Head’s desk

Heads desk

As we come to the end of a high energy term it is a delight to reflect and celebrate

the success for the year.

Yet again the calibre of our Christmas performances, Hoodwinked and the YR

Nativity, Shine Star Shine, were outstanding. The governing monitoring visit of

Hoodwinked noted:

‘…the school production has evolved to be more than a pantomime and bears the

stamp of all that makes Layston a unique and fantastic school…the depth at which the

school’s personality is overlaid on the production grows each year’.

December 2016

The governing monitoring visit of Shine star shine noted:

‘…The Nativity performance by reception children remains a unique aspect of the

preparations for Christmas at Layston and this year was no exception…the children

were exceptional….’

For more of the Christmas fun captured in pictures and words see class pages in the

newsletter.

Jewel Awards

Following on from our highly motivating Rainbow Awards we have introduced the

Jewel Awards for use at KS2 (years 3 and 4). The children have each been given a

booklet with a set of statements (stepping stones) on each page that relate to a

quality, learning behaviour or attitude. Each page maps to a Jewel Award in the same

colour order as the rainbow rewards (Ruby Red, Amber Orange and so on). We expect

the children to progress through the jewel awards at the pace of one a term.

Charitable Giving

Throughout the year we raise money for a range of charities always mindful of the

balance between giving to local causes and those further afield. Our Children in Need

appeal raised £176 Children in Need, the Poppy collection raised £108.28 and the

profits from the Christmas collection of £325 will be divided equally between the

school’s chosen Christmas Charity the Asthma appeal fund and FOLS.

Anti bullying /Friendship Week

In November we celebrated Friendship week (National anti-bullying week).

Fortunately incidents of bullying at Layston are extremely rare and we work hard to

ensure respectful relationships with one another are at the core of our work with the

children. Our pupils participated in a range of activities over the week to help them

explore the theme of friendship and the ‘Power for Good’.

Christmas posters for St Peter’s

All children participated in the annual St Peter’s Christmas poster competition and all

children received prizes with larger books going to the 5 class group winners as

follows:

YR Mirren Tanner, Y1 Poppy Waller, Y2 Annie McPherson, Y3 and overall winner Troy

Sokulluoglu and Y4 Dan Hickey.

Troy’s design is now a poster advertising Christmas Services across Buntingford and

all winning designs are on display in the entrance hall.

Attendance

We continue to prioritise attendance as an area of whole school development, and are

delighted to list all the children who have achieved 100% attendance over the Autumn

Term (up to 15th December).

Reception – Tomisin, Darcy, Lilly G, Cecilia, Malise, Max, Bella, George, Kittie, Lily O,

Tristan, Frayah, Elizabeth & Felix.

Year 1 – Freya D, Ava F, Harry H, Elizabeth, Toby, Imogen, Alexis, Ava S, Daniel &

Poppy.

Year 2 – Alessia, Lucas C, Hannah, Amelia, Annie, Izzy N, Olly, Skye, Poppy, Brayden,

Mickey, Isabella W & Joseph.

Year 3 – Toni, Tumi, Sebastian C, James H, Grace, Sebbie I, Oliver M, Kyson, Jack,

Johnny, Elliott, Ewan, Freya, Troy & Oliver T.

Year 4 – Harry C, Charlotte, Dan H, Ethan, Emma & Benjamin.

This totals 58 and is an increase of 17 on this time last year – so well done to you all.

In addition we will be emailing silver attendance awards (98%+) to 30 children and

bronze (96%+) to a further 16. This means we have given a total of 104 awards for

good attendance i.e. 69% of children have achieved national average attendance of

96% attendance or above.

Layston School moves towards becoming cashless!

We are delighted that so many of you are now taking advantage of the School

Gateway website or smartphone app to pay for items online, including school meals,

milk, fruit, swimming and trips. This is a big step towards us becoming a cashless

school, and offers busy parents an easier, faster and safer way to make payments to

school.

Parents can track school meal balances at any time, make top ups and give online

consent for their child’s participation in specific school activities. School Gateway is

also used at Edwinstree Middle School and Freman College, making it easier if you

also have children at these schools, or if your child will be moving on next year.

You can go to www.schoolgateway.com to activate your School Gateway account

and/or download the free School Gateway app from the iPhone or Android app store.

By going initially to the website you only need to enter your bank/card details once,

making subsequent use of the app even easier.

If you are not yet taking advantage of this facility we hope that you will begin to do

so very soon. If you have problems logging in it may be because the school does not

have your current email and mobile phone number on record. Please call the school and

your details will be updated.

Nurture group

Once again our Little Acorns and their families gathered in our dining hall to make

Christmas decorations to be displayed in London on the Nurture Group Association

Christmas tree.

Forest School

Don’t forget to take a look at our weekly forest school blog posted on the website.

