This week at Gainsborough…
Autumn 1
Welcome back to children, families and staff
Welcome back everyone. We hope everyone has had a wonderful summer. Over the summer small changes in our school environment have been made: improved use of garden spaces and replanting and organisation, the development of 2 sensory rooms (one in the Aviary and one on the ground floor), thorough deep cleaning throughout the school, the move of Year 3, Indigo and Year 1 to enable classes to have bigger classrooms and intervention spaces to be run from the smaller rooms. All of these small changes will improve the experiences of our children and we are thankful to staff who made these changes happen over the summer.
We have had a wonderful first week back to school for Years 1 -6 and some preschool children. We have settled into very well prepared classrooms, routines and lessons.
This week children in Years 1 -6 have written manifestos and presented their speeches to classes where peers then elected them to their chosen roles. We will start our pupil led groups next week with school council, Green Team, Digital Leaders and Rights Respecting Ambassadors. Year 6 will also begin their journey as peer mediators and sports ambassadors. We value the pupil led roles at Gainsborough as they give pupils a voice, a way of presenting to us what they believe is important and adds value to the work we do in classrooms. It develops oracy skills and give our pupils agency to stand up for their rights and what they believe in. We are excited to see what our pupil led groups achieve this year!
This academic year we will be focusing on:
Improving school punctuality and attendance
Launching a school food initiative
Striving towards being a more sustainable organisation
Improve our academic outcomes for pupils at statutory checkpoints.
New School Food Strategy – We are What we Eat!
We are starting to work with staff, families and children to develop our Gainsborough Food Strategy. This will encompass growing, cooking and eating at Gainsborough. We have employed 2 school food educators to support this role. Our new school food educators have hit the ground running, cooking some delicious school meals this week. We have eaten some wonderful food this week and tried a range of different fruit including blood orange and grapefruit. They will be supporting our growing team, after school clubs and cooking curriculum. We are really excited to develop our school food offer and education, watch this space for how you can get involved.
Coming up at Gainsborough…
2 Year Old Preschool and 3 Year Old Nursery Places
Nursery places are still available at Gainsborough in our 2 and 3 Year Old Nursery . If you have children under 4, and would like to explore child care options, please speak to Charlee Lawrence or send an email to admissions@gainsborough.hackney.sch.uk
Class and Setting Newsletters
The class and setting newsletters will be sent out in week 2. We are finalising some trip dates and times that affect family sharing and assembly times. PE days are as follows:
Monday Nursery Swans and Year 2
Tuesday Year 5
Wednesday Nursery Geese Reception and Years 6
Thursday Year 4
Friday Nursery Swans Year 1 and Year 3
Clubs Registration
The clubs registration letter for Autumn term has been emailed to families. Please complete your preferences via the google form, paper copy or send an email with your club preferences. Please be reminded club preferences do not role over and you are required to sign up termly for breakfast club and after school clubs.
Children’s Centre Sessions Restart this Week
The Children’s Centre sessions will restart this week! Please drop in to book sessions, find out about our adult and child sessions and join us on our preschool journey. There are sessions for adult learning, parent and baby classes, support sessions and after school stay and play sessions for all families.
Year 2 Zoo Trip, Friday 12th September
Year 2 will will visit the zoo this week. Please speak to the year 2 team if you are able to accompany the class on the trip.
Holidays During Term Time
If you took time off school for a holiday or to travel last academic year we will be inviting you in to discuss the impact of this.
Holiday’s during term time are not permitted in any school, and Gainsborough is the same. In our scheduled meeting we will discuss the holidays taken with families and consider ways they can manage this year without taking further time out of school.
We ask that all families strive to be at school everyday so that we can best meet the children’s well-being and academic needs.
