Taking Stock: 22nd March 2024
Thursday was World Poetry Day. Across the school, we celebrated poetry, with children from Reception to Year 6 coming together to recite a poem, which was written by our very own Ms Thomas.
Children listened to poems and some wrote some of their own. Throughout the week, children proudly share their work with adults across the school, and this year 1 pupil was no exception. He was celebrated by his teacher and was delighted to come and read me his poem.
Check out the Stockwell poem, below.
Last week, we we honoured Red Nose Day. Throughout the week, House Captains sold red noses and activity packs. We also came in to school in funny, or red clothes, for a £1 donation. Overall, we raised £226.72 for this very worthwhile cause.
We also held our second PTA Movie Night. The PTA did a brilliant job of organising this, raising over £550, all of which will go back to the children of the school.
In the Autumn term, the Year 6 team made the most in profit. I am interested to see how this develops as I know that Year 4 sold out this time. I'll update you next week when the profits have been counted.
We were delighted to be able to take part in the Healthy Weight and Food Project, run by Lambeth Council. Children, and their parents, went along to a Cook and Eat Session, run in collaboration with the Garden Museum.
The feedback from parents was that the session was thoroughly enjoyable. One parent has even gone out to buy ingredients to recreate the meal at home!
Ms Hancock took a team of budding scientists to St Gabriel's College to take part in the Science Fair. Over the last few weeks, the children have investigated a key area of Science, recorded their results and created a presentation.
I was honoured to be asked to view a practice run of the presentation. The children chose to investigate which flavour of crisps contained the most energy, predicting that it would be Salt and Vinegar, due to the acid content. They thought carefully about how to carry out the investigation safely, and how to measure the results. Their findings were that the most energetic crisps were, in fact, Roast Chicken and Prawn Cocktail and they have a hypothesis about why this might be.
The team, and Ms Hancock, did incredibly well and came in second overall - well done everyone.
Ferndale Football League
On Wednesday, Stockwell Primary returned to play better football, achieving two draws and one win.
Stockwell 1-1 Walnut Tree Walk
Goals: Ryan
MOM: Ryan
Stockwell entered started well, putting some pressure onto the opposition's defense. Unfortunately, while playing well, the team did not shoot enough. Walnut Tree Walk, on a counter, and only with one shot, scored a goal from an impossible angle.
Stockwell showed resilience and pounced onto Walnut TreeWalk. They got the equaliser on a rebound from the goal keeper.
Granton 1-1 Stockwell
Goals: Ryan
MOM: Henrique
The Stockwell players started well, pushing Granton towards their goal. That pressure resulted in an early goal and Stockwell continued to push through. Unfortunately, Stockwell's efforts were not rewarded. Stockwell relaxed and Granton scored in the last moments.
Stockwell 3-0 Streatham Wells B
Goals: Abubaker, Henrique and Bilal B
MOM: Abubaker
Stockwell players were hungry for a win. They started well and scored an early goal from a long shot. The players were happy and continued to pass well scoring after a string of good plays. The final goal was a team effort with the ball running through all the players and ending in the opposition goal.
Even though they scored 3 goals it could have been many more.
Stockwell squad:
Abubaker, Adriano, Bilal B, Henrique, Huzayfah, Marco, Fareed, Ryan and Tariq.
This round Stockwell returned with better results and the team was showing glimpses of good football.
Our monthly value for March is 'Friendship'.
A friendship is a relationship between two or more friends.
You use friendship to refer in a general way to the state of being friends, or the feelings that friends have for each other.
He struck up a close friendship with Desiree during the week of rehearsals.
After seven years of friendship, she still couldn't tell when he was kidding.
Steve really values your friendship more than anything else.
Synonyms: attachment, relationship, bond, alliance, link, association, tie
Phonics
As a school, we know the importance of getting all of our children to read well as quickly as possible, giving them the confidence to become independent readers and engaged learners. With this in mind, we have chosen the DfE validated scheme 'Essential Letters and Sounds' as our phonics scheme.
