December Newsletter Wishing all of our AFJS community a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Reading at AFJS

It was great to see so many of you at the Book fair last week. Not only is this a great way to promote reading but it will also help us to raise funds to put new books into our school library, to help hook children in to new books and keep up the positive reading culture we have at AFJS.

Our School Improvement Partner, Mr Watts, focused on reading when he came into school a couple of weeks ago too and he was very impressed with the lessons he went into and the things the children spoke about with him. Here are a few snippits from his report...

Teachers convey high expectations of learning and possess a secure knowledge in the teaching of literacy. As a result, pupils are motivated and readily engage in lessons. Across the school, teachers are good role models for speaking, reading and writing.

The school places much emphasis on the teaching of reading and leaders and staff have developed a reading culture. There is an attractive and well organised library which is prominently located close to the school’s entrance. High quality fiction and non-fiction books are available for all pupils. Pupils thoroughly enjoy using the library as they select books for pleasure or research.

The school successfully promotes a love of reading. For example, a Year 5 pupil who was previously a reluctant reader now reads on a regular basis and thoroughly enjoys reading at home and school.

Pupils in Years 3 and 4 spoke enthusiastically about their reading habits. All pupils, including the lower attaining readers, read at home on a regular basis. They read independently and to members of their family. Pupils identified their favourite authors and books. Julia Donaldson, Roald Dahl, J K Rowling and Michael Morpurgo were popular writers.

Pupils know the importance of being good readers, such as giving us ideas for writing and for enjoyment. One pupil said ‘If you don’t read, there are wonderful books you can miss out on.’

Learning around school

Year 3

In Maths, year 3 have been working on understanding the relationship between multiplication and division, showing calculations through pictorial representations. They have also been resilient and ambitious in learning their times tables and they have had fun investigating all the way up to the 8 times tables. They have been developing their stamina and resilience for writing in English, being reflective with their editing skills again, continuing to ensure they have used capital letters and full stops accurately, while making sure that in particular for their instructions of how to wash a woolly mammoth, that they have used adverbials of time, prepositions and imperative verbs. In science, year 3 have continued to study Rocks and Soils, focusing on Soils. They have made compost bins and written up menus for worms. They have enjoyed exploring the absorbency of soils and observing what soil contains. They have also enjoyed sessions lead by women in STEM, making air powered rockets and investigating the strength of different columns.

Year 4

In their English lessons recently, Year 4 have been reading the book 'Wolves' by Emily Gravett to inspire a piece of informative writing about these interesting animals. They have been ambitious when using a variety of conjunctions in their writing as well as working extremely hard to include a range of fronted adverbials. In Maths, the children have been working on their multiplication and division skills, with a specific focus on their times tables. They have really displayed a healthy body and mind when tackling some tricky problems and shown that they can use different methods to solve these. Year 4's learning in History has been fuelled by artefacts and investigations to discover how the Anglo Saxon's and Vikings lived and discover whether they were successful settlers or vicious brutes. They have been reflective when piecing all of the knowledge they have obtained together to make their final verdict.

Year 5

Year 5 have continued all the great work from Diwali day and produced work based on the Rama and Sita story 'Ramayana'. Children have shown great ambition in their writing, looking to include modal verbs, parenthesis and use a variety of sentence openers. It has been fantastic to see how the children are really reflecting on their work and editing it to make it the best it can be. In maths, we have focused on fractions. The children have been so resilient when problems solving, particularly subtracting fractions. They have used a lot of skills such as finding equivalent fractions, converting and simplifying. They have also started to demonstrate a really clear understanding of mathematical concepts by choosing tricky challenge sheets to complete and offering clear explanations in their answers. In PE, children have shown a healthy body and mind by focusing on their golf skills and their team skills in basketball. They have developed good resilience in these skills - hitting an air-flow ball in wintery conditions and on a sloped playground is not always the easiest! We have also been incredibly proud of how they have reflected on all their work in topic. They have produced some fantastic double-page spreads of information on all they have learnt about the Kingdom of Benin.

Year 6

In year 6 English lessons, the children have made quite a jump from writing gory battles to writing love letters based on the book the Princess' Blankets. This has involved children reading lyrics of love songs, 'wooing' each other and being ambitious when reading and understanding Shakespeare quotes. In maths, they have been calculating with fractions, applying their previous knowledge of simplifying, converting and finding equivalent fractions in order to add, subtract, multiply and divide them. The year 6 science topic of Evolution and Inheritance has involved practical investigations to help demonstrate adaption, evolution and natural selection, as well as learning about the importance of the scientist Charles Darwin. All the hard work in PE lessons paid off when the year 6 representatives won the Gold Medal in the Sportshall athletic competition. The children have also been learning new netball skills and showing fantastic teamwork and a healthy body and mind. It was great to see so many parents at our open afternoon and to see what the children have learnt about volcanoes; we have continued to deepen this knowledge - with the children now being ready to write an information text about how volcanoes erupt.

AFJS sporting achievements

With much of the football called off due to bad weather, this month was all about the indoor athletics competitions...

