Caring Curious Courageous

Enabling all children to learn and grow

Dear all families,

As we come to the end of our first full week of term, I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to you all. It is not every week (thank goodness) that you receive an urgent message to collect your child from school due to a lack of water. I was very impressed with the speed that the children were collected and appreciate the huge efforts that some of you will have gone to, to make this happen - thank you!

The children have settled back to school well, the learning is underway and the books have been started. There has been a focus on presentation in all the classrooms, and I am very pleased to say that the books I have seen have been very impressive. I would like to extend a warm welcome to all our new families and children who have joined The Vineyard. 

During our first assembly on Monday, the focus was on our value 'caring'. We talked about how the adults' most important job is to keep the children safe because we care about them. Also, how the children can show all adults and each other that they care by showing kindness and good manners. 

A few families mentioned in the parent survey last term that they would like to know more about what their child is learning at school. Last year, we increased the number of opportunities families were invited in to school to look at their child's books, which will continue this year. We are also introducing a half-termly learning bulletin. These will include the key knowledge and vocabulary the children will learn in each curriculum area. Autumn 1 will be out next Friday.

Please do keep an eye on the website calendar and the dates at the end of the newsletter. One date to note is the Pyjama reading day next Friday 22nd September. Mr Jones is launching this in assembly on Monday.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend,

Frances Bracegirdle

Headteacher - headteacher@vineyard.richmond.sch.uk

Teaching and learning

Developing effective talk partners in the classroom

Research shows that spending more class time on meaningful dialogue that encourages pupils to reason, discuss, speculate, argue and explain, rather than simply give the expected answers can boost primary pupils' outcomes. The ability to communicate effectively is an essential ingredient to both success in school and beyond.

The staff CPD (continued professional development) session this week was focused on how to develop effective talk partners by encouraging children to take the role of 'listener' and 'speaker'.  Children will be encouraged to use the key vocabulary highlighted for the lesson and be given sentence stems to support those who would benefit from a place to start their talking. This technique also helps the teacher assess whether children have completely understood the learning for that lesson.

Here are some sentence stems you could try out at home when having a discussion:

• I think      
• I believe         
• I prefer                
• I feel                     
• I agree because           
• I disagree because          
• This is because                          
• In my opinion

Ms Reilly & Mrs Dempster- AHT Teaching & Learning

Attendance

Year 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 have made an  excellent start to the year smashing our target of 96% - well done!

Miss McArdle- Assistant Headteacher 

Developing the love of reading at school

The library is now going to be used for reading only at lunchtimes, and a sprinkling of chess! So far this has been very popular, and it will also help our drive to foster the love of reading across the school. Any child is welcome to visit the library at anytime during lunch.

Family reading time

The library is open for families to use after school on Thursday evenings between 3.15 and 4.30pm. Please do come along and enjoy some stories as a family - all welcome.

PTA News

Come and be a class rep!

New year, new opportunity to shine as a class rep!
 
What do you need to do as a class rep:
- In general, you will be the guardian angel for your class community, being the main link between parents and PTA, also acting as an extra line of communication between the teacher and parents/carers, for example by passing on messages about school trips and events.
- You are the main point of contact for new parents/carers and welcome them to the class/year group.
- You are kindly asked to pass on information from the PTA to other parents about events and initiatives, and to be active, supportive and positive about the PTA activities. You are also expected to encourage and coordinate volunteers from your class to help with fundraising activities.
- You can organise informal social activities for parents and families in your child’s class, ranging from coffee mornings to end-of-year parties.
- You are leading the money collection for your teachers' Christmas and year end gift collection.

This is a great way to be informed about the school, while you can be part of a very supportive and fun class rep network.

Please message pta@vineyardpta.org if you are interested.  

PTA AGM and new committee wanted

We would like to invite every parent and carer of the Vineyard to join us for the next AGM on the 27th September 2023 at 7pm, in the school’s big hall.

According to the Vineyard PTA’s constitution the existing committee has to resign, and the members (which is all of you, parents, carers and teachers) will need to elect a new committee. We will also be discussing the financials, fundraising and events for the past year and ideas for the upcoming year.

As a reminder, the PTA is a registered charity and cannot function if we don’t have a committee, which consists of at least 3 members in the below core roles:

CHAIR(S) - someone(s) to lead the committee and make strategic decisions

TREASURER(S) - someone(s) who has some financial/accounting sense and could be a strict gatekeeper of the money movements, also creating our annual report. This role requires very little day-to-day involvement.

SECRETARY - admin support to the committee, overseeing communication channels

Please consider nominating yourself for either of these roles and email us at pta@vineyardpta.org if you are happy to step up (or need help to decide). It can be as little or as much work as you can/want to put into. Cath and Zsofia are both stepping down this year due to other commitments and to give the opportunity to others to form the PTA, but will be supporting the new committee as much and as long as it is needed.

We will be seeking volunteer members in many different areas - if you have an hour a week or an hour a month to offer to us, and whether you have skills in putting up a shelf, do a bunting, create a partnership strategy or just pick up stuff for us now and then.