Caring Curious Courageous

Enabling all children to learn and grow

Dear families,

It is fantastic to see the enthusiasm your children have for coming to school and their keenness to arrive in their classroom first. In order to help with congestion on the pavement, whilst waiting for the gate to open, I am asking families not to arrive at the gates before 8.30am when the gate will be open, then the children can run in without waiting on the edge of the road. Thank you for your support.

The children in year 6, have been working extremely hard to prepare for their Standardised Assessment Tests (SATs) which will be taking place next week. These tests are statutory and all children in year 6 across the country will be taking them. I would like to say a huge thank you to the staff and families who have helped to prepare the children, so they have the best chance of success. I wish all the children the very best of luck, although they won't need it.

Congratulations to our Year 4 boys who took part in a borough wide football tournament and won! They were also great ambassadors for the school due to their excellent behaviour and team spirit.

Our wonderful PTA have been working extremely hard over the last few weeks. Events this term included the VineYARD sale. This Saturday 11th May, the school has a stall at the May Fair on Richmond Green. Please pop along to visit us and if you can drop off some home-made cakes to sell, that would be amazing (if you do please attach a list of ingredients you used to make them). Next Saturday 18th May is Mr K's super Saturday event, which will be a fun-filled family event including: inflatable games, a coconut shy, hot food and a bar, as well as a football 5-aside tournament. If you are able to volunteer at this event, please email pta@vineyard.richmond.sch.uk. The more, the merrier! Hope to see many of you there.

Wishing you a wonderful sunny weekend,

Frances Bracegirdle

Headteacher - headteacher@vineyard.richmond.sch.uk

Attendance

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

Punctuality

Well done to Gems, Amethyst, Sapphire and Starlite for all coming to school every day on time!

Frances Bracegirdle - Headteacher

Teaching and Learning - CPD at The Vineyard

This week, all staff took part in our CPD Twilight. The training was on lesson design and the thinking behind what makes an excellent sequence of learning steps. The theory was based on Rosenshine’s Principles and Tom Sherrington’s book, ‘Walk Thrus’.

Our aim was to ensure we are supporting the teachers in developing lesson design even further; avoiding cognitive overload by practising the new learning in small and sequential steps and ensuring that the children get many opportunities to overlearn new material, through practical experiences, collaborative tasks and shared and independent practice.

Below are some photos of our time during the twilight training session

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Ms Reilly and Mrs Dempster 

Assistant Headteachers for Teaching & Learning

Mobile phones

Many of you will have read in the press that there is an increasing concern about children under 16 years old and their use of smartphones. We all agree that phones are a very useful tool for year 5&6 children who walk to and from school independently. The question is, do they need a smartphone? For those interested in having their say, please see the petition here.

The Vineyard recommends that children have phones which can be used for texting and phone calls only.

PTA News