http://www.westjesmondprimary.org.uk/news/article News en derek.stuart@westjesmondprimary.org.uk Copyright 2012 2012-05-17T13:26:25+00:00 http://www.westjesmondprimary.org.uk/news/article/your-weekly-letter-from-the-head-teacher-thursday-may-17th-2012/ http://www.westjesmondprimary.org.uk/news/article/your-weekly-letter-from-the-head-teacher-thursday-may-17th-2012/ Dear Parents and Carers, The news we have all been waiting for is finally here – ‘The Key Stage 2 Trim Trail is finished and children have been trialling it for the first time today’. The rain stopped long enough on Monday and Wednesday to allow the manufacturing company to complete the safety surface around the climbing equipment. The children have been fantastic and have waited so patiently for this exciting new addition to our playground to be ready. Climbing equipment like this is very expensive and without the relentless support from the ‘Friends of West Jesmond’ this would not have been possible so on behalf of us all – Thank you! We will be looking at the best way to ensure we all play safely on the trim trail including the use of a one way system (starting at the football pen end next to the sign and finishing at the climbing wall). I know the teachers can’t wait to give it a go!! PUNCTUALITYMrs Elliott has been doing a detailed analysis of our registers and the great news is our overall attendance continues to be outstanding. We are well above the national average for attendance with many of our children achieving 98.5% and above. However, we are growing increasingly concerned at the number of children arriving late for school. This has suddenly increased and we now have a number of children not arriving at school till well after 9 a.m. This is not a great start to the school day for the children and adds up very quickly into substantial periods of time being missed. Our school opens at 8.45 a.m. (first bell and whistle) and all children should be inside by 8.50 a.m. (second bell). Our Education Welfare Officer is going to be looking at our data and contacting families where there is substantial lateness. So please, please get to school on time. You Said! We Did!! (From School Council Minutes 3rd May 2012) What our children love about our school!• We are proud of our teachers. There is always someone to talk to if we are worried.• After school club and all the clubs make it more interesting.• Everyone is proud of our school and wants to make it a good place to be.• Everyone has someone to play with and people will help them find someone if they are lonely. You said! We did!!• There was somewhere cosy and warm to “hang out” at playtimes• Have more lessons outside on the playground for a change and have little quiet spots for small groups to sit. We are going to look at our playground now the Trim Trail is finished and see where we can put our seating and picnic tables to make better spaces for sitting. I will also tell the teachers about your request for more lessons in the playground and see what we can plan in the hopefully better summer weather! Mr Wallis-Clarke’s Young AchieversTess , Grace (both Year 4) and William (Y1) won the Junior Pizza competition at Pizza Express and got to make the pizza they had designed. The photographs of the finished pizzas were fantastic and a great time was had by all! Becky won the Under 10’s quiz as part of the Jesmond Community Festival from Jesmond Pool. She answered questions on sport and the Diamond Jubilee and won a great goodie bag. Wei continues to succeed in his chess prowess and won the UK Chess Challenge Mega-Final and was crowned the Under 7 Supremo! Molly in Year 3 passed her Stage 2 Piano Exam with distinction at the Sage and Abbie in Year 4 has been doing some great research into the Coronation and unearthed some great artefacts from the 1950’s which she brought in to show me.  Reception children have been doing some tremendous writing and I saw 3 great stories from Alistair , Elspeth and Joseph this week. They had all written pages and pages re-telling a traditional tale including Snow White and the Gingerbread Man. They have made outstanding progress in their writing this year and we are all very proud of them. Finally, in Year 3, Hannah , Ursula and Hannah achieved their first Brownie Camp badges after their expedition up to Peebles in Scotland and Ruby won the Newcastle Libraries Character Trail competition. I continue to look forward to hearing from you and your children in the future so that we can share everyone’s success within our school community. WEST JESMOND INTERNATIONAL EVENTA reminder that our fantastic new International Event will be taking place next week on Wednesday 23rd May from 5.30 – 8 pm in the School Hall. We will have a fantastic array of food, music and culture from around the world representing the wonderful diverse nature of our school. This promises to be a tremendous event and we would love to see lots of parents and pupils there to celebrate this central aspect to our school. I can’t wait so please try and get along and experience sounds, smells and tastes from around the world. With my very Best Wishes to you all for another very successful week ahead at West JesmondGary Wallis-Clarkeoffice@westjesmond.newcastle.sch.uk0191 281 0000 News 2012-05-17T13:26:25+00:00 http://www.westjesmondprimary.org.uk/news/article/your-weekly-letter-from-the-head-teacher13/ http://www.westjesmondprimary.org.uk/news/article/your-weekly-letter-from-the-head-teacher13/ Dear Parents and Carers, I do hope everybody has managed to have a restful break over the Easter holiday. The children have certainly come back to school refreshed and full of energy this week. Things have been busy at school during the Easter holiday at school. We have had new storage installed for the After-School club and the 3 Reception classes in the Rainbow Room which will make things look much neater and provide much needed cupboard space. Our support team have also had a new storage and working area created outside of the year 2 classrooms to help them with their working environment. Finally we have at last had the Key Stage 2 trim-trail installed in the large yard. We are now just waiting for a dry day to get the safety soft-surface installed and then we will be able to officially open the activity trail. My thanks go to the ‘Friends’ and all families that have supported this purchase through various fund-raising activities. I know it is going to be the start of making playtimes much more exciting for our older children. Mr Wallis-Clarke’s Young AchieversAs we had the main school newsletter in the last week before the Easter holiday I have a long list of young achievers this week! Congratulations to Ruby for excelling in her recent swimming time-trials completing her distances in 1m 11 seconds for front crawl, 74 seconds for back crawl and 1m 36 seconds for butterfly!Mrs Edwards brought Mizuho , Abdullah , Samir and Himath in Year 6 to show me their excellent newspaper reports which showed a