Noticeboard

Dear Parents and Carers of Glade Hill,

We have yet another fantastic half-term at Glade Hill and it was so lovely to celebrate this at our Special Awards assemblies today. The children have blown us all away with their commitment to learning, and how golden and SPARKLY they are. Well done to all the children chosen for awards today, I hope your grown-ups enjoyed the presentation.

All classes have done lots of fantastic learning this half-term and the children are making some fantastic progress. Take a look at some examples of their work below. I know you will be as impressed as I am!

As you will know, as part of our efforts at Glade Hill to continually improve, we have three School Development priorities for this academic year.

This term we have made the following progress towards these:

1. To review current policy and improve provision to raise attainment in reading across the school. – Focus for staff meetings, visit by PEIA English Lead to review provision, coaching staff by English Lead Miss Whiles.
2. To develop assessment strategies across the curriculum to support children in making accelerated progress. – Focus for staff meetings, observations of teaching and feedback by Mrs Want (Deputy Head) and coaching support.
3. To continue to raise attendance levels across the school, reducing the absence rates and supporting persistent absentees to attend school more regularly. – new Office Manager and Attendance Improvement Officer employed (Mrs Raynor) who will start after half-term, ongoing incentives and rewards, support for families by PEIA attendance team.

As shared before, as parents and carers you have a valuable part to play in supporting these development areas too. Some ways you can do this are listed below:

• Read with your child at least three times a week and record this in the school diaries.
• Complete any homework or online learning given to support your child to make the best possible progress.
• Ensure your child is in school as much as possible, good attendance is proven to support pupil achievement and wellbeing.

With so much going on in school, and lots of trips and enrichment activities coming up after half-term, make sure you check the Arbor and MarvellousMe app for updates, reminders and messages regarding all the fun things we are going to be learning and doing. These are our main communication tools so if you do not yet have the apps, or you are experiencing problems, please speak to a member of our Office team who will be able to help you. The MarvellousMe app is also used to send ‘badges’ when your child has been praised by a member of staff including leaders, so keep a look out.

Thank you in advance for all your support for our amazing school and I hope you all have a lovely half-term break.

Kindest regards,

Mrs Anna Stapleton - Headteacher

Dear Parents and Carers of Glade Hill,

I hope you all had a nice Christmas break. It has been so lovely to see all of the children back in school and ready to learn.

This week we had a visit from Pat Fielding, CEO of Nottingham Schools Trust (NST), and he was really impressed with what he saw. During our learning walk together around the school, we saw some great work by pupils, positive attitudes to learning, golden behaviour, and all staff going above and beyond to ensure children make the best progress possible. Well done Glade Hill, let’s keep up the good work!

We have lots of great learning planned this term, so make sure you also check out our website for useful information regarding what your children are learning in their classes. Our teachers have been working hard on the ‘Class Pages’ and they will be updating them throughout the term with photographs, examples of work and useful links to support your child’s learning.

As part of our efforts at Glade Hill to continually improve, we have three School Development priorities for this academic year.

These are as follows:

1. To review current policy and improve provision to raise attainment in reading across the school.
2. To develop assessment strategies across the curriculum to support children in making accelerated progress.
3. To continue to raise attendance levels across the school, reducing the absence rates and supporting persistent absentees to attend school more regularly.

Staff training and development for the Spring and Summer terms will focus on improving the teaching of reading across the school and also developing assessment practice to help move children’s learning on. Senior Leaders will also be continuing to work with staff on implementing our assessment policy.

As you know improving attendance continues to be very important. Your child having the best possible attendance is an important way that you can support their learning and achievement. Research shows that children with over 95% attendance achieve better grades, achieve their best and are happier and more settled in school. The Government are really focusing on this area, and are launching a campaign ‘Every moment matters’ to raise awareness of the importance of good attendance for all children.

To support this area in school, we will be continuing to present children with 100% attendance each term with star badges to mark this achievement. The bronze badges We will also be continuing to announce which classes have the best attendance each week in assemblies, which the children love. The winning classes earn extra outside time and the phase attendance trophy for the week! Thank you in advance for making sure your child comes to school as much as possible, and please let us know via the office if you require any additional support.

With so much going on in school, and lots of trips and enrichment activities coming up, make sure you check the Arbor and MarvellousMe app for updates, reminders and messages regarding all the fun things we are going to be learning and doing. These are our main communication tools so if you do not yet have the apps, or you are experiencing problems, please speak to a member of our Office team who will be able to help you. The MarvellousMe app is also used to send ‘badges’ when your child has been praised by a member of staff including leaders, so keep a look out.

Thank you in advance for all your support for our amazing school and I look forward to seeing you all very soon.

