communication

Message

Dear parents and carers,

There has been a buzz around the academy with happy and bright starts to the day. From meet and greet on the gate, to morning routines and corridor conversations.

Lots of thumbs up and high fives. What a great place to be.

in the spotlight

Attendance in the spotlight

Every day counts and we continue our drive to improve attendance for all. This includes a focus on supporting families with low attendance or lateness and to remind parents that holidays in term time are not permitted. For children in year 1, 4 and 6 the coming months play an important part in the progress and development of phonics, multiplication and end of key stage assessments. Please see Attainment in the spotlight.

Our attendance is improving. This is great. Let’s see if we can reach or go beyond our target and be between 96% and 97%. Last half term the overall attendance was 95.5%

You can view your own child’s attendance on our ‘My Child At School app’ MCAS.

For your information: Attendance that is at 93% or below is deemed of at risk of falling into persistent absence. Persistent absence is categorised as 90% and below.

Punctuality remains a focus to ensure that all children start school in good time and are prepared for the day ahead. Consistent lateness impacts not only on the start of day routines but on the subject that they continually miss. Support and challenge is given to families to try and find ways to improve punctuality.

We are seeing an increase in requests for leave of absence during term time for holidays. Please be reminded for the changes to fines for term time holidays which the academy is implementing –

Resources for Parents:

The Education Hub is a website for parents, pupils, education professionals and the media that captures all your need to know about the education systems included attendance. Please visit the link for everything you need to know about school attendance - Back to school week – Everything you need to know about school attendance – The Education Hub

There is also Guidance for parents on school attendance which aims to help parents understand how they can work with their child’s school and local authority to support their children to attend school and get the right support. This includes support for mental health concerns, activity packs, toolkits for parents and much more - Resources for families | Children's Commissioner for England

Please continue to work collaboratively with the academy and follow our policies and processes which can be found on our academy website. Our aim is to ensure that children get the opportunity to get the most out of their school experience, attainment, wellbeing, and wider life choices by attending school regularly and punctually

Tea and Talk

Nursery Phonics

Come along to Tea and Talk for phonics in Nursery on Wednesday 12th March at 8.50am.

A fun session that is full of practical ideas to help your child at home and understand how they learn phonics at Darlinghurst. In the summer term Nursery begin their phonic learning, looking at sounds in the environment and are introduced to the letter sounds and corresponding pictures. This session will provide you with some fun ideas and activities you can do to support your child at home whilst having a cup of tea and a biscuit. If you have little ones in buggies, please bring them along as the informal format allows your child to play along too. Miss Gue will be available throughout the session to answer questions too.

Please book your place with mrsalexander@darlinghurstacademy.org.uk and I look forward to seeing you at 8.50 at the brook gate. Please allow Nursery and Reception children to enter the Academy first and I will take you round to Tiny Tiddlers once all children are safely in the academy.

Year 4 Multiplication Check

On March 20th at 2.30pm Mrs Powell will be talking about the Year 4 Multiplication Times table Check. Year 4 parents will have the opportunity to find out more about how this national check which takes place in the summer term. Mrs Powell will explain the process behind the check and how you can best support your child at home. All children from year 2 to 6 have access to and regularly engage with Times tables Rockstars in school and as part of their home learning. Times tables are best learnt frequently in order for them to ‘stick’ in the long-term memory. They also help children in other aspects of their Maths learning especially as they move through the school and into Secondary education.

Please join Mrs Powell to find out how you can help your child prepare for this assessment.

Year 1 Phonics Screen

Every year in June, as part of our summative assessments, Year 1 engage in a phonics screening check. They are assessed on their reading of 40 words, 20 of which are real and 20 of which are nonsense ‘pseudo’ or ‘alien’ words. Alien words test your child’s ability to decode words without the support of any memory of words that they may have come across in reading.

Year 6 SATs

Thank you to the parents and carers who attended the Y6 SATS talk last term with Mrs Dunne and this week with Mrs Hahn. It provided an opportunity for us to share key dates and information about the SATS as well as look at ways in which parents and carers can support their children at home ahead of these tests. The importance of daily attendance was discussed as being in school every day impacts positively children’s achievement.