Newsletter

March 2015

Dear Parents and Carers Mrs Sue Frater, HMI, visited the school this week to see how we are progressing towards our Ofsted targets. Mrs Frater was very positive about our progress and once I receive her full report I shall share it with you.

An Ofsted trained Local Authority Adviser has also spent two days conducting joint lesson observations with myself and Mrs Norgate. All lessons were judged good/ outstanding with behaviour being outstanding across the school.

As you can imagine it is wonderful news and I am so pleased the staff and children are receiving the recognition they deserve - what a shame this wasn’t recognised four months ago!

More good news! Laira now has it’s own Community Centre! Formally known as the Dell Centre, the school has taken over the space and we intend to develop the use of the Community Centre for our local community. Currently Little Lairas, a parent and toddler group run by a group of parents runs on a Monday and Friday morning 8:45 am to 10:30 am. If you have any suggestions or ideas on how to develop this space please speak to myself or a member of staff.

Today we say goodbye to Mrs Balletto who is leaving to have her second baby but she has promised to come back and visit with her new bundle of joy. Mrs Trish Ellis is working alongside Mrs Gaskell in Sycamore class, and we are currently looking to appoint a teacher to cover Mrs Marvin’s class when she leaves at Easter.

Once again, thank you for your attendance at parents evenings and your continued support at the school events such as the World Book Book Sale and the Fair Trade Cake Sale!

Kind regards

Miss D Bailey

PARKING AROUND THE SCHOOL

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE DOUBLE YELLOW LINES WHICH HAVE BEEN

BLACKED OUT BETWEEN FEDERATION ROAD AND

FEDERATION LANE HAVE NOT BEEN BLACKED OUT BY THE HIGHWAYS

AGENCY AND IF YOU DO PARK THERE, YOU ARE STILL

LIABLE FOR A FINE.

Thank you Mrs Sharpe for this information.

ATTENDANCE—STOP AND THINK—WHAT WILL IT COSTS YOUR CHILD?

REMEMBER: EVERY SCHOOL DAY COUNTS

FACT—IT IS NOT TRUE that pupils can catch up. Research shows that by missing lessons, pupils soon fall being.

FACT—IT IS NOT TRUE that lessons pupils miss are repeated at a later date.

The Education Act states that parents are legally responsible for their child’s regular and punctual at-tendance at school.

WHOLE SCHOOL ATTENDANCE

February 2015

Bumblebees 88% Chestnut 95%

Ladybirds 91% Sycamore 94.75%

Fireflies 96.6% Hazel 96.1%

Caterpillars 94% Ash 96.1%

Dragonflies 94% Birch 96.3%

Butterflies 94%

Whole school attendance from September 2014–February 2015 95.47%

Teacher’s Highlights of the Week!

Subject knowledge displayed by Level 6 maths group - wonderful! Mr Whitnall

Watching the children perform their adverts to each other, persuading them not to buy different toys. We had some fantastic rhetorical questions as well as some catchy slogans (e.g. Epic Furby fun…? Epic Furby fail!) Mrs Marvin

Mason, Jordan and Dylan all sang a song they had written lyrics for and played the ukulele. They had never had the confidence to perform in front of the class before and they are all quiet and shy. After an applause and lots of praise they were beaming from ear to ear. Mrs Buckingham

This week our topic has been Frozen and has been very popular. It was very touching to hear Daisy and Yasemin sing ‘Let it go’ during our 10 minute video clip as they do not usually join in very much with singing! Mrs Ford

The huge amount of 100% scores on book tests! Miss Roomes

The storyteller both the main session and the workshop which followed. He was very entertaining, the children were enthralled and we were given lots of story telling tips which we put to good use in our philosophy lesson the day after. Mrs Owen

Scandinavian folk dancing with Ash class on Friday. Everyone had such fun and choreography skills

came into force from some children when we realised we may need to change and adapt some steps.

Can’t wait for the next session. Mrs Owen

Life at Laira Green!

Dragonflies class made chocolate covered fruit kebabs using Fair Trade cocoa

The year 3/4/5 classes have been studying food types as well as foods from around the world. For example, we found out that

sushi is from Japan and that tacos are from Mexico, Central America. We also looked at where many of our foods are grown

and produced.

Then we had to plan a dish and then cook it, using a number of ingredients that may be grown in the rainforest.

We made a Thai green curry that used around15 ingredients! Some of us thought it was delicious but for others it was a bit

too creamy (coconut milk) or too spicy (red and green chillies)

We all enjoyed chopping the ingredients and learning or perfecting our skills. It was a really fun lesson.

Sports news!

On Tuesday 3rd March , our Year 5 and 6 children took part in qualifiers to join teams in order to take

part in an inter-schools Handball competition on 26th March at Lipson Vale Primary School.

Further details will follow shortly.

Dragonflies have been learning about 3D shapes in Maths by walking around our school looking for 3D shapes and looking

at their properties.

Life at Laira Green!