These give a unique view of the activities the children are engaged in and a little of

the ethos behind them.

Looking forward we have a number of projects and initiatives in the pipeline

The Entrance hall

Plans are firmly under way to upgrade the reception area over the spring half term

(Feb 13-17th 2017). This work will involve installing a double door entry system to

improve safety and security of the site. The current Head’s office and admin office

will swap places. The new admin office will have a hatch through which visitors to the

school will sign in and take visitors badges. Entry to the school beyond that will be

through new doors and visitors will be ‘buzzed’ in. We are hopeful the planned work

keeps to schedule and will keep you informed.

Disabled access

We have had plans drawn up to improve access to our site at the side of the buildings

thereby supporting disabled access to the school and to ease the awkwardness for

those parents and carers with buggies and pushchairs. The governing body are still

pursuing funding streams for these improvements which have been costed in the

region of £19,000. We are keen to get this project underway and if any parents know

of any funding sources or have ideas for funding please let us know.

Allotment Shed and Water Butts

After a highly successful first growing season we are planning to construct a shed

and water butts to make watering easier and more eco-friendly and to provide

storage and inside potting space. More on the project as it evolves.

Refreshing and culling book stock

After the successful makeover of the library last year we are now in the process of

culling and replenishing book stock. A governor/FOLS disco event is planned for the

spring term specifically to raise money for more books. A new mobile book display

unit, bought with funds from a donation to the school from parents of a child who

left Y4 in the summer, will provide much needed additional storage space.

Final thoughts………

Sometimes the world can be a confusing and contradictory place. How we help our

children navigate these complexities is part of what we all do as a partnership

between home, school and community. Therefore it was both heart-warming and

humbling to read what some of our Y4 children said about what they would do if they

ruled the world……

I would…..

be loving ,caring, sharing, helping…….

think of others and not hurt people’s feelings….

donate money to people who live on the streets….

The Christmas message is always one of hope and I think the sentiments expressed

by your children really do give us cause to be full of hope at this Christmastide.

On behalf of the whole Layston staff team we thank you for your support,

encouragement and very practical help and wish you all a safe, joyful and peaceful

Christmas and New Year.

I would…..

be loving, caring, sharing, helping…….

think of others and not hurt people’s feelings….

donate money to people who live on the

streets….

give everyone a proper home….

say no fighting or bombs…..

Kind regards

Mrs Bloomfield

Equality and Diversity

All employees are subject to the Equalities Act of 2010 and in a recent review of our

Equalities policy (see website for details) we decided we would like to be more

proactive in our application of the policy across school. To this end we would like to

set up a focus group in the early part of next term to hear your views and ideas. If

you are interested in being part of this group or if you want to email any thoughts

over please let us know using the admin@layston.herts.sch.uk by Wed 11th January.

Alternatively come and speak to Mrs Bloomfield. We are suggesting using the parent

chat slot of Tues afternoon but can be flexible when we know who might be

interested.

Family Support worker

Just to bring your attention to the fact that schools in the RIB Valley

Partnership share the services of a family support worker named Jane house.

She can give free and confidential support on any of the following issues;

Attendance, changing schools/transition, disabilities and illness, family

breakdown, housing concerns, parenting skills, support for families with

additional needs, finances plus any other concerns. Jane can be contacted on

01763 271446 (term time only) or by email jane.house@edwinstree.herts.sch.uk

Further information can be found on our website.

Put It Away

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I just supported Put It Away on @ThunderclapIt //

@hertscc

Reception

We celebrated Diwali by learning ways to

move to different music, we invited

Nursery to join us and we had a lot of

fun.

For Remembrance Day we used our

Forest School time to

work together to sort

leaves by colour and

make then make a

poppy shape, we were

very pleased with our

work.

We are also really enjoying learning how

to cook. The children loved making their

own flatbread and tasting it in class.

Making a healthy sandwich was also very

popular. We also make apple crumble and

when it was tasted some of us enjoyed it

so much we asked for 2nds!

For Friendship week we

made a friendship hand

garland and friendship

bracelets which we exchanged and took

home.

Lastly we have

worked really

hard to learn all

our songs for

Reception

Nativity. We have talked about the

Christmas Story and understand that it

is Jesus’ birthday. We hope you enjoyed

our performance.

As their teacher I am very proud of all

the children and their achievement, I

especially enjoyed the great reveal.

Happy Christmas

Year 1

We have had a lot of fun performing our

dances in our school production of

‘Hoodwinked’!

The children worked very hard learning

the dance moves and song words. We

were very proud of you all – well done!

Out in the forest the children have been

re-creating scenes from the nativity

story. They worked together to build a

stable for the baby Jesus.

In food technology Year 1 decorated some

delicious Christmas cookies – look at our

amazing designs!

Finally we had a very special visitor to

Year 1 on Friday – Father Christmas

came to deliver presents to all the class!

