Caring Curious Courageous

Enabling all children to learn and grow

Dear all families,

This week has been a busy one, and I am sure the children have spoken to you about the Rock Steady music workshops that they all attended on Wednesday. They even managed to get Mr Jackson and Mr Murphy on stage with a guitar in hand!

I want to say a big Thank You to those of you that attended the PTA AGM on Wednesday. It was lovely to see some new faces. Last year the PTA (which includes all parents and staff) raised £65.000! This is something to be very proud of. A large proportion of the money was spent on renovating the slopes in each playground. The children absolutely love the astro turf and are often seen rolling down it, sitting and chatting with their friends and/or reading close-by on the steps. In the big playground, we also laid some soft surface covering where you will find children cartwheeling and practising their handstands! I would also like to extend a huge thank you to all who volunteered their time over the last year, and especially to Cath and Zsofia, our wonderful co-chairs.

Miss McArdle and I attended the Designated Safeguarding Leads conference, which was run by Achieving for Children. We discussed how to create an anti-racist culture within our schools. This is something very close to our hearts at The Vineyard, as we want a community where everyone feels included. Miss Sanchez as the Racial Justice lead, will be working closely with the leadership team to raise the profile of anti-racism in our school and most importantly getting us all talking about it. We will update you on this as the year goes on.

I hope to see many of you at our first curriculum workshop for the year 'Launching the Science and PSHE (personal, social, health education) curriculum'. It is at 2.15 on Friday 6th October in the school hall.

If you ever have any questions or would just like to chat about things, please do speak to me on the gate or email me. I am always happy to meet with you.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend,

Frances Bracegirdle

Headteacher - headteacher@vineyard.richmond.sch.uk

Safeguarding

Please see this letter from Miss McArdle regarding the NSPCC workshops we are undertaking over the next two weeks. 

Our new multilingual display 

We have made a new multilingual display in the library to celebrate all of the countries that the children at our school are from. When you are next in the library, please do check our Ms Mingolla's hard work on this fabulous display! 

Miss McArdle, Multilingual Lead

Teaching and Learning at The Vineyard

Even though it feels as though this half term has just started, the teachers are already thinking about and planning their teaching and learning for next half term! Our CPD session this week focused on reviewing and refining our medium term plans for the wider curriculum subjects being taught in second half of the autumn term – science, history, design and technology (D&T), personal, social and health education (PSHE) and religious education (R.E.). When we are given the opportunity to review our planning, it always reminds us of the importance to improve on what we have done before and as Black History Month approaches, it feels like the perfect time to ensure that our curriculum is diverse and representative of our Vineyard community.

Black History Month takes place throughout October and is a fantastic way for us to celebrate and recognise the contributions and achievements of black people (past and present). Although Black History Month happens once a year, the teaching and learning of black history happens throughout the year at The Vineyard. As you will be aware, our key focus over the last two years has been designing a bespoke Vineyard curriculum, which represents our children and families. This means that we aim to interweave diversity throughout our curricular, from the significant people we study in history, to the places we learn about in geography, to the food we cook in D&T, to the books we read in class.

Ms Reilly and Mrs Dempster 

Assistant Headteachers for Teaching & Learning

Geography Fieldwork at The Vineyard 

We are vey excited to share our fieldwork curriculum. Please look here.

On Thursday 19th October all classes from year 1 to year 6 will be taking part in a fieldwork day. In line with the geography national curriculum, all children should have the opportunity to develop the procedural knowledge and skills needed to collect, analyse and present data extracted from 'the field'. Our children will be contributing to a whole school project which will follow different enquiries that focus on the 'human and physical features' of our local surroundings. 

Here is a letter with more information about the fieldwork day. If you are able to help please do contact your class rep.

Miss Reilly - Geography lead

Attendance

Well done to all the year groups getting above 96%!! 

The classes that have got a slice of pizza on their chart (no lates) are Sunstone, Diamond, Amethyst, Pearl, Emerald, Ruby, Onyx, Starlite, Peridot and Kyanite! 

Miss McArdle- Assistant Headteacher 

Book bags - reception and KS!

As many of you read in last week's newsletter, we are moving to book bags only due to storage space. Thank you to all those who have sent their child in with one this week. In order to allow time for everyone to buy a book bag, we will not be enforcing it until the first week after half-term.

PTA News