Good Citizen Award
Two weeks ago, we launched our Good Citizen Award and the first person to receive it was a superstar in year 2 who spent some of her weekend picking up rubbish around our school. She managed to fill 11 bin bags and everyone could see what a positive difference this made. As well as receiving the first award, she was very excited to choose a friend to take Maggie for a walk and show us the now litter free environment at the front of the school.
In assembly, we have talked about what makes a good citizen and the children generated words such as fair, careful, empathetic, inclusive, team player, thoughtful, helpful, friendly, resilient, respectful, kind.... The children all had good ideas to share and understand how we have to work together to make our school a good place to be.
Each week, the staff are looking out for exceptional examples of how children contribute to the school community and beyond so that we can recognise and talk about their good deeds.
Visit to Bowmont House
Before Christmas, a group of Year 4 children visited the residents at Bowmont House to spread some festive cheer. They enjoyed chatting to the residents and providing some entertaining songs and dances.
This is always a positive experience for both the children and the residents and we will be planning another visit soon.
Parking
Almost every day, we receive calls or emails from local residents to report dangerous or inconsiderate driving and parking on the roads around school. We are sometimes sent photographs of cars which are blocking residents' access, are double parked and blocking roads or are being driven dangerously. We also see ourselves that many people choose to ignore the School Safety Zone signs and road markings.
School safety zones are statutory and must be provided by the City Council. Every school in the country has a school safety zone. The aim of the zone is to make the areas around schools safer for pupils and parents/ carers.
We fully understand the frustrations of not being able to park in a car park at drop off and pick up times but schools are not designed with parent and carer parking facilities. In fact, we only allowed access to our car park at these times of the day to support families after our relocation in 2022 when most of the school population did not live on the Great Park. The car parks of schools are designed for staff, visitors and those who need access due to a disability. We have mentioned previously that we are likely to restrict access to the car park as the school grows and when Great Park Academy opens. We had hoped that by now the access to the Park and Ride would be much better and the path between it and us would be completed. We have been frustrated at how long this is taking but it is outside of our control.
During the past two years, Northumbria Police have visited the site several times, in response to requests from local residents, other parents and carers and school. On Tuesday the police officers who attended at drop off told us that they will be returning and will be issuing fines to drivers who cause obstructions, drive dangerously or park on the school safety zone markings (yellow zig zags and double yellow lines). This is to make the area around our school safer for everyone, particularly our children.
We all know that the site is going to be busier in the future and we want to work together to make sure that everyone can get here and leave here safely. Please remember that we did not design the car park, we had no say in the design of the site and the access, we could not have made the car park any bigger and we have no control over anything which happens off site. If you are talking to site staff or school staff about the car park and parking issues, please keep the above points in mind and remain polite and respectful.
Most of you live very close to school, so if you are able to, please help the congestion around school by walking, cycling or scooting to school. As well as making these times of the day safer, it is great for the children to be active and learn about sustainability.
Thank you for your support.
Plantpots Nursery
We are enjoying having Plantpots Nursery in our small hall and everyone has settled in really well. The children are getting the benefits of being part of our school family, including having a school meal and using the outdoor learning area. This week, they have enjoyed visiting the reception setting and meeting the Guinea Pigs, Grace and Frankie!
If you are interested in your preschool child (3-4yr olds) starting at Plantpots, you can find out more via the link below.
Training Day Reminder
Please remember that Friday 21st February is a training day and so school is closed to children. Our teaching staff will be off site learning about adaptive teaching and task design. School restarts for children on Monday 3rd March.
KS 1 One Minute Maths
Key Stage One parents can now download the White Rose Maths – 1 minute maths app. This is a free app that helps children to consolidate their learning they are doing in the classroom at home.
Why do we think you should you use it?
- Excellent practice – and no distractions.
- A clear, intuitive process that children pick up straight away.
- No login or internet access needed. Just download and play.
- Enjoyable and motivating… How many can they get correct in one minute?
- Helpful hints match those used in class.
- Brilliant for building number fluency and confidence.
- It’s FREE!
Havannah First School Instagram Account
As you are all aware, we have a Twitter/X account which we have been using for many years. Through this account, we have been sharing school news and highlighting some of the fun and successes we have in school each day. We have enjoyed being able to share the life of the school in this way but we feel that it is now time for something different and that Twitter/X isn’t the platform it used to be. We have also noticed that the wider school community engagement with Twitter/X has declined and we have much smaller numbers of people interacting with us.
For these reasons, we have decided to use Instagram to celebrate and share the life of our school family. This platform will continue to serve as a window into events, activities, achievements and some special moments at Havannah First School.
In the same way as we have used Twitter/X, through our Instagram account, we are aiming to:
- Celebrate children’s achievements: Highlight progress and achievements of children in school.
- Share school events and learning: Provide updates and snapshots of activities, assemblies, sports and performances.
- Strengthen community engagement: Engage with other schools, agencies and partners in our locality and beyond.
Privacy and Consent
We take privacy and online safety very seriously. To ensure that all posts align with our values and policies:
- We will only share images or first names of students with prior parental consent.
- We will never use images and names together.
- We will never use full names.
- Posts will be monitored by school staff to ensure that they comply to GDPR.
- We will not tag individual parents or others in posts to protect their privacy.
We are not going to have separate class accounts on Instagram but one shared Havannah account on which our teaching staff can post. The account will be public but we will be managing the settings so that posts cannot be shared.
We cannot assume that you give consent for us to use your child's picture on Instagram because you previously gave permission for Twitter/X. We have put a new very quick and simple form on ParentMail and we will add your preference to our records. Please complete this before Friday 7th February.
We hope that this will be a popular and more enjoyable platform to use for our followers and we are looking forward to sharing our updates with you. Please follow us if you can! Our Instagram handle is havannah1st.
If you have any questions about our use of Instagram, please get in touch.
Archery at Dinnington First
Some of our Y3 children recently took part in an Archery Competition at Dinnington First School. They proved to be very skillful and worked as a team to earn first place!
We were all very proud of them for looking after each other and celebrating their successes together. Well done!
Dates List
We have attached a dates list to your email. We will keep adding to this as the year goes on. There are assemblies, visits, transition dates and many more things to add, especially in the summer term. We will also keep the website calendar as up to date as possible so that you can check in on what is coming up.