real understanding of journalistic style and presentation.Finlay in Reception has won the Novos Under 6 Player of the Week for rugby and Wei in Year 1 has won a medal for his chess playing in the Northumbria Junior Chess Association competition. Joe and Hannah in Year 3 have both achieved their Stage 6 swimming certificates and Oliver in Reception has achieved his Level 3 tennis certificate from David Lloyd.Katie , Irvin and Kate in Year 1 have all really impressed Mrs Laidler with their logical maths problem solving over a tricky problem involving Easter eggs and Harry in Year 2 did some outstanding writing for Mrs Reed retelling the fable of the mouse and the lion with some very descriptive language.In Year 4 Ferdoes , Patrick and Grace made some fantastic lamps and lights as part of their electricity and design project which worked and were highly original. There was some outstanding homework research projects completed in Year 5 by David , Gemma , Joseph and Alexander and from Year 2 Jasper has achieved his yellow stripe taekwondo belt along with Holly who can now swim 400m and received her certificate and James who has achieved 10 out of 10 for the past 10 weeks for his spelling tests.Finally, Soren  came to show me his excellent fact sheet about Owls in England which Mrs Charlton was delighted with.I continue to look forward to hearing from you and your children in the future so that we can share everyone’s success within our school community. JESMOND COMMUNITY FESTIVALOnce again the school is delighted to play an important role in Jesmond Community Festival, which this year takes place all over Jesmond from 27 April to 14 May. Copies of the full festival programme are being distributed to all pupils this week. Everyone is particularly welcome at the Festival Parade and Fair on Saturday 28 April - the Fair is in the school playground from mid-day until 3:30pm. There will be entertainment, refreshments and numerous stalls - something for everyone! West Jesmond School is also hosting the First "Top School Challenge", when teams from Heaton Manor, the RGS, Church High and Central High Schools will be battling it out in a knock-out quiz for a new trophy, with question master Steve Drayton.And there are numerous other free and low-cost events to appeal to everyone, from Storytime for younger brothers and sisters at Hillcrest Nursery, and Football Training at Bells Yard, to free taster sessions in French and Spanish, Martial Arts tasters, a musical coffee morning at Church High School, a special free showing of the Disney film "Cars" at Jesmond Methodist Church, and a Forensic Workshop for children at Jesmond Library. Plus a Family Fun Day at Jesmond Community Orchard, Children's activities at the new play facilities in Exhibition Park, and a Food Fair at the Northumberland Club.For more information see http:jesmondlocal.com/jesmond-community-festival-2012/ or become a friend of Jesmond Community Festival on Facebook. HOCKEY SUCCESSCongratulations to Mrs McCubbin and her Year 4 hockey players for representing us at a National hockey event held outside the Baltic in Gateshead on Monday afternoon. The event was televised and our players were on TV (Look North). This is just one of many sporting opportunities we are going to be organising for our pupils linked to various Olympic events throughout this term. CITY HALL TRIUMPHA huge thank-you to our school choir for a superb performance at the City Hall on March 27th. The choir sang beautifully in the first half to open the concert with two contrasting pieces and then joined choirs from our neighbouring schools for a rousing finale of brand new songs especially composed for us. These songs will be published by Faber music and are likely to appear in every school in the country. The event was a tremendous success; thank you to all the parents that supported on the evening. With my very Best Wishes to you all for another very successful week ahead at West Jesmond Gary Wallis-Clarkeoffice@westjesmond.newcastle.sch.uk0191 281 0000 News 2012-04-19T09:39:41+00:00 http://www.westjesmondprimary.org.uk/news/article/your-weekly-letter-from-the-head-teacher-thursday-march-22nd-2012/ http://www.westjesmondprimary.org.uk/news/article/your-weekly-letter-from-the-head-teacher-thursday-march-22nd-2012/ Dear Parents and Carers,As the Easter holiday rapidly approaches, teachers have this week been completing our end of term assessments to ensure your child is making the progress they need to. We check this data very carefully and this informs our teaching in the Summer term.Year 6 have been working extremely hard and are in full preparation for their end of year tests or SATs (Standard Assessment Tests). This year children will be assessed in reading and maths but the writing assessment is based on a portfolio of the work they have done this year and a test we deliver and mark in school. We also now have the opportunity to extend the challenge for our pupils with a higher level test being introduced this year. We will also be delivering a new national reading test for Year 1 pupils in June to check their phonic understanding and ability to read words. Every bit of support you can give at home with spelling and reading helps us enormously but I am confident we are going to get some excellent results from every year group this year Mr Wallis-Clarke’s Young AchieversCharlotte in Year 2 has again achieved top marks in her spelling tests and I have seen some fantastic independent writing from Ruby and Harry in Year 1 following their trip to Beamish. Izzy and Ava in Reception came to show me their ballet trophies as they have received a commendation in a recent ballet exam. Rebekah in Year 1 has also written a great two page story about Aliens and their underpants!! Seth and Esme have again done well in the Tynedale music festival in the string section coming in 2nd and 3rd place. SPORTING SUCCESSThis has also been another great week for sporting achievement in West Jesmond Primary school.We have a large number of rugby players playing in the Under 9 and Under 8 County Cup and Plate as part of teams at Northern Rugby club. I was there at the end of the tournament and have seen Ben and Tom , Oliver , Barton , Toby , Arun , Matthew , Euan this week with their medals. I know there are more boys involved in the team at different times and I will try and get a full team list as soon as possible! I continue to look forward to hearing from you and your children in the future so that we can share everyone’s success within our school community. SCHOOL GARDEN DAY REMINDERWe are planning our next School garden Fun Day for this Sunday March 25th. We would all greatly appreciate an hour of your time to support this important initiative!I will be there on Sunday morning and look forward to seeing some new volunteers helping with our garden. Your support is absolutely crucial if we are going to sustain our garden in the future. Without greater support we will have to look at the viability