1. St Luke’s Church of England School Newsletter 25 September 2015
News from Mrs Tyler
A very quick message from me as I need to leave room for Mrs Patel! I am looking forward to seeing you next week at our Meet the Teacher Evening for parents of children in Years 1-4. Please remember this meeting is for adults only – it is a chance for you to talk with the class teacher about how your child has settled and to look at the new curriculum. I am sending out our revised home-school agreement today and ask that you have a look at it over the weekend and bring it back on Meet the Teacher Evening. Tanya, one of our parent governors, has worked with me on this and we hope that it reflects our partnership in working together to do the very best for the children at St Luke’s.
Message from Mrs Patel
Next week at the Meet the Teacher Evening I am looking forward to being able to share more of the ongoing work we are doing to improve reading at SLS. We do hope you have found helpful the recommended reading lists that we produced last term with advice from the School Library Service. Some of these brand new books will be available to the children from their classrooms and the school library. During this academic year one of our priorities is to develop a dedicated library for children to browse and borrow books.
The new national curriculum for reading has greater emphasis on comprehension, something we have always considered to be important at St Luke’s. As well as developing the children’s ability to read, they should be able to understand what they have read and be able to discuss it with a considered viewpoint. As ever, your support at home will be invaluable and we have produced some hand-outs relating to questioning ideas that you could use at home. These will be available at the Meet the Teacher Evening next week.
Reception parents – you, of course, have already had your home-school agreement and reading information materials. Thank you for your feedback about our Reception transition procedures.
Well done to all the KS2 children, who all kept running and supported one another enthusiastically and loudly in today’s Cross Country competition. A special well done to Odile, who came fourth in the Year 4 girls’ race and to Daniel and Gaia who received a special award from the organisers for great sportsmanship.
Reception Class
Golden Book
Reuben for confidently taking part in all activities.
Ervis for encouraging others to play.
Maths Monkey
Gabriel for great counting up to 10.
KS1 Class
Golden Book
Ethan for a great first week.
Mae for excellent reading.
Maths Monkey
Nasser for a good understanding of tens and units.
KS2 Certificate of Merit
Year 3
Mathi for amazing swimming.
Year 4
Elsa for great effort with her writing.
Thank you to all those who came and supported the coffee and cake morning for Macmillan – it raised £250!
Reminders
Free English lessons – please see flyer in book bags
PFA Elections – Thank you to Mae’s mum, Michelle, who has volunteered to take on the role of PFA chair. More information to follow. A huge thank you to Lexie’s mum, Jo, for her tremendous contribution to the PFA since it began.
News from Reception
This week the children have been exploring 2D and 3D shapes, recognising numbers and values using Numicon and making and counting towers with Multilink. They have made birthday cards for Merlin, our maths monkey, produced drawings of their favourite toys and talked about their feelings and emotions. The children have also taken home their first reading book this week. Please remember to keep the reading book and reading diary in the bookbag so that it is in school each day, and to record any comments inside. A reminder: Monday – reading books changed/Show & Tell
Tuesday - PE
Thursday – reading books changed
Friday – library book changed/PE

2. Dates for Diary (Autumn term)
News from KS1
This week in English we have looked at the book “Not Now, Bernard”. We thought about the story from the pictures as well as the text, so that afterwards we could create a story board by choosing and sequencing different parts of the tale. In Maths we have been thinking about number order and place value. Some excellent work has been done by all the children. We have continued to read our reading books as well as a HUGE list of high frequency words. Based on this work we will be returning to the book band and high frequency words stickers in the reading diaries. We have continued our ‘journey around the world’ by ‘visiting’ China. We tasted prawn crackers and seaweed, as well as learning about famous landmarks and currency. We even tried to write in Chinese. The children laughed at some of the fortunes in their fortune cookies. We also had a Rugby World Cup afternoon, looking at the flags and continents of the participating countries and researching these countries on our iPads.
News from Lower KS2
Today we’ve had a great run at Parliament Hill. Well done to all the children and thank you for all the support we received from parents. We have started writing our own newspaper reports this week based on the nursery rhyme “Hey Diddle Diddle”; it has been a lot of fun! The children will be able to use their knowledge of newspaper reports to write one linked to our Ancient Egypt topic next week. We have been particularly pleased with the children’s Egyptian silhouette paintings. Take a look at the examples in our Art & DT folder.
Please keep an eye on the photo display board for more photos of the Cross Country competition next week.
St Luke’s Church Events
Coffee morning for St Luke’s School parents & toddlers – Wednesday 30th September, 9-10am.
Dates for Diary (Autumn term)
term dates are on the school website.
Changes to previously published dates are shown in red.