Newsletter 9

This has been an amazing term with so many fabulous activities for both children and parents to join in with. We really appreciate all the

support the school has had with regard to parental and carer engagement. It really feels like a Shinewater family. We are currently improving

our website and will be adding lots more photos for you to view at home. 60% of parents are now using and the

feedback we have received has been very positive in terms of enabling parents to hear what is going on in the school on a regular basis.

Thank you for all the high fives that have been sent back. If you are not yet using the app and need a password please come in and let the

office know. Swale Academies Trust has been in this term to carry out a review of teaching and learning and were delighted with the rapid

improvements the schools is making, especially with community engagement and active learning. We were proud of both the staff and the

pupils! Enjoy half term with your children...don’t forget the homework… and we look forward to seeing you in Term 4.

Mrs Kaufman & Mrs Burbidge

Dance Days

Every year group has had wonderful board games sessions with family and friends. Everyone has loved it and we will make it an annual

event. It was so good to see the turn taking, sportsmanship and family values in play. Lots more photos will be coming on the website.

Good Old Fashioned Board Games!

The whole school had amazing two days learning different styles of dance from street dance to Chinese and Indian themed dancing. Even our

Nursery joined in with dancing to the Lion King. We most certainly have talent at Shinewater. The feedback for staff and children was really

positive and we’ll be doing more of the same in the future. More photos to come on the website soon!

Out and About!

Building Bridges

Last week, year 3 had an engaging and fun trip to Herstmonceux Science Centre. They took part in bridge building, watched a very amusing and informative theatre show about forces and Isaac Newton and explored all the exhibits. The children were very well behaved and made

Shinewater proud.

This term, children in Year 3 have been exploring bridges from around the world. They have looked at different types of bridges and what makes a bridge strong. Children thought about the best materials they could use to make their own bridge and what tools would be best

suited for the job. They had a fantastic day sanding and sawing all the parts for their bridges.

Mathematical Spaghetti

During NSPCC number day Year 5 spent the day completing lots of different maths based activities. In the afternoon the children attempted the spaghetti tower challenge. Using only marshmallows and spa-ghetti the children had to build strong stable towers. This meant using problem solving skills alongside communication skills and team work to make sure their towers were as strong as possible. The children showed real perseverance and were able to build towers that were stable. Well done to Ayoub and Karjin for making the tallest tower that stood at 78cm!

On 5th February Shinewater were delighted to host an ‘author event’ as part of this year’s East

Sussex Children’s Book Award. The Shinewater Reading Club, all of Year 6 and visiting chil-

dren from several local schools listened with interest as Lisa Thompson, author of The Goldfish

Boy, spoke to us about the process of writing the book. Lisa answered many interesting and

thoughtful questions from the audience before signing copies of her books and posing for

photographs with The Shinewater Book Club.

Author Visit

International Week!

Internet Safety

February 1st 2018 was World Read Aloud Day - an international celebration in which people from all over the world come together to read aloud at one time.

This was in recognition of how lucky we are to have access to education and therefore the opportunity to learn to read and write.

Each year group across the school prepared a piece to read aloud, which was then watched by all the other year groups over the course of the day. It was a

wonderful opportunity to learn about what other classes were doing and impress each other with our ability to recite stories and poems - some with added

actions!

We had an interesting array of stories and poems performed:

Reception: ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ by Michael Rosen

1DS: ‘I Have a Little Frog’

1JH: ‘Now We Are Six’ by A. A. Milne

Year 2: ‘London’s Burning’

Year 3: ‘The Sound Collector’ by Roger McGough

4FC: ‘Gran, Can You Rap?’

4SD: ‘The Boneyard Rap’

Year 5: An extract from ‘Northern Lights’ by Philip Pullman

6HJ: ‘The Lonely Scarecrow’ by James Kirkup

6KJ: ‘Refugee’ by Brian Bilston

Studies have shown that reading aloud to / with children every day puts them almost a year ahead of children who do not receive daily ‘read alouds’. We

really appreciate your support in continuing to share stories and poems with your children at home.

https://www.saferinternet.org.uk/safer-internet-day/2018

Safer Internet Day 2018 was celebrated globally on Tuesday 6th February 2018 with the slogan “Create, Connect and Share Respect: A better internet starts with you”. More than a thousand organisations across the UK got in-

volved to help inspire a national conversation about using technology responsibly, respectfully and safely. Make sure you know how to keep your child safe online. The school has been caring out some additional sessions to promote E safety including a whole school assembly. Thank you to those of you who were able to attend the Triple P work-

shop. For more information please see our website.

Our children have celebrated the range of different cultures in our world this week through art, maths, books and of

course...food! As part of our teaching of British Values the children are learning about mutual respect and tolerance of

different cultures, beliefs and faiths. To enhance this, we have purchased a new scheme to support our teaching and

learning of RE at Shinewater.

Reception Together Time

The EYFS team welcomed loads of parents to school to share work, read and have bacon roll, fruits and pastries to-

gether for breakfast. We have been particularly pleased with the writing the children have been doing...some budding

authors in the making!

Date Event

Friday 9th February Children Break up for Half Term

Monday 12th February-Friday 16th February Half Term

Monday 19th February Term 4 begins

Monday 1st March World Book Day

Monday 1st March Year 5 trip to Herstmonceux

Week beginning March 4th

Parent/Carer Consultation Evenings

More details to follow

Monday 5th March Year 3 going to Langney Library

Friday 9th March Year 3 Musical Festival at Kings Church

Thursday 29th March Inset Day

Upcoming Events/dates

Class Current % Attendance

REW 93.8

RVW 97.2

1DS 90.4

1JH 95.4

2JW 95.7

2JM 91.5

3KD 97.0

3BW 90

4FC 90.7

4SD 99.4

5EL 93.2

5SB 91.2

6HJ 95.4

6KJ 96.8