The Gordon Children’s Academy

10th June 2016

Ach

iev

emen

t, A

spir

ati

on

s, C

om

mu

nit

y,

Res

pon

sib

ilit

y

Dates for week beginning 13th June 2016

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

Year One Phonics

Check

All clubs resume

8.15 - 9.15

Office -

Chartwells collect

dinner money for

the week

Year One Phonics

Check

All Day -

PE Coaching

Profiles collect

photos

Year One Phonics

Check

9.15am & 6.00pm:

Year 6 2016/17

Information

Session (Current

Hughes and

Stevenson Class

only).

Year One Phonics

Check

All Day -

PE Coaching

2.00pm - EYFS Stay

and Play

.

Year One Phonics

Check

BNF Healthy Eating Week

We will be participating in BNF (British Nutrition Foundation) Healthy Eating Week from 13-

17 June 2016. The purpose of the BNF Healthy Eating Week is to raise awareness of healthy

eating and drinking, cooking, food provenance and being active to promote key health messages

and habits to young people. Schools across the country are participating in 5 challenges. These

are:

1. Have breakfast.

2. Have 5 portions of fruit or vegetables a day.

3. Drink plenty.

4. Get active .

5. Try something new.

During the week, we are planning on attempting these challenges by starting the day with a

quick stretch and warm up activity, such as a jog, zumba, boxing, street dance, rugby skills or

aerobics. We will be making our own “eat well” plates, having assemblies about the benefits of

living healthily and we will be participating in live cook-alongs. Year 5 are leading the week as

they are still working towards achieving an award for the school and are now the experts on fruit

and vegetables because of their Allotment topic and all of their healthy eating visits from Tesco!

You can support your child with the challenges by trying some of them at home as a family. See

www.foodafactoflife.org.uk for lots of interactive activities and facts about being healthy.

Please help us to be the healthiest school in Britain next week by showcasing our healthy

lunchboxes. Yes teachers, that includes you! (The lunchboxes of teachers will be monitored by

the pupils, so no sneaky chocolate can be smuggled in!) We will be recording the amount of

fruit and veg per lunchbox per class and the healthiest class will win a prize at the end of the

week.

Are you up for the challenge?

Ach

iev

emen

t, A

spir

ati

on

s, C

om

mu

nit

y, R

esp

on

sib

ilit

y

Year 6 PGL

Year 6 have just enjoyed 3 lovely days away on their PGL residential trip! Keep your eyes

peeled in next week’s newsletter for all the updates on their fun adventure!

Year 5 Parents!

Please note that Walliam’s Class parents do not need to attend the information session on

Wednesday 15th June as they have already seen the presentation. If, for any reason, parents in

Hughes and Stevenson Class cannot attend, please do not worry. I will be putting the

presentation on the website on Thursday! The reason for the presentation is to inform parents of

what Year 6 entails - we will also be offering individual parent meetings with the new teacher.

These can still be arranged even if you can’t attend the meeting.

Uniform List

Please note that I am currently finalising this and it will appear in next week’s newsletter.

Also - whilst the new, branded uniform is beautiful and will look incredibly smart on the

children, I am not forcing you to buy any of the items. I agree that non-branded uniform can be

just as smart if worn properly! Please remember that I am also allowing the current branded

jumpers and cardigans to be worn next year, if in good condition.

Whilst a smart school uniform is incredibly important, the last thing I want is for parents to be

stressing themselves over a jumper or cardigan!

Summer Works

We are going to have a very busy summer!

I have secured funding from TSAT and am delighted to inform you about our brand new, state

of the art, ICT suite which is being built over the summer! The ICT suite will be on the top floor

of the junior building and will be positioned in a spare classroom. This means the current ICT

suite (which is technically just a box in the upper hall) will be removed and we will gain all that

fantastic space back, thus restoring the Victorian hall to its original beauty.

We are also having all the Junior classrooms painted (the infants will be next I promise!). This

idea originally came from a Pupil Questionnaire I undertook a few months ago, when several

junior children said they didn't like the “multi-coloured classrooms” and “dirty walls”. I knew

then that instant action was required!

On top of this, I am also looking to secure funding to finally install the musical instruments to

the playground structures and transform them into the “creative zones” that they were initially

intended to be. Depending on timing, this may have to wait until September but is most

definitely in the pipeline!

Exciting times!

Twitter

Mr Yaqub will be creating and designing a brand new Twitter page and this will be active from

September. More details to follow .

Ach

iev

emen

t, A

spir

ati

on

s, C

om

mu

nit

y, R

esp

on

sib

ilit

y

Parent Reading:

From The Guardian:

“Exam board rules on punctuation are wrong, wrong, and wrong”

Is that a tall, dark, and handsome man standing over there? Or a tall, dark and handsome man?

The vexed question of commas, where to use them and where not to, was raised at Hay Festival

by the linguistics academic David Crystal.

Both of the above are correct, he said, but he criticised the Department for Education for not

realising that, and for allowing exam boards to wrongly penalise children. He said the current

guidance for schools “leaves a huge amount to be desired, especially in areas of punctuation.

