General Announcements

Following Wednesday’s election, I am delighted to announce that Savannah (Wise Owls) has been duly elected to serve as our Prime Minister for 2017-18 with a 37% share of the vote.  I am sure that you will join me in congratulating her on achieving this honour.

It was a very close election, with a 97% turnout overall.  I must say a huge well done to Savannah and all the other candidates who stood.  All children gave a really good account of themselves on Wednesday. They read out their manifestos really well and spoke confidently about how we can improve our school. I was immensely proud of them all for their maturity and also their courage (standing up in front of the whole school, the Burton Mail and Heather Wheeler MP).  You could really tell that they had worked hard on their manifestos.  I look forward to working with all four of them and the other MPs, to move our school forward, over the next year.

I can confirm the other senior positions on our school parliament will be as follows:

Deputy Prime Minister – Rosie

Chancellor of the Exchequer – Owen

Speaker of the House – Keona

For the first time in the history of our School Parliament, this year, the children will be given a small budget so they can spend money on the things that matter to them.  Watch this space!

Keep your eyes peeled in the Burton Mail over the weekend!

Tomorrow morning (Friday 22nd September, between 9am and 10am) I will be hosting my first Cuppa and Cake session of the new school year.  This will be a really informal get-together and we will be talking about the following things:

*A new Home-School Partnership Agreement

*Feedback on the new Home-Learning Logs

*Feedback on the welcome meetings we held

It will be useful to get your views so we can continue to improve as a school. We look forward to welcoming you.

For those who came along to our respective class welcome meetings last week, you will have been informed about the new Times Tables Grand Prix challenge which the children will be working towards throughout the year.

For those of you unable to make the meeting, our Maths leader, Mrs Weston, has put together some notes to give you a better understanding of the Grand Prix Challenge and help you support your child’s learning.

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to speak with your child’s teacher.

Times Tables Grand Prix

As you may know, last year we managed to secure sponsorship for a new sports kit, with the help of one of our parents.

Two local organisations came together to support our school in this generous way; Pall-Ex and Enterprise Workwear.  As part of the promotion of this work within the community, our school has appeared in Pall-Ex’s industry magazine ‘Fastlane’, click here and scroll to page 3 to read all about it.

It’s Monday and that can only mean one thing!  It’s the day that class teachers check to see if the children have done their home-learning.

Remember, we expect all children to read 5 times per week at home, work on their times tables and complete their spelling work.  Should they do this, they’ll be rewarded with 5 Privilege Points.  This afternoon, Mr Smith awarded all of those children who had done their home-learning some additional playtime too!

Home learning is vitally important so that the children can get secure learning foundations and access the National Curriculum effectively. and it also prepares them well for when they leave Coton for Secondary school. Remember, the little things make a BIG difference!

Next Wednesday morning we have a very special visitor in school to oversee our election process for the prestigious position of School Prime Minister 2017-18.

Derbyshire MP Heather Wheeler will be joining us for worship from 9:15 to hear our candidates present their manifestos for the coming school year.  Following this, all children will be asked to vote for their preferred candidate.

I know that all of the candidates have been working very hard to put together their thoughts over the last week or so; it will be really interesting to hear their proposals for making our school even better this year.

We look forward to announcing which child has been elected by the Coton School constituency next Friday.

This term, I am going to be listening to children read across the school  as part of our drive to get more children reading.  I will choose a few special children each week to share their book with me and talk to me about their favourite bits!

Children will be chosen completed at random so that I can get a real sense of how well our school is doing.  More importantly, it will be great to spend some quality time with the children.

Reading is such an important skill for the following reasons:

1. It’s fun and keeps us entertained
2. It’s the ‘gateway’ to our world and useful for finding out information
3. It helps us to develop our imagination
4. It helps us to widen our vocabulary for when we write or when speaking.

I will be making a note in your child’s Home Learning Log if they have been specially selected to read with me and they may even get some extra Privilege Points!

We hope to see you at our welcome meetings next week, where you will be able to meet the class teacher and find out about the following things:

• The new Home-Learning Log that you children will be bringing home
• Spellings
• X Tables
• What you child is learning this year
• End of year National Expectations for your child’s year group in Reading, Writing and Maths
• Privilege Points
• Plus lots more useful information pertaining to your child’s class

Even if you have met your child’s teacher, it will be a good chance for you to find out what we have in store this year so you are kept informed.

We hope to see you there!

The clubs have been listed on our website for Autumn term 1.  Please ensure you complete the form, even if your child has attended the club previously – Clubs start from next week.

The after school clubs page can be found here.

Thank you