

the school’s subscription and the

login details are as follows:

www.espressocoding.co.uk

Username: student16080

Password: layston (all lowercase)

We have also been composing and performing

our own pieces of music with Mrs Watkins and

we enjoyed the trip to Watford to see the

BBC Ten Pieces film at the cinema.

We have been

using the new

Numicon sets in

maths to help

learn about

place value and

number bonds

and some

children have

been learning

how to tackle

some really tricky addition questions.

Before experiencing a round house at Celtic

Harmony, we made our own model versions last week.

We had to weave wood

(art straws) between

stakes (sticks) to

create the wattle walls

before making a cone

for the roof. We had

to work really

carefully as the

models were fragile, but everyone did a great job and

we saw some excellent team working skills along the

way.

Everyone seemed to really enjoy the trip to Celtic

Harmony. It was a busy day which included making

flour and dough, weaving, trading, a warrior demo and

the childrens’ favourite part…… lunch! Earlier this

week we wrote recounts detailing what we got up to

which the children have worked really hard on.

“At the end I

was tired but it

was really fun!”

Rachel.

Year 4

It has been an incredibly busy term so far in Year 4 but that’s the way we like it.

We have been learning to be persuasive and judging by the homework that came in,

the advertising industry will be thriving in the years to come! We used our persuasive

skills to create posters for our Cake Bake that helped raise over £100.

Thinking of the Cake Bake, we all took inspiration from Mary Berry and Paul

Hollywood and created some edible masterpieces. Using our mathematical skills we

measured, poured, weighed and mixed our way to the culinary creations you feasted

upon.

Furthermore, we have been very active and been taking part in all kinds of sports.

We have been in training for the Tag Rugby Festival and trying out lots of exercises

and routines to get us ready. In addition to the rugby we have been racing BMX

bikes and practising all kinds of tricks.

We had a phenomenal trip to the cinema to watch ‘Ten Pieces’. We learned about

many new composers and the music they had created. The surround sound in the

cinema was incredible, it was almost as if we were there. We also listened out for any

ostinatos that we had been learning about in music.

As Year Fours we have got many new responsibilities, one of which is setting up our

Collective Worship times. We take it in turns to select songs to sing, set up

projectors and layout the hall the best way for each type of Collective Worship. You

may well see some of us being hired on The Apprentice in a few years time!

We have enjoyed researching fascinating facts about the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings in

preparation for our visit to West Stow. As part of our learning we had to form a

tribe with our class mates and decide upon a good location to set up our settlement.

It’s not as simple as it first seems! We had to take floods, access to food and

materials and attacks from wild animals into consideration. In the end we all picked a

great location and as far as we’re all aware, our settlements never succumbed to any

of the dangers mentioned.

We are all looking forward to an exciting year ahead in which we will learn lots from

each other, and learn more about ourselves as well.

FOL (Friends of Layston (formerly PTA))

Autumn Term

Our first announcement is that the PTA has changed its name to Friends of Layston

(FOL), this has enabled us to invite new members from our community, grandparents,

Aunts and Uncles along with us parents to play an active role with the events we hold

for our children. As a parent of a child at this school you are automatically a member

of FOL. If you would like to become more involved please contact a committee

member. A list of our members is displayed in our notice board. As always our aim is

to raise funds for the school to pay for equipment and projects which benefit all the

children and in which would not otherwise be provided

Being a member is very rewarding, fun and a great way to meet other parents and get

involved in school life or contributions of help no matter how small is always

appreciated.

At our AGM on 1st October we had a change of our officials and we would like to take

this opportunity to welcome back Steph Strachan as chairperson and thank Julia

Nicholas for her leadership over the last year and her continuing support.

Clothes Bank, despite a couple of hiccups, two collections have already taken place

and raised £80:00 each. So a big thank you for your contributions, please continue to

use this service.

Autumn Term is a very busy one for the children and for us as you will see from the

list of events and activities which have been and are coming up!

Recent Events

Thursday

2nd October

Year 4

Cake Bake

Well done to Year 4 on raising an amazing £104:00, thank you to

all parents who donated and bought cakes and those who kindly

set up and sold the cakes. Our morning sale was a one off due to

lack of helpers We appreciate this caused some concern to

parents as their children had just eaten breakfast, like all FOL

events we rely on volunteers and unfortunately there was

insufficient numbers who were able to sell the cakes after

school and we did not want the children’s and parents efforts to

go to waste. The intention was that you could buy your cake and

be eaten after school and not to replace breakfast, as many of

you did hence the money raised.