of keeping this valuable asset for your children’s learning. SWIMMING KIT REMINDERIf your child is in Year 4 or Year 6 please could you remember to send children to school with their swimming kits if it is their class’ turn to go swimming. This would help the office enormously! EASTER HOLIDAYJust a quick reminder that we close for the Easter holidays on Friday 30th March at 3.20 pm. We have a two week holiday and re-open at 8.45 on Monday 16th April. Please note there is not a teacher training day on the first day back and children start school on the Monday as usual. FRIENDS EVENTSThe Friends of West Jesmond are very busy at the moment organising lots of social events for parents and friends of the school. Don’t forget Wine Tasting on the 22nd March at 7.30 pm and the Sport Relief Coffee morning on Friday 23rd March this week! CITY HALL MUSIC EVENTChildren from Year 3 to Year 6 will be singing in our school choir at the City Hall next Tuesday as part of the Heaton partnership of schools. This is a wonderful event where over 400 children will be coming together to perform a new selection songs especially composed for us. Our choir will be singing in the first half performing ‘Soualle’ and ‘World in Union’ and then joining with all the other choirs in the second half. If your child is in the choir please make sure you get a ticket from the school office for this wonderful event. With my very Best Wishes to you all for another very successful week ahead at West Jesmond Gary Wallis-Clarkeoffice@westjesmond.newcastle.sch.uk0191 281 0000 News 2012-03-22T14:59:03+00:00 http://www.westjesmondprimary.org.uk/news/article/your-weekly-letter-from-the-head-teacher12/ http://www.westjesmondprimary.org.uk/news/article/your-weekly-letter-from-the-head-teacher12/ Dear Parents and Carers, As ever we have all been working very hard this week at our school. One of the great privileges of my job as Head Teacher is getting to see children who have achieved their personal targets and this has been so rewarding this week. My list of young achievers is as long as ever and beyond this I have seen a number of pupils individually to congratulate them on their personal successes; and this includes children from Reception to Year 6. I have been particularly impressed this week with two children who have overcome some quite significant personal difficulties and achieved very important milestones for them. Well done to them and their parents for their continuous support and encouragement. The Easter holiday is rapidly approaching and I know children and teachers are working very hard to ensure children have made the most progress they can at this important milestone on the academic year. Mr Wallis-Clarke’s Young AchieversBeth in Year 2 and Emma in Year 2 have achieved success in their recent Primary Grade Ballet exams being commended and highly commended. Ruby in Year 3 also came to show me her ballet trophy and certificate.I have been impressed by Charles , Kieran and Dylan in Year 6 for their outstanding attainment in mathematics. These boys are now working at maths levels way beyond that expected of primary age children and deserve special praise.Jemima in Year 2 continues to achieve highly in her spelling even though she herself told me her spellings were getting very tricky now and she had to work hard at learning them.Finally I saw a large group of pupils from Class 5S with their Board Games completed as part of their design and technology projects. Some of their ideas were fantastic as were their modelling and creative skills. SPORTING SUCCESSThis has also been a great week for sporting achievement at West Jesmond Primary school. SQUASH ACHIEVEMENTSCameron , Louis , Max , Max and Oliver took part in the 6th Junior schools squash tournament at the Northumberland Club. The team played brilliantly and came 4th overall which is a massive achievement considering the age of some of the other teams they were competing against. GYMNASTICS AWARDSophie in Year 5 won the trophy for the North of England Level 3 WTC Regional championship. This is a fantastic achievement and is competition at the highest national level reflecting hours and hours of dedicated training. SWIMMING GALA FINALISTSWe have also had huge success in the Newcastle swimming gala this week. We entered two teams (one from Year 4 and one from Year 6).Year 4 won the overall competition and represented the school magnificently, encouraging each other and children from other schools. Against 8 other primary schools they sailed to first place and brought home a magnificent trophy and a clutch of gold, silver and bronze medals.Well done to: Toby , Oliver , Katie , Polly , Ben , Lucy , Joseph , Nia , Morgan , Rayyan , Grace and Poppy. Our Year 6 team won a range of medals and these children will go through to the City gala at the end of the term. I look forward to bringing you more news of the Year 6 swimming team soon! I continue to look forward to hearing from you and your children in the future so that we can share everyone’s success within our school community. SCHOOL GARDEN DAY REMINDERWe are planning our next School garden Fun Day for Sunday March 25th. We would all greatly appreciate an hour of your time to support this important initiative! SWIMMING KIT REMINDERIf your child is in Year 4 or Year 6 please could you remember to send children to school with their swimming kits if it is their class’ turn to go swimming. This would help the office enormously! CHILD CAR SAFETYWe have had a phone call from Newcastle City Council to say that there have been reports of young children being left alone in locked cars around the school site during pick up and drop off time. I would like to remind parents that this is not safe and young children should be brought into the school playground with their parents and bigger brothers and sisters at the start and end of the school day. Thank you. With my very Best Wishes to you all for another very successful week ahead at West Jesmond Gary Wallis-Clarkeoffice@westjesmond.newcastle.sch.uk0191 281 0000 News 2012-03-19T10:34:30+00:00 http://www.westjesmondprimary.org.uk/news/article/your-weekly-letter-from-the-head-teacher11/ http://www.westjesmondprimary.org.uk/news/article/your-weekly-letter-from-the-head-teacher11/ Dear Parents and Carers, We all had a fantastic time last week, especially celebrating World Book Day on Thursday. It was wonderful to see so many children in their special costumes and I know all the teachers had such a wonderful time (Me especially!). I was most impressed with the parents who came in at the end of the day to spend some time reading in family groups in our school. The building just seemed to come alive and this is something Mrs Elliott and I would love to do again soon. Here are some of our pictures to prove just what a wonderful day we had. Reading has never been as much fun – and the paired reading where older pupils support younger ones was fabulous. Thank you to everyone for making this a special day. Mr Wallis-Clarke’s Young Achievers Veronica , Izzy and Grace in Year 3 all came to show me their beautiful Spring poetry this week which was just perfect on these early Spring days. They had very carefully captured that slowly emerging natural world in their words. I also saw a large group of Year 1 pupils from Mrs Laidler’s class who had impressed their teacher by completing a very difficult word challenge and story inserting some tricky words where needed. Well done to Irvin , Woody , Katy , Elena and Yasmin. I also have chatted this week to a group of our rugby players who play for Northern and won the Under10s Bowl in the Leeds championship. A fantastic well done to Toby , Euan , Arun and Matthew in Year 5. I continue to look forward to hearing from you and your children in the future so that we can share everyone’s success within our school community. LAST CHANCE for BOX TOPS! A reminder that the deadline for sending your Nestle Box Tops for Books to school is Tuesday 27th March.  