Governors

Message from the chair of Governors:

At Abbots Farm we are proud of our culture of openness and integrity and strive to maintain this. As part of that, we recognise that there may be times when those in our community feel dissatisfied. Having recently reviewed our complaints policy and procedures, I wanted to take the time to highlight to you that it is reviewed and updated regularly, to ensure it aligns with wider guidance and our own school values and that, wherever possible, we encourage informal resolution of concerns with the class teacher in the first instance and then with Mrs Webb if required. In the rare instance that a resolution is not possible at this level, our complaints policy sets out the next stages, including the form to be completed in the event of the need for escalations. I would encourage anyone with concerns to read the policy in full and follow the procedures outlined.

A huge welcome to the new members of our team for January:

We are excited to be welcoming 2 new Governors to the AFJS team in January. Firstly, Mrs Seneschall-Jones is coming back as a co-opted Governor and we are very excited to be retaining some of her expertise in this new capacity. Secondly, following the recent parent Governor campaign, we received one nomination for the vacancy which means that the parent that applied has been elected unopposed. We look forward to welcoming Mrs Mogul (parent of Y6 and Y4 pupils) to the team at our first meeting in January too.

Charity work

As part of our Farmers Forever ethos, we are keen to promote charitable work and fundraising with our pupils to help them develop a wider understanding of the world. Mrs Watson-Tate is putting together a display for the board at the school gate to showcase all the wonderful fundraising our pupils and families have been a part of.

Since the start of this academic year alone, we have raised money for 4 different charities (plus a harvest collection for the Foodbank) and used these as opportunities to discuss the work of these charities and why they are so important with the pupils.

We have now totalled up and banked all the money raised for Children in Need with our non-uniform day and cake sale and we raised a huge £360.20!

Finally, after deducations for the sweets bought, the Eagles team raised just over £200 for Warwickshire Wildlife Trust, which has now been sent over to them

If you add all that to the £149.41 raised on Hats off for mental health day in aid of Coverntry and Warwicklshire MIND, that is a huge fundraising total to date of.........

On top of that, Nitika in Year 4 has been doing some fundraising of her own just recently, donating £50 to the school after holding a Christmas card stall at the Rugby christmas market. A huge thank you Nitika - we are so grateful and very proud of you.

AFJS PTFA

We look forward to welcoming you to our wonderful Christmas Fair after school today - thank you for your donations from non-uniform day for the tombola. We will update you on money raised in the next newsletter. :)

As you do your last minute Christmas shopping, please remember our Easy Fundraising account. You can raise FREE donations for us EVERY time you shop online. Over 7,000 brands will donate, including all the big names like John Lewis & Partners, BT, Expedia, Argos, ASOS, Just Eat, Uswitch and many more! Please support us by clicking the button below to sign up and get shopping

The PTA are also looking at a more efficient way of running the tombola in future and would like some help - please save the plastic lids of milk cartons and send them in to school for the attention of Mrs Warneck

Reminders

Attendance - Please make sure that children are in school by 8:50am each day so that they are settled and ready to start their learning on time. The gates are open from 8:40 to 8:50.

School uniform - school shoes should be sensible black shoes/boots/smart, completely black trainers. In bad weather, children may wear other boots, shoes or wellies to walk to school but they must bring their school shoes to change in to once they are here.

Diary Dates

UPCOMING EVENTS - more information will be shared closer to the time but keep these dates in your diary

• Tues 19th Dec - Christmas lunch and Christmas jumper day
• Weds 20th - Y5&6 Carols evening from 6pm - no tickets needed as it is an outside event and there is plenty of space for everyone!
• wb 25th Dec and 1st Jan - CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS
• Monday 8th Jan - TRAINING DAY - SCHOOL CLOSED TO ALL PUPILS
• Wednesday 10th Jan - Young Voices choir are heading to Resorts World Arena for the final concert after months of hard work learning all the songs and actions.
• Friday 9th Feb - Mid year reviews out to parents
• wb 12th Feb - HALF TERM
• Tuesday 20th and Wednesday 21st February - parents evenings
• wb 11th March - open mornings

Class assembly dates

Next term, class assemblies will be on a Tuesday again, but they will start at 9:05am. Here are the dates for your diary.

Open morning dates

Next term, we are going to be holding open mornings instead of open afternoons - we are aiming to vary the timing of these events on a termly basis, like we do with the class assemblies, to enable parents who work shifts etc to be able to attend some of the events throughout the year. This term, they will be between 9am and 10am in the week beginnning 11th March 2024.

Our open events are a great opportunity for parents to come in and complete some activities with their children linked to their learning this term. You can also have a look through all of their books and chat to year group staff. Even if you can't stay for the whole hour, come along for as long as you can.

Messages from the office

Clubs sign up links have all gone out this week and they close on Monday - the office are then aiming to get places allocated before the Christmas holidays if possible. They do not start first week back - the email sent out details start dates for each one.

Medication - if your child needs to take a regular dose of medication within the school day for a short period of time for any reason, you need to complete a form at the office and hand in the correct daily dose to the office ladies for safe keeping. Do not put it in your child's bag. Please note that we are unable to refrigerate any medication.

Don't forget to bring your account up to date for any remaining Kidzone fees, music tuition etc before the end of term please.

Here are details of some local activities we have had shared with us recently that may be of interest to you.

Please remember that we cannot vouch for any of these providers, we are just sharing information that might be of use or interest to our families that has been sent to us.