Christmas

Cards

It’s been lovely seeing all the children’s Christmas card designs

and we know the children love enjoy this. Now we anticipate

their delivery for distribution.

Return by Wednesday 8th October

Friday

10th October

School

Disco

Big Steve is as always a hit with the children, whilst sometimes

daunting for Reception children I’m sure you will agree all the

children who attended had a great time.

Forthcoming Events

Saturday

18th October

Quiz

Night

Always a popular event with parents and the wider community

and I’m sure you have seen the posters.

Doors open at 7:30pm for 8:00pm start

£8:00 per ticket including Ploughman’s Supper

Licensed Bar

Maximum 8 persons per team

To book a table please email :

friendsoflaystonschool@hotmail.com

or speak to Nina Kingsley or Steph Strachan.

Book by: Thursday 16th October

Friday

24th October

Non

Uniform

Day

Non Uniform day is always a favourite for the children and

Friends of Layston would ask for a donation of £1:00 to help

with our fundraising efforts.

We appreciate that those who have Forest School will not be in

uniform, however your child might like to change out of their

“Forest School Clothes” into something else.

Thursday

6th November

FOL

Monthly

Meeting

This is your opportunity to join us, find out how these events

are put together, take part and make suggestions of other

events. All are welcome.

Wednesday

12th November

Year 3

Cake Bake

Yes it will be Year 3’s turn to compete for the decorated Cake

Bake trophy and £104 to beat!!!!

Your Year Reps will be sending you details soon.

Friday

14th November

Movie

Night

This is a NEW event for us which we are sure your child will

enjoy.

Ticket for this event are £3:00 which includes refreshments

and a snack. Full details will follow shortly

Bookings close : Wednesday 12th November

Wednesday

3rd December

FOL

Monthly

Meeting

Our last meeting of 2014! What will 2015 bring?

Saturday

6th December

Christmas

Fair

As always we finish the year with our Christmas Fair.

Santa will be in his Grotto looking forward to hearing what

surprises the children would like on Christmas morning.

There will be a variety of stalls, tombola’s, Grand Draw and

Traders raffle and outside traders.

If you are able to help set up or man a stall please contact

Tanya Brears or Julia Nicholas

Many thanks to all of you for your continued support.

Governors

Layston’s Full Governing Body met last month. Key to the agenda was agreeing the

structure of the Governing Body for the next year, we are delighted that Claire

Shearn will be our new Vice Chair and Reverend Ian Hill the Chair of our School

Improvement Committee.

The Governors would like to thank parents for their feedback on our Annual Plan, we

are using this feedback in discussion in our forthcoming committee meetings.

At the end of September members of the Governing Body attended the schools

standards visit with our school improvement partner. The Governors are pleased to

report that standards at Layston remain high and are in the top 25% of schools

nationally. Further information on performance will be shared in the Governing Body

Annual Report in the Summer Term.

Finally, our longest serving Governor, Paul Ryman has stood down from the Governing

Body after four years of service. Paul has been an integral part of the team

throughout this period, serving as both chair and vice chair and chair of our school

improvement committee. On behalf of the whole school community, the Governing

Body would like to thank Paul for his time and the impact he has made. We expect to

announce Paul’s replacement as parent Governor next month.

Forthcoming events and updates

At last we have the start date for our heating / boiler upgrade. This is a significant

piece of work lasting 6-8 weeks. It is intended to begin over half term but to

minimise disruption to school routines during term time we have negotiated evening

working from 5pm-11pm Mon- Thurs and from 4pm -11pm on Friday. There will also be

weekend working.

Wed 5th Nov- West Stow Trip – Y4

Tues 11th Nov – 2.30pm – parent chat

Fri 14th Nov – Film night

w/b 17th Nov – Friendship (anti bullying) week

Tues 18th Nov – History off the page Y1

Wed 19th Nov – Book Fair

Wed 26th Nov- Assembly from County Library Services

Sat 6th Dec- FOLS Christmas Fair

Wed 10th Dec – Fri 12th Dec – Christmas Play

Mon 15th Dec – Travelling Theatre

Tues 16th Dec – Christmas Service St Peter’s

Fri 19th Dec- Break up 2pm