The weeks are flying by and we have had another busy fortnight in school, since my last newsletter. We were very lucky to have a visit from the Mayor and Mayoress last Friday. The Mayor- Mick Legg, like many Parents/ Carers, attended Abbeys when he was little and he enjoyed sharing his experiences with the children in assembly. Then, we treated him to tea and cake with the School Council, where we discussed his role as Mayor and what his responsibilities are.

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Next Friday the 6th of October, we will be holding our annual Harvest festival in school. We are asking for donations of the following-

- tinned food (vegetables, fruit, meat, fish)

- spreads (jam, honey etc.)

- long-life milk, juice and drinks

- dried pasta

- cooking sauces

- condiments

- tea and coffee

- rice

- cereal

- toiletries

Our donations will be collected by St Mary's church and will help provide for others locally.

Please hand your donations to the office or to the class teacher.

Below is a photo of last year's Harvest!

Let's see if we can go even BIGGER this year!

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Reading and Homework

This academic year we are really focusing on developing reading at Abbeys.

Reading is the most important part of a child's learning and the most important thing you can be doing at home with your child.

At school we use the RWI phonics scheme to teach reading from Foundation stage. There is a RWI page on our website with videos and helpful prompts! Take a look!

CONGRATULATIONS to Mrs Dunnett for passing her Forest school qualification! She worked tremendously hard to complete the activities, paperwork, policies and risk assessments in order to provide our pupils with this fantastic opportunity. Well Done Mrs Dunnett! And thanks to Miss Currie for her guidance with this training- it was not easy work!

Now we have both Miss Currie and Mrs Dunnett as fully trained Forest school teachers.

Over the last two weeks Mrs Dunnett has been very busy out in the Forest area with the children enjoying learning outdoors. All children in school will have a fortnightly Forest school session - whatever the weather! So please provide them with wellies and a raincoat to keep in school.

We like to learn outside in other subjects too!

Here are Whitby class enjoying a Geography lesson. They have been learning about compasses and drew some on the floor outside the classroom. They used the compass on the iPad to find where North was and then the children used that to add in the other directions.

Woburn class have been very busy in English and Science lessons.

In English they have been learning all about synonyms- Look at Thanush's work! What beautiful handwriting you have Thanush!

Kane has been learning all about animal groups in Science! Well done to both of you- Mrs Chambers is very pleased with your work.

Year 5/6 have been learning all about electricity and building upon their prior knowledge of circuits. They have been exploring different resources to see if they can get the bulb to light!

OUR COMMUNITY- WHAT'S ON?

Some lovely feedback for the Foundation Stage team- who have worked so hard to support the children as they settle in to life at Abbeys!

'We would really like to say a BIG thank you to the Foundation Team, they've done so incredibly well settling in all the children. Our child talks fondly about each of them and what he's learning.

We'd like to say a special thank you to Miss Brown and the amazing support she has given us and our child.

He regularly comes home talking about her and their day. Commenting on the Happy Days he's been having and this has been invaluable to us as parents!'

Congratulations to Keshika!

She has achieved her yellow belt in boxing from Total dojo.

Hopefully, she will be excited to see herself in the newsletter!

Keep up the great work Keshika!

Miss Holder and Mrs Migliazza were both mugged last week!

Mrs M for being a fantastic support over the last few weeks in school.... now we are all waiting patiently for Baby M to arrive- we hope you are resting and enjoying all that chocolate Mrs M!

Miss Holder was mugged for always being positive, she is always smiling and has settled in well to life at Abbeys Primary school. Congratulations to you both! You brighten up the place!

CENSUS DAY

If your child only has one school dinner this year, it should be on CENSUS day!

Schools are funded for the remainder of the year based on the amount of pupils that have dinner on the 5th of October!

SO order now!

This is free under the Universal Infant Free School Meal programme for children in EYFS, Woburn, Westminster and Whitby.

Our school values are really important to us and each month we celebrate a new value and reward children that display these values.

These values underpin our curriculum and are built into the topics we teach. It is really helpful when Parents/ Carers model these Values at home and support our work with the children.

At Abbeys we really value effective communication and we are always here to listen to Parents/ Carers should you have any concerns or worries. However, there are some times when communication can break down and staff are not always spoken to politely or calmly. At times, we have heard Parents/ Carers swearing on the playground in front of their children and other children. It is sad to have to have a Code of Conduct for visitors on our school site, but there has to be a certain level of behaviour and respect at all times. We are all only human after all and we need to model to our pupils how to deal with difficult situations appropriately.

Please read through the Visitor Code of Conduct- CLICK HERE

Signs of AUTUMN

Autumn is on it's way and the leaves are starting to fall. Lovely Nicola in Marham found a little Hedgehog the other day! What a lovely photo to share with us.

As the nights are drawing in, it is important to make sure home time arrangements are up-to-date with the school office as it can be dark by 4pm and children shouldn't be walking home alone- particularly after clubs.

Also, please make sure your child has a coat in school- preferably labelled- as the weather is becoming more unpredictable and we like to be outside as much as we can.

Don't forget that as well as beautiful Autumn leaves and hedgehogs around, there are also lots of CONKERS. Please enter our CONKER competition which closes on the 13th October. Have fun!