Please look out for Team Newsletters and for Fronter updates which will give guidance on ways you can support your child’s learning at home. 

Daily reading at home can have a huge impact on children’s progress, allowing them to develop confidence and fluency.

The ‘10 Handy Tips for Helping your Child with Maths and English’ sessions that we ran last termcan be repeated for interested parents. Please let the office know if you would like to attend a workshop.

 Staff and Governors have been reviewing the school aims. We would welcome your thoughts and ideas. Our proposed aims are listed below. Please read through them and return any comments to the school office. 

We will...

We have undertaken our termly discussion with the children about what they like and would improve about school. The children told us that they like ICT, the Premier Sport coaches, role-play, the playgrounds, playtime equipment, assemblies, working for rewards and their lessons. The Reception children wanted their toilets decorating so this is on the plan for our Community Service decorators. The Year 1 and 2 children’s ideas included more PE equipment in the hall, water to play with at playtimes and more junk modelling, Teachers will look at their art and design planning to maximise opportunities for 3D work. Water at playtimes has some practical disadvantages! New PE equipment in the hall is something that we will consider as a focus for future fundraising.

 We achieved our ICT Mark and are very proud of the lovely report that the assessor wrote about our school.

Emergency school closures are published on the Milton Keynes website at www.miltonkeynes.gov.uk/schoolclosures. If you would like to receive a free text or email to let you know if the school has to close for an emergency then please register on the above site.

BBC Three Counties Radio will be broadcasting school closures on 104.5FM.

Our school priorities this year include: improving the quality of handwriting, and developing interactive displays and environments for learning. We will continue our work started over the last two years in the following areas:

• Learning through speaking and listening
• Improving achievement in reading, writing and in mathematics
• Using a range of learning environments outside the classroom
• Refining the use of assessment in making accurate judgements & in identifying the next steps in learning
• Maintaining International Schools Award

 If your child is entitled to free school meals then please claim for them, even if they do not want them. This has a direct impact on our budget and will help us to maintain staffing levels. With new funding arrangements schools with low free school meals take up will find it much harder to provide additional support for their children.

OFSTED have launched a new web site asking parents to give their views on their child’s school.  There is currently one entry for Russell Street. The more parents that offer their views the more balanced and helpful the site will be, both for OFSTED, and for us in our ongoing evaluation of parent opinion. We are due an OFSTED this term!