So if you have a couple of tokens lurking at the back of a drawer or sitting in the cupboard on a half eaten box of cereal, please snip them out and send them in.  Books start from only 10 tokens so every one counts!  Thanks. SCHOOL GARDEN DAYWe are planning our next School garden Fun Day for Sunday March 25th. It would be wonderful to see lots of parents and children coming along to our school allotment and garden just off Highbury and help us to get the garden ready for the Spring. Every pair of hands can help and if you can come for an hour or half an hour we would be very pleased to see you. New parents are particularly welcome. Bring your wellies and gardening gloves! Here are some of the things we need to get done in preparation for the children coming down again after the Easter holiday:Construct raised bed  - Weave in willow in bird hide – Digging – Weeding - Mowing the lawned areas and paths - Cleaning out the pond - Construct pot store - Plant up rose bed - Lay paved area next to rose bed - We will provide all of the materials and tools needed. We will also provide some hot drinks, cold drinks and biscuits. There is the barbeque too if people are interested in making something. We would all greatly appreciate an hour of your time to support this important initiative! With my very Best Wishes to you all for another very successful week ahead at West Jesmond. Gary Wallis-Clarkeoffice@westjesmond.newcastle.sch.uk0191 281 0000 News 2012-03-08T11:39:31+00:00 http://www.westjesmondprimary.org.uk/news/article/your-weekly-letter-from-the-head-teacher10/ http://www.westjesmondprimary.org.uk/news/article/your-weekly-letter-from-the-head-teacher10/ Dear Parents and Carers, I find it staggering to believe but it is now officially one full year since I started as Head teacher at West Jesmond Primary. The time has gone so quickly, but I can look back at a very fulfilling and happy first year at the school. In that short space of time there have been so many changes at the school and also in the education world surrounding us. It has been a pleasure to see so many of our children grow and mature and make good progress in their core skills; to see so many of our children sharing their talents and successes in the performing arts and sports; and perhaps most importantly of all to get to know our Jesmond school community including parents, children, staff, governors, councillors, students, church representatives, community group representatives, business and industry leaders. One thing is very clear to me. West Jesmond Primary has stood on this site for 111 years and it is my job to ensure we go from strength to strength in the future. With your help we will continue to make this a school the whole community is proud to support. It has been a real pleasure talking to so many very happy and pleased parents at our 3 recent Open Parents Evenings. The governors have used this opportunity to consult with parents on what you really like about our school and what would make the school even better. We will feed back to you our collected findings and I can assure you that many of the issues raised, (especially additional sporting provision and foreign languages) are going to be included in our strategic plan for next year. My first birthday at West Jesmond has been a fun-filled event to mark World Book Day and I am very pleased with my costume from the People’s Theatre in Heaton (Did you guess who I was?). Their wardrobe department is open most Monday evenings from 7.30 pm to 9 pm and I can recommend them whole heartedly to parents if you ever need a cheap/emergency costume. The hire fees are tiny in comparison to other private lenders and all the money goes to supporting this great little local theatre. Mr Wallis-Clarke’s Young AchieversAs part of our world book day donations Sarah family in Y4 donated two whole boxes of sets of classic guided readers including Peter Pan, the Railway Children. Thank you so much for your generous gift.Tom in Year 2 was delighted with his Rugby Player of the Week trophy from Northern Rugby Club – well played Tom! A group of Year 6 children represented the school at a recent ‘Young Apprentice Event’ run by the Education Business partnership at Gosforth Civic Hall. This was a fantastic event where the children had to design a logo, marketing campaign and then pitch their idea to a board of judges around promoting the BUPA Great North Run. The team did extremely well and their logo and design work was highly praised. They were pipped into 2nd place by another school where the judges felt their advert was just slightly stronger than ours. I was so proud of the team so a huge congratulations goes to:Meg , Ethan , Eddie , Isobel , Jessi , Abdullah .  Personally I felt our logo was by far the best – but then I am biased!!I continue to look forward to hearing from you and your children in the future so that we can share everyone’s success within our school community. CHILD PROTECTION TRAININGMrs Sanderson, Mrs Whitehouse and I, all attended our specialist child protection training last Friday. This is an important qualification meaning that we now have 4 members of staff (including Mrs Elliott) who are responsible for ensuring the safety of all the children in our care and ensuring that all staff in the school are supported and kept fully informed of our procedures and legal responsibilities. The health and safety of our children is paramount and I want to assure you that at West Jesmond we will continue to be vigilant and responsive to pupil needs. LAST CHANCE for BOX TOPS! A reminder that the deadline for sending your Nestle Box Tops for Books to school is Tuesday 27th March.  So if you have a couple of tokens lurking at the back of a drawer or sitting in the cupboard on a half eaten box of cereal, please snip them out and send them in.  Books start from only 10 tokens so every one counts!  