Thank you Santa!

Year 2

Wow, another half term has flown by! We’ve been really busy

learning lots of new things along with preparing for the

Christmas Play.

Maths

We have been developing our fluency by finding out how many

smaller numbers can make bigger numbers. We used Numicon to

help us.

We have also been working on doubling numbers, also using

Numicon.

We made polygons too! We used them to design our own

Christmas pictures.

This is Father Christmas!

We have also shown some data using Venn diagrams:

Literacy

We have been working hard on learning different spelling rules

and using High Frequency Words in our writing. We have been

learning the story of the Gingerbread Man and learning how to

write recounts. We used lots of role play, including setting up a

police station to interview the fox!

Science

We have been learning about habitats and microhabitats. We

went to the Forest School and walked around the grounds to

find out where some microhabitats are and which minibeasts live

there.

We saw lots of ants, worms, millipedes and lots more living

under logs and plant pots!

We have also been finding out about world habitats such as the

Arctic, the ocean, the desert and the rainforest. We used

books from the library to help us.

And finally…

It wouldn’t be Christmas without a panto! I just wanted to say a

HUGE well done to Year 2 for their performances in

Hoodwinked. They showed so much courage to get up on stage

for the second time during their time at Layston, and certainly

did us proud. Check out our best moves!

As you can see, we’ve had a fab half term! Hope you have a

wonderful Christmas and best wishes for the New Year

Year 3

Over the last few weeks the children have been working really hard in class and at

home perfecting their dance moves. I can only apologise if, like me, you have become

sick of hearing these songs on repeat! However, it was all worth it in the end as the

children put on a great performance during the Christmas play.

In class, we have started learning about the Romans and I was really impressed with

the standard of the shields that were made for homework (as you can see below).

Have a lovely Christmas and I will see you ready and raring to go in 2017!

Year 4

Since we last wrote you to A LOT has happened. You may have heard we put on a

panto but we’ll get to that later on.

We have been continuing our look at the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings and producing lots

of art work around the theme. We designed clothing and even used materials to see

what they would have looked like on an Anglo-Saxon. Furthermore, we designed

Anglo-Saxon brooches using a range of materials.

In maths we have been focussing on written methods for multiplying and dividing. In

particular, we were using the methods to successfully solve word problems. In

addition to this, we have also been looking at perimeter. We have worked out how to

calculate the perimeter of rectangles, regular shape and even some compound shapes.

It’s been panto season at Layston. Oh yes it has! We have been reading scripts,

editing scripts and singing songs. That was even before we got to practise our lines

on stage. Excitement was all around when we learned we would be performing

Hoodwinked. It has been an incredible experience putting on the panto and we had a

fantastic time doing it.

FOLS

Well it’s the end of another calendar year and the FOLS team would like to thank all

staff and parents for all of their support over the previous year; whether it is by

donating, baking cakes or volunteering, it has all helped to make this a successful year

of fundraising for our children.

Over the previous half term, we had a very successful Year 4 cake bake – raising an

amazing £89. Thank you to all parents for the gorgeous cakes.

The Pamper Night was successful and added an addition £450 to the pot, as well as

providing some well-earned relaxation for a number of parents.

The Film Night was well attended by children from all year groups. Arthur Christmas

seemed a popular choice of film and hopefully the children enjoyed it. This event

helped to raise a further £250.

With the great efforts by parents, local businesses and FOLS – an additional payment

of £1000 was made to the school towards the new school playground equipment. The

full target of £10,000 has now nearly been reached. Thank you.

Friday 16th December saw the arrival of a very special visitor to Layston. Following a

story read by the teacher, bells could be heard and Santa and his elves arrived to

deliver a present to all of the children. Many happy and excited faces could be seen

across the school.

Dates for your diary:

Raffle prize draw – Friday 9th December (at the final play performance)

Christmas Jumper Day – 14th December £1 donation

Christmas activities in the playground after school – 19th and 20th December

Santa visit to school – a surprise for the children!

Family fun Bingo – Saturday 21st January 2017 - 4.00pm-5.30pm

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Governors

Parents will be aware that nationally the educational landscape is changing. Layston is

currently maintained by the Local Authority which means that our educational

services are provided by Hertfordshire County Council. This half-term, the Governing

Board reviewed our position as a maintained school and considered other models

including converting to Academy Status. We concluded that remaining maintained and

within a larger family of Hertfordshire schools is currently the most effective and

efficient model for maximising educational outcomes for all our children at Layston.

We will of course regularly review best fit in a system of change.

Parents will be aware that a Parent Governor election was recently held and we are

delighted that Claire Shearn stood and was successfully appointed. Parent Governors

are: Vicki Henry, Katy Mitchell, Leigh Barnett, Wayned Edwards and Claire Shearn.