Kindest regards,

Mrs Anna Stapleton

Headteacher

As part of our Christmas activities, all our classes have been tasked with creating peace chains as part of our Picture News Scheme.

Each year Picture News aims to share some happiness and joy with their schools through their Christmas Campaign. For this year, as there is so much uncertainty and unrest in the world, they felt that writing down and sharing messages of peace with others would be a small but powerful way for schools to use their voices.

We have also shared some photos of our chains on social media through X (formerly known as Twitter)!

We were very pleased to invite Kate Jones as a key note speaker for our shared INSET day with local Aspire Primary Schools.

Kate is an author on the subject of retrieval practice and talked to us about evidence based strategies to support our children knowing more and remembering more.

Teaching Assistant staff then attended 3 workshops focussed on:

-Supporting children with ASC and anxiety

-Challenge in Maths

-Supporting children in English

-Supporting children with complex and additional needs

-Supporting children to develop their communication and language

Then in the afternoon, Teachers met as year group teams across our 5 local schools to moderate writing and share judgements. They discussed next steps to support improving outcomes in writing for our children.

Thanks to all the speakers, facilitators and staff for supporting and engaging in our INSET. We aim that this professional development supports the improvement of outcomes for children who attend our schools.

We had an amazing day at Glade Hill raising money for Children in Need. The children (and staff!) dressed to impress in spots, yellow, non-school uniform or pyjamas and also got to join in with some fun games organised by our awesome Year 3s and 4s.

Take a look at the photos below.

Dear Parents and Carers of Glade Hill,

I hope you all had a nice half-term break. It has been so lovely to see your children back in school this week and ready to learn.

This next half-term is always a busy one, so make sure you check the MarvellousMe app, your Arbor app and your emails for updates, reminders and messages regarding all the fun things we are going to be doing in school. If you do not yet have the app, please speak to a member of our Office team who will be able to help you get set up. This app is also used to send ‘badges’ when your child has been praised by a member of staff, so keep a look out.

There are lots of opportunities coming up as well, for you to get involved in school and find out about your child’s learning. There are ‘Stay and Learn’ sessions for our F2 (Reception) and more Excite and Engage drop  ins for Buttercups and Bluebells parents and carers. We will also be having our first parents’ evenings of this year next week on Monday 13th and Tuesday 14th November, so make sure you return a slip for each of your children with your preferred time slots as soon as possible. We are hoping that our School Cook will be attending part of the Tuesday session, providing samples for parents and children of our amazing school meals!

Finally, after being in contact with his family, we are hoping to create some in-school memorials to our Year 1 child who passed away shortly before the school holiday. Our FRoGS parent group (Friends of Glade Hill School) will be meeting with school staff soon to discuss how we can raise money for this, and once we have decided on a fitting tribute we will be sending out information to parents and carers. I am sure you will join me in sending all our love and support to the child’s family at this sad time. If any child or family has any personal messages they wish send to the family, we will be putting a memorial book in the office for people to add to. You can also send any messages via email which we will print to include in the book.

I look forward to seeing you all very soon, kindest regards,

Mrs Anna Stapleton - Headteacher

Dear Parents and Carers of Glade Hill,

This half-term we have been focusing on getting all the children quickly settled into their new classes and taking part in the great learning that has been taking place. I hope the parents and carers who were able to join us for the ‘excite and engage’ sessions enjoyed seeing the learning in action. I know I have been so impressed with all the children’s GOLDEN behaviour and their SPARKLY learning so far! A big thank you to the grown-ups who dressed up for the Year 2 Pirate themed event, you looked amazing!

We have also celebrated Harvest this half-term, again collecting an ENORMOUS amount of food for the Bulwell and Bestwood Food Bank. Thank you so much for your generosity and for supplying the requested items.

We also dressed to impress on our ‘Wear it Gold’ day to show our support for the Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group (CCLG), raising awareness of this charity for a cause that is very close to our hearts.

There are still lots more opportunities to come after our half-term holiday including a ‘Stay and Learn’ for our F2 (Reception) parents and carers, more Excite and Engage drop ins and a ‘Cuppa, Cake and Chatter’ meeting for parents to learn more about how to support your child’s reading. Keep an eye out for upcoming dates and further details.

Please remember that our three Priority Areas for School Improvement this year are:

• Reading – please read at least 3 times a week with your child
• Assessment – please help them complete their homework and join us for school events and parents’ evenings
• and Attendance – please make sure that your child is in school as much as possible

I thank you in advance for your ongoing support in these areas and look forward to seeing you after the half-term break.

Kindest regards,                       

Mrs Anna Stapleton - Headteacher