Thanks. SCHOOL GARDEN DAYWe are planning our next School garden Fun Day for Sunday March 25th. It would be wonderful to see lots of parents and children coming along to our school allotment and garden just off Highbury and help us to get the garden ready for the Spring. Hugh and Jenny will be there and I’m sure there will be plenty of cakes and refreshments. Every pair of hands can help and if you can come for an hour or half an hour we would be very pleased to see you. New parents are particularly welcome. Bring your wellies and gardening gloves! With my very Best Wishes to you all for another very successful week ahead at West Jesmond Gary Wallis-Clarkeoffice@westjesmond.newcastle.sch.uk          0191 281 0000 News 2012-02-29T15:35:18+00:00 http://www.westjesmondprimary.org.uk/news/article/your-weekly-letter-from-the-head-teacher-thursday-february-23rd-2012/ http://www.westjesmondprimary.org.uk/news/article/your-weekly-letter-from-the-head-teacher-thursday-february-23rd-2012/ Dear Parents and Carers, I do hope everyone had a good half-term break last week. It was a very busy end to last term and a particular highlight for me was ‘West Jesmond’s Got Talent!’. All the children that performed on the evening were just fantastic and I felt so proud to be Head teacher of a school filled with so much fun, enjoyment, promise and talent. The support from parents and grandparents was fantastic on the night – the event was completely sold out and the Friends did a great job with some superb food and wine for the grown-ups and picnic food for the children. Many thanks to Deb Hainsworth for co-ordinating this great event and all the staff that helped on the evening. I was also very proud to attend the Final of the Charles Avison Young Musicians Competition last Sunday afternoon at the Shipley Art Gallery. I am delighted to inform you that Esme in Year 3 playing violin and Seth in Year 5 playing the ‘cello both won their group final and were presented with the superb glass trophies which will be displayed in school later this term. This is a fiercely competitive event and the children played with such confidence and technical assurance that they beat off stiff competition to win. This is the second year that we have had one of the trophies in school but to have two is just outstanding! Well done Esme and Seth. Mr Wallis-Clarke’s Young Achievers I have seen a large number of Year 1 pupils recently for their excellent progess in writing. It is wonderful to look at their work books and see the standard of writing they can now achieve and the improvements they have made since September. In particular Emma , Sara , Aidan , Yasmin , Hamish , Katherine , Alexander and Conrad need a special mention and have all been to my office to show me their writing. In our sporting successes this week we have Mohammed in Year 3 who showed me his medal for football success at a recent tournament in Gateshead and Ruby in Year 2 has now passed her Stage 4 swimming assessment. Grace in Year 3 came to show me her skiing medal and training record from a recent skiing holiday. Nico in Reception was also very proud of his 200m swimming certificate. Further up Key Stage 2 Rayyan in Year 4 and Edward and Rachel in Year 5 have shown me some excellent playscripts and openings to detailed myths they have been writing. Zachary in Year 2 was also delighted with his continued spelling success and finally Dan in Year 3 showed me some of his homework he has been researching over the holiday with pictures and photographs of Grey’s Monument he had taken. I continue to look forward to hearing from you and your children in the future so that we can share everyone’s success within our school community. SCHOOL CONTACT and ATTENDANCEIf your child is ill and cannot attend school please could we ask you to contact school as soon as possible and preferably by 9.30 a.m. You can leave a message on our absence line answerphone even when the office is closed to register your child’s absence or if you need to speak to a member of staff in person, call the main office from 8am.  This helps us to keep our registers up to date and ensure we can keep our pupils as safe as possible if they do not turn up for school. I also want to say a huge thank you to everyone for OUTSTANDING attendance in the Autumn term. Our overall attendance was 96.9% which is well above the national average. Thank you to everyone for not taking holidays or other absences in term time. It makes a huge difference to your child’s education to not miss substantive periods of the school term. We are still closely monitoring a number of children who are regularly arriving late at school. This means children miss a very important part of the school day and are not settled into school with their peers and often have to join the first lesson when it has already started, perhaps missing vital instructions about the day ahead. Our first bell goes at 8.45 to indicate our doors opening and children should enter school between 8.45 a.m. and 8.50 a.m. The school day officially starts at 8.50 a.m. Staff are around on the yard to supervise children from 8.40 a.m. and sometimes earlier if meetings allow, but please could you ensure your children do not not arrive any earlier than this to wait on the playground if they are on their own. Obviously if they have parental supervision your children will be quite safe on the playground. Thanks for your support in keeping our children as safe as possible. SCHOOL GARDEN DAYWe are planning our next School garden Fun Day for Sunday March 25th. It would be wonderful to see lots of parents and children coming along to our school allotment and garden just off Highbury and help us to get the garden ready for the Spring. Hugh and Jenny will be there and I’m sure there will be plenty of cakes and refreshments. Every pair of hands can help and if you can come for an hour or half an hour we would be very pleased to see you. New parents are particularly welcome. Bring your wellies and gardening gloves! STORYTELLING EVENTWe started this week with an excellent event for the whole school. We had two professional story tellers come in for the day to tell some new stories and teach the children some new songs. This was a wonderful event that we are delighted was funded by South Jesmond Ward Committee and we are very grateful to the local councillors for supporting this as we would not have been able to fund this special day for the start of the term. With my very Best Wishes to you all for another very successful week ahead at West Jesmond Gary Wallis-Clarkeoffice@westjesmond.newcastle.sch.uk          0191 281 0000 News 2012-02-24T10:37:50+00:00 http://www.westjesmondprimary.org.uk/news/article/your-weekly-letter-from-the-head-teacher9/ http://www.westjesmondprimary.org.uk/news/article/your-weekly-letter-from-the-head-teacher9/ Dear Parents and Carers, As ever I am very pleased to tell you about the wonderful achievements and behaviour of our pupils this week. It is always a real pleasure to see children who have excelled in either their classroom work or an out of school activity. A