“There is a tendency in the question setters of linguistic naivety; they are simply not aware of

the complexity of some of the decisions they are asking the kids to make.”

The comma and where to use it is a case in point. The debate over whether to put a comma

before the “and” in a list has been around since the 18th century, Crystal said. In the 19th

century “publishing houses decided they were going to sort it out and made different decisions”.

Oxford University Press decided it should be in, and in such cases it is now called the Oxford

comma or serial comma. They reasoned that each adjective before the noun was of equal

importance, so should all have a comma. Cambridge University Press, however, decided it

should be left out. This raises fierce debates, Crystal said, but both examples of usage were

correct.

He said the Oxford comma had been banned in the latest guidance to teachers, so any child

writing “tall, dark, and handsome” had to be marked incorrect. That meant Oxford comma fans

(Crystal counted himself as one) were now using the wrong punctuation.

Crystal, Honorary Professor of Linguistics at University of Wales, Bangor, was giving a talk

about his latest book, Making a Point: The Pernickety Story of English Punctuation. He admitted

he rarely gets worked up about the things which infuriate lots of people – even the multiple use

of exclamation marks!!!

From Mr Heyburn

I am pleased to announce that we have been given an opportunity to join a global Maths

challenge where we can compete against other schools across the world and potentially gain

prizes. As you know we have begun using Education City as an additional learning platform to

enhance engagement and retention with all our students. This competition will highlight the

benefits of the programme, it will hopefully also raise motivation and instil a healthy

competitive nature within our children. Due to the restriction in numbers, children from Key

Stage 2 who expressed a wish to take part will be randomly selected. These types of

programmes allow us to maximise reaching different learning styles whilst using interactive

technology. This means that both at school and at home there is a united and collaborative

support mechanism to engage and improve our children’s academic ability. I hope that you will

join us in wishing the students the best of luck for next week.

Ach

iev

emen

t, A

spir

ati

on

s, C

om

mu

nit

y, R

esp

on

sib

ilit

y

Punctuality Panda Winners

10th June 2016:

Morpurgo, Strong , Stevenson and Jennings—No Lates!!!!

Attendance Ted Winners

10th June 2016:

Hughes 98.1%

Golden Tie Winners

Well done to these children for showing the features of an

Outstanding Learner this week!

Creative Independent Likes a Challenge

Community Spirit Curious Reflective

Mature Collaborative Resilient

Responsibility

Our Golden Tie Winners this Week!

Year Class Child Reason

R Snowy Owls Bella Gibson

R Puffins Taylor Farrer

1 Huskies Archie Ratchford Independent

1 Polar Bears Chris Bennett

2 Snow Leopards Amelia Shaw Likes a challenge

2 Arctic Fox Thomas Lamb Mature & Resilient

3 Dickens Jayden Harrison

3 Ahlberg Ella Ratchford Mature

3 Morpurgo Alfie Wallis Resilient

4 Fine Thomas Neilson Mature

4 Lewis Megan Pinnick Likes a challenge

4 Strong Connor Farrant Responsible

5 Stevenson Joshua Achunine Responsible

5 Walliams Ellie-Mai Woods Collaborative

5 Hughes Kyle Swaffield Resilient

6 Browne None this week due to

trip

6 Jennings None this week due to

trip

6 Tolkien Luke Barry Likes a Challenge

Ach

iev

emen

t, A

spir

ati

on

s, C

om

mu

nit

y, R

esp

on

sib

ilit

y

Star Readers

Year Class Child Reason

R Snowy Owls

R Puffins

1 Huskies

1 Polar Bears

2 Arctic Fox

2 Snow Leopards

3 Dickens

3 Ahlberg

3 Morpurgo

4 Fine

4 Strong

4 Lewis

5 Hughes

5 Stevenson

5 Walliams

6 Tolkien

6 Jennings

6 Browne

You’re a Star Reader!

This award is presented every week in assembly in order to support

our whole-school drive in improving reading standards and to

promote overall reading enjoyment!

Star Readers

Year Class Child

R Snowy Owls Leo Decuypere

R Puffins Talal Al-Abdullah

1 Huskies Meghna Mahay

1 Polar Bears Ruby-May Barratt

2 Snow Leopards Nayara Onsulve

2 Arctic Fox Ivo Kwiatkowski

3 Dickens Logan Blackburn

3 Ahlberg Ollie Coleman

3 Morpurgo Imaad Ismail

4 Fine Lily Monaghan

4 Lewis Megan Pinnick

4 Strong Jaide Exton

5 Stevenson Sanjana Arumulla

5 Walliams Morgan Louka

5 Hughes Callum Paine

6 Browne None this week due to trip

6 Jennings None this week due to trip

6 Tolkien Luke Barry

Ach

iev

emen

t, A

spir

ati

on

s, C

om

mu

nit

y, R

esp

on

sib

ilit

y

Donations

Mollie, Tillie and

Olivia from Year 5

continue with their

quest to raise money

for a school bike

shed. They are ask-

ing for donations of

good quality unwant-

ed toys that they can

have for their stall at

the Summer Fair .

Thank you.