Dragonflies Allotment Visit

This week we put a lot of responsibility on the shoulders of some of our Year 2 pupils. Dragonfly class were to be responsible for the first update of the allotment this season. We did so much work! The children discussed the correct way to carry, store and use tools and became the first models for our ‘Allotment Rules Book’. Using these tools the children spent some time meticulously raking and turning over soil, looking for weeds, carrots which had been infected with wire worm and making the beds look nice and tidy. Some of the children even had the opportunity to feed some fat, juicy worms to our noisy chickens. They love a juicy worm or two! After the beds were prepared the children each speared half a potato with a long cane and took turns in placing them deep into the beds. We did this so that the nasty little wire worms which destroyed our carrot crop this year would start feeding on the potatoes and then Jason can go along, remove the potatoes and feed those worms to the chickens too! Hopefully our carrot beds will be back up and running soon!

Following a quick visit to our polytunnel to see the progress of the seedlings, Dragonfly class walked to Efford

Valley for a few games. Lots of chasing,

tagging and fun was had by all, it was a

very busy tiring morning!

LAIRA GREENSHOOTS

COMMUNITY FORUM

A BIG THANK YOU to you all, for helping us raise, a further, £127 on our Valentine Mufti. There was an amazing sea of pink and red to be seen in assembly!

Laira Greenshoots Community Forum Calendar

*TBC = To be confirmed

March Thursday 5th – World Book Day Mufti (2nd hand Book Donation)

And after-school Book Sale 3 -4.30pm

April Easter Colouring Competition (Date TBC*)

Wednesday 15th - Bags to School

May Tuesday 5th –CAKE SALE. 3pm onwards.

June -

July Friday 3rd

– Tombola Donation Mufti

Saturday 11th

- Summer Fun Day

August HOLIDAY

September Friday 25th – Family Bingo Night or Quiz (Including AGM)

October Wednesday 14th - Bags to school

Thursday 22nd

- Halloween Disco

November Saturday 28th

– Christmas Fayre

December TBC*

We could really do with some extra help, please, otherwise,

unfortunately, we may have to

cancel some events.

If you think you may like to join the Forum to help raise extra funds for the school

and preschool, please leave your details at the school office.

You can come along to one of our (informal) meetings to see if it’s for you. You could learn new skills and

gain confidence and friends.

DON’T THROW IT AWAY………………..BAG TO

SCHOOL will be coming, once again, in April.

Please remember to keep your unwanted, reasonable quality, clothing items(including shoes/belts/handbags) ready for recycling and raising cash. P.S. No bedding/curtains/school uniform for these collections please.

DON’T FORGET

You can find us on facebook

See our website for details

Thank you so much for coming along and buying

books for yourselves and your children.

We raised £65—THANK YOU!

GREENSHOOTS PRE-SCHOOL NEWS

Our next Open Day is on Wednesday 18th March from 9am to 7pm. Please feel

free to pop in anytime to have a look around and ask our friendly staff any

questions.

We are looking for a Treasurer to join our board of Trustees who look after

Greenshoots pre-school. If you have some finance experience and feel you

could help then please pop in and speak to Kerry.

The Greenshoots Children greatly enjoyed a recent visit from the RNLI. The

children learnt a lot about the roles of a lifeguard and the lifeboat people, as

well as how to keep safe on the beach.

Don’t forget we run a very popular Breakfast Club and After School Club.

Please contact us for further details.

Contact Kerry, Greenshoots Manager on 01752 228272

Email us at greenshootspreschool@gmail.com

Find all the latest Greenshoots news at www.lairagreenshoots.com

Contact information for Laira Green Primary School

Telephone Number: 01752 660427

Website: lairagreen.com

Email: laira.green.primary.school@plymouth.gov.uk

School Nurse: Ceri Bygrave 01752 434119

PCSO: Megan Davis-Butler

Non emergency Number 101

TERM 3, 4, 5 & 6

Friday 6th March Chestnut class assembly 9am Lower Hall

Wednesday 11th March Butterflies Forest School

Thursday 12th March KS2 Mother’s Day Lunch

Friday 13th March Red Nose Day donations please

Monday 16th March Science week

Wednesday 18th March Birch class Forest School

Thursday 19th March KS1 Mother’s Day Lunch

Saturday 21st March Choir & Mrs Buckingham Singing Competition

Friday 27th March Hazel class assembly 9am Lower Hall

Friday 27th March LAST DAY OF TERM

Monday 13th April Colouring competition entries to be handed in

Friday 17th April Sycamore class assembly 9am Lower Hall & Competition winners announced

Friday 1st May Bumblebees class assembly 9am Lower Hall

Friday 15th May Ladybirds class assembly 9am Lower Hall

Tuesday 23rd June Year 6 to France—information to follow

Friday 26th June Year 5 to Nethercott Farm—information to follow

Friday 3rd July Y5 from Ash and Birch class assembly

Friday 17th July Y2 ‘leavers’ class assembly

Wednesday 22nd July Y6 Leavers assembly 9am Lower Hall

DATES FOR DIARIES