number of our pupils represented the young people of the City at the 12th Holocaust Memorial Service at the Civic Centre on Sunday as part of Ouseburn Young Voices. I was so proud of their beautiful, passionate singing and it added a real emotional depth to the service. As a result of this we have been invited to sing for the inauguration of the new Lord Mayor later this year which will be a real event to see and be part of. In a school of nearly 600 children there will inevitably be some disputes and disagreements and it is crucial that we teach our children to understand for themselves what is acceptable language, behaviour and actions however young or old they are. We are committed to our behaviour policy and will ensure that we constantly provide a safe, happy and respectful environment in which pupils can grow. Mr Wallis-Clarke’s Young Achievers A group of delighted Year 1 pupils, Shakiba , Gmar , Harry , Jasper , Ruby and Daniel came to show me their excellent independent writing describing Arctic Foxes and Polar bears. They were so proud to come upstairs to my office and receive a special sticker for their efforts. There was musical success this week for Esme and Seth in reaching the final of the Avison Ensemble Young Musicians Award. The final will be later this year at the Shipley Art Gallery and we wish them success in their playing. Gemma and Joseph also came to show me their descriptive writing completed as part of an end of term assessment. These had been very critically marked by the teacher in line with national examination criteria and showed excellent progress and use of different writing styles. The descriptions of a playground in Winter gave me the shivers! Beth in Year 2 was pleased with her recent performances as a Cat and a ‘Cabbit’ in Puss in Boots at St Mary’s school – the photographs were lovely. I continue to look forward to hearing from you and your children in the future so that we can share everyone’s success within our school community. NATIONAL LIBRARY DAYOn Saturday, 4th February it’s National Libraries Day - a nationwide celebration of libraries, library users, staff and supporters which aims to showcase all that libraries have to offer and to encourage non-members to join.  Newcastle Libraries will be marking this day and the week leading up to it with an exciting programme of activities, special events, prize draws, offers and giveaways across the service. You are all invited to Jesmond Library where we will be marking the day by celebrating the re-hanging of our well-loved stained-glass panels. We start the celebrations with a coffee morning from 11.00 – 12.00. Bridget Jones the artist and creator of the artwork will join us and officially unveil the panels at 11.30am. The artwork was created as part of a joint project in the 1980’s with 9 and 10 year old pupils from West Jesmond Primary school. In the afternoon the celebrations continue with two creative workshops. Children will work with glass artist Sue Woolhouse and make their very own piece of decorative glass. NEW AFTER SCHOOL CLUBI know how important breakfast and after school club provision is for many families and how difficult it can be to secure good quality childcare within the area. Our provision is fully booked and we have a long waiting list so I was delighted to be approached by a new provider who will work in partnership with Newcastle City Council and wants to set up an After School Club in St Hilda’s Church Hall just over the metro line from us and very close to Starbucks. The intention is for this to open in September and a questionnaire will be circulated by the provider next week to gauge potential levels of interest. If this issue is important to you please can you complete the questionnaire to school after the half term holiday. I have met with the provider and I was impressed with their approach and business plan. PARKINGWe have had complaints from a number of rightly concerned parents that more cars are mounting the pavements around school when dropping off children, especially now on Tankerville Terrace. This causes a real danger to children walking safely on the pavement. Please can I ask parents NOT to do this. SPORTING SUCCESSI would like to make another regular feature in my newsletter of the sporting success of our children. There is often much more going on than parents always know about and this is a great way to share our success. Our football team were in action last week and I am delighted to say we beat Gosforth Junior High 1-0. Well done to the team! CEREAL BOX TOPSThank you to everyone who has sent in Nestle Box Tops.  We have already collected over 140 tokens from the top of Nestle Cereal boxes which means that Mrs Elliot will be able to choose up to 10 lovely new Dorling Kindersley books to boost our school library.  We have until 31st March to collect as many tokens as we can.  Could we make it 300?  If you, your friends or family eat Nestle cereal, please bring us your box tops.With my very Best Wishes to you all for another very successful week ahead at West Jesmond Gary Wallis-Clarke office@westjesmond.newcastle.sch.uk 0191 281 0000 News 2012-02-02T10:27:20+00:00 http://www.westjesmondprimary.org.uk/news/article/your-weekly-letter-from-the-head-teacher-thursday-january-19th-2012/ http://www.westjesmondprimary.org.uk/news/article/your-weekly-letter-from-the-head-teacher-thursday-january-19th-2012/ Dear Parents and Carers, It seems that hardly a day goes by this New Year without another new announcement from the Department for Education and the Education minister Michael Gove. I want to assure all parents that at West Jesmond we are keeping ourselves well informed of all new developments at this time of tremendous educational change and planning a future for us that is secure and bright. We will face many challenges in the coming year including the emergence of the new primary curriculum (though this now looks as if it has been delayed again), the consideration of academy or trust status within our partnership of schools, considering our response to the emergence of free schools within the City and aggressive competition and meeting the increased demands of a new inspection framework. All in all it will be a very changing and busy time ahead but I remain confident that together we can decide what is best for our school and our children. The school’s governing body is being very proactive in reviewing our needs and we will continue to keep parents informed and consulted as we move forward. If anything it makes me more determined than ever to put our children’s needs first. Mr Wallis-Clarke’s Young AchieversLola in Year 5 came to show me her excellent creative writing, retelling a fable and Arlo in Year 2 also did some excellent writing telling me about a spider hiding in a shop!Anna in Year 2 achieved her Badge 5 in the the Newcastle City Gymnastics assessment and Holly in Year 2 achieved her Rainbow 200m swimming badge. Donya in Year 2 also did an excellent piece