Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome

Welcome to all of the children who have recently joined our school: Liana and Carmelo in Pre-

School; Tymoteusz and Riley in Nursery; Izadora, Mohamed and Jay in Reception; Elliott and

Kaashvi in Year 2; Charlie and Waniya in Year 3; Heloa, Theo and Cheuk Sum in Year 4;

Jemima, Sanaa and Kayleigh in Year 5; and Demi-Leigh in Year 6. It is great to welcome you

and your families to our school community!

Learning - with some observations from Ms Stodart

It is really clear that the vast majority of our children are really happy to be back. There are

some who are struggling a little, being separated from Mum and Dad after such a long period

of time, but together we can ensure that they settle quickly and get used to their routines

once more - familiar and at ease with friends and teachers! If you have any specific concerns

about your child, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Ms Stodart visited lessons last week and we are delighted to report that everything she

observed was fantastic. Ms Stodart fed back to the whole staff team on Friday morning that

she had seen really happy, focussed children in lessons; the children were hard at work and

the teachers were putting all their energy into their teaching - as always! In summary, Ms

Stodart saw children in Year 1 writing their very first dictated sentence, sitting in their new

seats at their new tables, and children in Year 5 revisiting ‘addition’ in maths. In Year 2, she

saw children learning how to respond, edit and redraft. Ms Stodart saw Year 3 pupils enjoying

their writing and Year 4 pupils enjoying their reading. Ms Stodart and other senior members

of staff plan to visit lessons a lot in the weeks leading up to the Easter holidays and we will

keep you up to date.

We have taken lots of photographs of displays in classrooms that capture a variety of

‘Working Walls’ i.e. how our classroom displays are being used to reinforce learning.

King’s Oak Primary News Monday 15th March 2021: No.21

www.kingsoak.kingston.sch.uk @kingsoakprimaryschool

@KingsOakPrimary @KingsOakPrimary

These examples of our Working Walls reflect, from left to right: maths vocabulary;

SoundsWrite (phonics); vocabulary to support writing in topic lessons; SoundsWrite (phonics);

TalkWrite (approach to teaching writing); and Zones of Regulation vocabulary to help children

express their emotions.

Our children’s progress

As you know, here at King’s Oak Primary we have the highest expectations of our children. We

want them to make as much progress as possible and to behave and present themselves

beautifully and we make no apologies for that. We know you want that, too. Last week, I

suggested that we should take things steadily and not rush our children and this seems to

have been the message across the country. The advice is: don’t be tempted to push the

children at pace; instead, take time to check children’s understanding and knowledge of what

they were taught during lockdown, give them time to settle and help them to regulate their

emotions as it has been such a tricky time. Teaching a little less but teaching really well seems

to be the most important message. I think we are getting it spot on here. I hope you agree

with our approach and we want to hear from you if you don’t! Just email us or give us a call

and we can set up a meeting. Ms Stodart and I are always available with a little notice.

Learning about the Curriculum, post-pandemic

Our next Calling the King’s Oak Community session is this Wednesday 17th March and we will

be online for Key Stage 1 parents and carers to answer questions on the curriculum and how

we intend to ensure the children return to the routines of their academic study.

On-line questionnaire

As I said last week, please see below the results from the parent/carer questionnaire

regarding online learning.

Two questionnaires were sent out to parents/carers of children who were learning at home

during the most recent lockdown, to seek feedback on our remote learning offer. Thank you

for your very positive response to these.

Foundation Stage Years 1 to 6

Total number of responses: 23 87

How well do you think our remote learning provision has maintained your child’s/children’s education since January?

96% said good or excellent. 1 respondent said it could be improved.

90% said good or excellent. 7% (6 respondents) said it could be improved. 3 respondents said it was poor.

How effective do you think the live sessions are in helping your child/children to understand the learning?

95% said effective or very effective. 1 respondent said they could be improved.

72% said effective or very effective. 25% said sometimes effective and sometimes not. 2 respondents said they were not very effective.

What do you think about the amount of work the children are being expected to complete?

100% said they thought it was the right amount or were happy with whatever the school decided was the right amount.

70% said they thought it was the right amount or were happy with whatever the school decided was the right amount. 20% said it was too much. 10% said they wanted more.

Foundation Stage Years 1 to 6

Do you get regular feedback from the teachers on your children's learning?

100% said they always or almost always got regular feedback.

90% said they always or almost always got regular feedback 7% (6 responses) said there was not enough feedback. 3 respondents said they received no feedback.

How has the school communicated with you and your child/children since the lock down? Tick all that apply.