The principles of ELS are based upon:
- the delivery of high-quality first teaching with well-structured daily lesson plans
- the use of consistent terminology by teachers, children and parents
- the use of consistent resources that support effective teaching
- repetition and reinforcement of learning
- regular and manageable assessment to ensure that all children ‘keep up’ rather than ‘catch up’
Children are taught phonics lessons daily from their second week in Reception (once our Reception baseline assessment has been completed). From then on, they work through the different phases as outlined in the progression documents.
Our belief is that all children can succeed within our phonics sessions. We assess and monitor children throughout lessons and provide in lesson support to ensure no children fall behind. Regular, half-termly assessments provide us with further knowledge of the children's understanding and ensure that, should any children fall behind, we can provide timely interventions to catch them back up as quickly as possible.
Embed – The Theory and Pedagogy behind ELS
ELS teaches children to read using a systematic synthetic phonics approach. It is designed to be used as part of an early learning environment that is rich in talk and story, where children experience the joy of books and language whilst rapidly acquiring the skills to become fluent independent readers and writers.
ELS teaches children to:
- decode by identifying each sound within a word and blending them together to read fluently
- encode by segmenting each sound to write words accurately.
We know that for children at the end of Key Stage 1 to achieve the age-related expectations, they need to read fluently at 90 words per minute. As children move into Key Stage 2, it is vitally important that even those who have made slower progress are able to read age-appropriate texts independently and with fluency. For children to engage with the wider curriculum, they need to be able to read well, making inferences and drawing on background knowledge to support their
developing understanding of a text when they read. To do this, they need to be able to draw not only on their phonic knowledge but also on their wider reading and comprehension skills, each of which must be taught. The first step in this complex process is the link between spoken and written sounds.
Every ELS lesson has been designed to ensure that the minimum cognitive load is placed on the learner. The structure of the lessons allows children to predict what is coming next, what they need to do, and how to achieve success.
Friends of Stockwell PTA
We have an active PTA, called Friends of Stockwell, who do a brilliant job of fundraising for the school and bringing the community together. Last year, every child was given a £5 donation to reduce the cost of trips; the PTA contributed to class Christmas presents; they also raised money for vulnerable families at Christmas.
It is great to see new faces getting involved. Every parent is a Friend of Stockwell. I ask that everyone gets involved. If you can spare an hour per term (that's three hours per year), your contribution would make a huge difference.
Please email friendsofstockwell@gmail.com to get involved.
Central to raising standards in all schools and ensuring all pupils can fulfil their potential is the need for children to attend school regularly to benefit from their education.
There is a strong link between good learning, high achievement, rapid progress and developing good social skills with excellent attendance.
We want to take this opportunity to outline our expectations for school attendance this academic year.
If your child arrives at school from 9.02am they will be marked as LATE, if they arrive after 9.30am, they will be classed as “late after the register is closed” and their attendance is classed as absent for the morning session. As the registers would have already been returned to the Department for Education.
Regular poor punctuality can also have a negative effect on your child’s attendance as well as their academic learning. Being 6 minutes late each day equals 30 minutes of missed learning every week.
If your child’s attendance drops below 90%, we will need to share our concerns with the Local Authority Education Welfare Officer at Lambeth Council.
School Uniform
School uniform should be worn throughout the school day. While we do not enforce that all school uniform should be branded, children should be wearing the correct colours (white t-shirt tops, navy trousers/ skirts/ pinafore dresses, sensible black shoes). Football boots/ coloured trainers are not school uniform and should not be worn.
Children should be changing into their PE kits for PE lessons (blue or black tracksuit bottoms, plain white t-shirt, trainers). We have made arrangements for girls and boys to be able to change separately, so the expectation is that all children change for PE.
While our supplier of school uniform is WearAbouts, we do have some items available for sale from the school office. Please check with us to see if we have what you need in stock.
If you have a concern, please see your child's class teacher in the first instance. If they are unable to resolve the problem, please speak to your child's phase leader.
If they are unable to help, please see one of the school's Assistant Headteachers.
If you are still dissatisfied, please see the Acting Head of School.
We let space around the school.
You can hire the school hall, and grounds, on a regular basis or as a one off.
Need a space for a party?
Looking for a pitch for your team?
Contact the school office on:
clericalofficer2@stockwell-pri.lambeth.sch.uk
to make an enquiry.