of writing about a shopping trip! Well done to Mrs Hogan’s class this week!! Poppy and Bradley were sent certificates for their first performance in a NEMCO City music ensemble. (They are still in my office if they want to come and get them and get their special sticker from me too!) Ferdoes in Year 4 received a special thank-you letter from the Queen at Buckingham Palace after he had written to her to wish her a Happy Christmas. Dan in Year 4 also showed me his Stage 4 swimming certificate from Jesmond Pool and Sumayya in Reception was also delighted with her Stage 2 swimming badge and certificate.Toby and Jake were presented with a certificate from Mrs Reed for completing the second stage of their spelling and reading programme. Well done boys! And finally Robert in Year 5 showed me an excellent piece of work showing excellent mastery of using punctuation.I continue to look forward to hearing from you and your children in the future so that we can share everyone’s success within our school community. PARENT CONSULTATION EVENINGSJust forward notice that our meetings for you to come and talk to your child’s class teacher about their progress will be held this term on Wednesday 22nd February, Monday 27th February and Wednesday 29th February. More details about booking appointments will be sent out this term but please get these dates into your diaries for these important meetings. During these open evenings governors will be available and we are going to be holding a consultation event in the main entrance so please come and tell us your thoughts and views of what you like about our school and how we can make it even better. RECOGNITION OF GOVERNOR SERVICEI was invited at the end of last term to a very special event at the Mansion House to recognise the achievement of Jane Edminson our Chair of Governors in recognition of her 10 years of service as a member of the governing body. It was a wonderful event and rightly celebrated this dedication and commitment to our school in the presence of the Lord Mayor. TASTE OF THE MANORIt was also wonderful to be invited along to a new musical, dance and media showcase event at Heaton Manor on Tuesday night. Students are now regularly performing in the intimate surroundings of the performing arts studio and it was great to see many ex-West Jesmond pupils playing, dancing, singing and having their media film-work shown. It was truly impressive event and can recommend it to any parents considering going in the future. The refreshments also created by the GCSE Food technology group were fabulous too! NEW CLOTHES RECYCLING BANKEagle-eyed parents will have noticed that we now have a new clothes recycling bank at school. It is in the small yard at the side of the school near the Year 6 entrance on Tankerville Terrace. This will be open to parents before and after school to drop off any unwanted clothes and other items. (Please can items be secured in a plastic bag).  (Items to be included: unwanted textiles including adult and childrens clothes, paired shoes – tied together with laces or elastic bands, hats, bags, belts, curtains, towels and bed linen). For each load the Friends receive a small donation so not only to you get to recycle old clothes you help to fund raise for the school at the same time. I’m sure children will love filling the bank so have a rummage and see what you can find that can be re-used. I’ve already managed to already make some space in my wardrobe by sorting through my work shirts and ties! All donations are gratefully accepted! With my very Best Wishes to you all for another very successful week ahead at West Jesmond Gary Wallis-Clarkeoffice@westjesmond.newcastle.sch.uk   0191 281 0000 News 2012-01-19T10:11:06+00:00 http://www.westjesmondprimary.org.uk/news/article/your-weekly-letter-from-the-head-teacher8/ http://www.westjesmondprimary.org.uk/news/article/your-weekly-letter-from-the-head-teacher8/ Thursday January 12th 2012 Dear Parents and Carers, Welcome back and a very happy New Year to you all! I do hope everyone had a lovely Christmas holiday and getting back into the routine of coming to school again on these dark mornings has not been too hard! We have a very busy and exciting term planned and the children have settled back into learning and working hard beautifully. We have had a number of new families join our school this term and I want to say a special welcome to them and I hope they enjoy making new friends. JANUARY TEACHER TRAINING DAYAs you will be aware we had our last teacher training day of the school year on Tuesday 3rd January. I always like to keep parents informed about these important days as they help to shape and improve the quality of teaching we deliver for your children. We all spent some time on the morning looking at our behaviour policy and thinking about more ways that we can reward children for outstanding effort and work and excellent behaviour. We also looked at the Nelson handwriting scheme which we have formally adopted across the whole school to improve consistency and fluency in joining letters! Teachers spent some of the day reviewing the progress of pupils in their class following the assessments completed at the end of the Autumn term and finally we reviewed our scheme of work for art and particularly checking progression in painting skills. The teachers then completed a number of art tasks some of which are on display outside of my room for the children to see. We have some very talented artists on the staff and this all helps to ensure the quality of teaching we deliver continues to improve. Mr Wallis-Clarke’s Young AchieversWe have a bumper crop of young achievers this week as this newsletter covers children coming to see me with their exceptional work in the last week of term before Christmas and the first week back! Firstly Daniel  and Toby came to show me their very well crafted and emotional pieces of writing based on a short film called ‘The Piano Player’. Toby came to show me his prize from a recent fencing competition in Durham.A big congratulation and well done to Max , Louis and Akinwumi for singing with Newcastle Cathedral choristers at Grey’s Monument to launch the Digital TV switch-over and being pictured in the Chronicle!Amy and William in Year 2 were sent by their teacher in recognition of excellent writing and completing the long story of ‘The King’s journey’. Tess in Year 4 was rightly proud of her 400m swimming certificate, as was Polly for being the most improved swimmer at Fenham Pool. Anna in Year 3 and Emma in Year 2 gained their 50m swimming badges and Abbie Nicole in Year 5 showed me her certificate gained for diving in a submarine in the Atlantic Ocean!Matthew in Year 2 showed me his wonderful plan for a house to protect the 3 little pigs from the big nasty wolf and Minnie in Year 3 brought her huge trophy for Irish dancing into school along with her photographs, crown and sash for being Champion of Champions in 2011. Lauren in Year 3 gained a distinction in her Grade 