By phone - 95% Year Group email - 39% ParentMail email - 69% ParentMail text - 39% Google Classroom/TAPESTRY - 60% Face to face - 13% No contact - 0%

By phone - 58% Year Group email - 31% ParentMail email - 61% ParentMail text - 41% Google Classroom - 69% Face to face - 6% No contact - 2% (2 respondents)

How well do you feel that the school has supported your child during this time in terms of learning & emotional well being?

96% said very well or quite well. 1 respondent said not very well.

92% said very well or quite well. 8% (7 respondents) said not very well.

Number of individual comments made

Positive comments - 10 Negative comments - 0

Positive comments - 27 Negative comments - 3 Suggestions for improvement - 5

Lining up outside – drop off and collection

This was much better last week but it is not the time for complacency. Please can you ensure

that you wear a mask when lining up and, even more importantly, keep your distance and

wait across the road from the main entrance. We really need your co-operation until the

guidance changes, which it hasn’t to date.

Publicity

You will see lots of postcards, posters and banners in the community, publicising our

wonderful school, over the next few weeks. We are a family and just like in families, we do

not always get it all right. However, our best publicity is you so please speak positively and

continue to work with us; by working in partnership, we can solve most things together.

Thank you, once again, for all your support and kindness during the last few weeks.

Kind regards,

Maggie Bailey

Consultant Headteacher

Here is a record of our recent learning:

In Nursery, we have been making cards for Mother’s Day and talking about why we love the

important women in our lives. We had some lovely ideas of special things to do at the weekend

to show our love!

Year 1 had a fantastic first week back at school!

We have been really enjoying our

learning in English and in Topic

about the Great Fire of London,

while in maths we have been

learning different ways of

measuring length and height.

We have also been listening

carefully to stories in our Circle

Time in the morning and having

very thoughtful discussions about

our emotions.

We are so proud of our amazing pupils who have adjusted so well to the changes involved in

returning to class.

In Year 2, we have enjoyed using ScratchJr which is an introductory programming language that

enables young children (ages 5 and up) to create their own interactive stories and games by

snapping together graphical programming blocks to make characters move, jump, dance and

sing.

Children can modify characters in the paint editor, add their own voices and sounds and insert

photos of themselves then use the programming blocks to make their characters come to life.

We've had great fun beginning to learn how to use it!

In KS2 Blossom, we did some role play as the characters in our new story 'On Sudden Hill'. We

were great at using our facial expressions, body language and voices to portray how different

characters felt.

In Year 3, we worked in groups to research the ‘early invaders’. We focussed on the settlements

of Romans, Anglo Saxons and Vikings, in particular their family life, buildings, clothing and

entertainment.

In Year 4, we have been learning about word classes with a focus on nouns.

We created a help sheet and filled

it in with lots of different types of

nouns.

We also looked at all the other

classes, such as a determiner,

noun, verb, adjective, adverb,

conjunctions and prepositions.

In maths, we have been learning how to add 3 and 4 digit numbers, using the column method.

We used counters to help us see the visual representation and what the numbers mean when

they are in a column.

Although things aren't quite back to normal, we have continued to do drumming using live

sessions. It was great to see everyone enjoying making music and keeping to a rhythm and beat.

We looked at different notes and how to read music. It was great fun!

In design and technology lessons, children in Year 5 designed 18th century clocktowers based

on the book 'Clockwork' by Philip Pullman. In the next few weeks, the year group will be creating

their clocktowers with different materials and will investigate the concept of gears, levers and

pulleys!

As you are aware, we continued to publish awards for Superstar Learners and Mathletics during

the National Lockdown. Teachers kept track of all the extra play that was awarded and classes

are receiving this now that our school has reopened!

Superstar Learners!

Congratulations to all of the following children - our theme was ‘Demonstrating Resilience and

Never Giving Up’ and our Superstar Learners are:

RMT – Molly and Blake

RSK – Sultan and Levi

1VB – Joyna and Mahir

1CS – Talha and Danbi

2EO – Andre and Georgia

2SR – Georgina and Cian

3DF – Sara-Marie and Ronnie

3HT – Ollie and Platon

4DC – Pandorah and Bella

4NB – King Long and Anvi

4SL – Spyros and Kara

5TW – Abir and Filips

5SH – Pearl and Bobby

6KK – Justyna and Ryan

6KH – Mary and Kuba

Miss Stodart’s Writing Group – Azan and

Rohiny

Blossom Blue – Hania and Alex

Blossom – Sophia and Lilly

Mathletics!

Congratulations to our winning classes who earned the most Mathletics points in their

respective Key Stage – 1CS (although 2EO were very close!) and 6KK (just overtaking 6KH).

Well done to all of the children in these classes – can 1CS and 6KK hold onto the top spots…we will see!

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Easter Holiday Activities