1 piano and Ruby in Year 3 has been celebrating her excellent dancing at St Hilda’s church.Dylan in Reception was so proud to show me his excellent independent writing about the sun and Finley in Year 2 was very proud of his excellent success in spelling tests. Kali showed me her certificate gained for taking part in a sports holiday camp and also her Elf certificate gained at the ‘Elf training school’.Finally a huge thank you to Ruby in Year 2 for making some wonderful sweets for me as a Christmas present! They were wonderful!I continue to look forward to hearing from you and your children in the future so that we can share everyone’s success within our school community PARENT CONSULTATION EVENINGSJust forward notice that our meetings for you to come and talk to your child’s class teacher about their progress will be held this term on Wednesday 22nd February, Monday 27th February and Wednesday 29th February. More details about booking appointments will be sent out this term but please get these dates into your diaries for these important meetings. During these open evenings governors will be available and we are going to be holding a consultation event in the main entrance so please come and tell us your thoughts and views of what you like about our school and how we can make it even better. RECEPTION APPLICATION DEADLINEIf you have a child ready to start our Reception classes in September 2012 please make sure your application form is returned to the Civic Centre by Sunday 15th January. We only have 90 places available and demand this year for places is going to be as great as ever judging by the number of parents I have shown around. WEST JESMOND’S GOT TALENTAs if we didn’t already know this! Our annual talent show event is taking place on Wednesday 8th February from 6 pm. Tickets will be available shortly but it may be another date for your diary. THANK YOU TO OUR FRIENDSFinally I just want to say a huge thank you to the ‘Friends of West Jesmond’ for all their wonderful work in the run up to Christmas organising the Shopping Event and Christmas Fair. This fundraising is so important to us and has helped us to order a large ‘Activity Trim Trail’ for the Key Stage 2 yard which we are hoping will be ready for the Summer Term as well as supporting us with improving our reading stock and updating DVD players in certain classrooms. With my very Best Wishes to you all for another very successful week ahead at West JesmondGary Wallis-Clarkeoffice@westjesmond.newcastle.sch.uk  0191 281 0000 News 2012-01-13T10:58:01+00:00 http://www.westjesmondprimary.org.uk/news/article/your-weekly-letter-from-the-head-teacher-thursday-december-8th-2011/ http://www.westjesmondprimary.org.uk/news/article/your-weekly-letter-from-the-head-teacher-thursday-december-8th-2011/ Dear Parents and Carers, This will be my final newsletter this term as next week the teachers will be sending home the termly colour newsletter detailing all the wonderful events we have been participating in this term. Christmas events are now well under-way and as I write this I have so far seen two superb performances from Year 1 and 2. The comments I have had from so many parents have been so positive, expressing their pride in their child’s performance and genuine heart-felt thanks to all the staff for the hard work it takes to put on a show like these. The Reception nativity is tomorrow and I know there will be many tears in the audience! It has been wonderful to see parents and children come together to celebrate and to pause and reflect at this busy time of year. As I have said at the end of all our performances, whatever your faith or belief we can all take comfort from the emergence of light from the dark, warmth from the cold, hope in a time of struggle and conflict and a genuine belief in the good of all human beings. Merry Christmas to you all and have a wonderful, prosperous New Year. URGENT NEWS: EXTRA YEAR 3 and 4 PERFORMANCE We have been literally ‘overwhelmed’ by the demand for tickets for the Year 3 and 4 Family Christmas Sing-a-Long and so have decided to put on another performance on MONDAY 12th December at 9.15 a.m. We must ticket these events to comply with fire safety regulations which only permit us to have 200 parents in the Hall at any one time. To go beyond this, we would actually need to bolt the seats to the floor. We never want to see any parent disappointed and due to the high demand we have arranged this additional performance. If you were not able to get tickets for the Friday afternoon performance I do hope you can make the Monday morning instead. Tickets will be available from the Main Office and priority will be given to those parents not able to attend the Friday afternoon. Please could I ask all parents coming to either performance to make sure they have their tickets ready to present at the door. ROTARY CLUB AWARDIt was with great pleasure that I was invited along to the Jesmond Rotary Club lunch last Friday to be presented with a very special certificate in recognition of the outstanding citizenship, personal qualities and community spirit of our children in 2010. This is in light of the continuous work we do in terms of charity fund-raising, and participation in the Jesmond Community events. I gave a speech on behalf of the school (slightly impromptu but I managed!) talking about our strengths and plans for further establishing our school at the heart if this community. I look forward to a further partnership with this organisation and they are very willing to help and support us as the only state primary school in the Jesmond wards. Mr Wallis-Clarke’s Young AchieversAyesha in Year 6 did a wonderful report of her time in Radio Club in her own time, celebrating and advertising this important club which the children love. The report was beautifully presented and Mrs Hainsworth and Mr Stuart were delighted with her work. Advay in Year 2 came to show me his yellow belt in Karate. He is currently training at the David Lloyd centre and is enjoying this martial art immensely. Similarly, Antonio in Year 6  is working hard with his Taekwondo and won two gold medals in a recent event for his pattern work and sparring. Finally Louis and Fynn in Year 3 came to play their violins for me following their presentation of a Foundation Studio Award from the Sage, Gateshead. They beautifully played a combination of Christmas sings and Grade 1 pieces. I continue to look forward to hearing from you and your children in the future so that we can share everyone’s success within our school community. SCHOOL RE-OPEN TIMESSchool will re-open to pupils on Wednesday 4th January at 8.45 a.m. I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday and has time to spend with friends and family and reflect on the important things in life. With my very Best Wishes to you all for another very successful week ahead at West Jesmond Gary Wallis-Clarkeoffice@westjesmond.newcastle.sch.uk          0191 281 0000 News 2011-12-08T08:39:38+00:00