Last week at Gainsborough…

Oasis Grand Opening

We now have a fully functioning outdoor classroom, minus a few resources. The children will be able to use the Oasis, the area next to the car park, for outdoor learning throughout the week. This week, Trees for Cities, who are the charity who have part funded the classroom, will complete the planting with children. The children in years 1 -6 will spend a break time each week in the Oasis looking after their plants, checking their growth, measuring them and weeding. This space also provides lots of opportunities to take a whole class into one space and complete practical outdoor tasks. Years 1, 2 and 3 are learning about plants and growth this term and will definitely be using this space. We hope they enjoy it!

Wallis Road Building Site

We have been informed, by parents, of a smell emitting from the Ardmore building site on Wallis Road. The school has not been made aware of the smell through official channels, however has had sight of emails that inform us the piling work is on hold until Hackney Council Environmental Health has carried out a survey. The smell reported by families, and Mossbourne Riverside Academy, has not seemed to travel to Gainsborough. The school staff, families and pupils have not been able to smell the odour while at Gainsborough Primary school however we are monitoring the situation to ensure Hackney Council’s reports indicate the the air is clean.

Keeping Green

Each half term we focus on a different Gainsborough Keep: kind, connected, safe, healthy, green or giving. This half term we are looking at Keep Green. We will raise awareness of the following events and ways of being more sustainable at school and at home:

Each week we will award one child from Years 1-6 with a new book, as the Reader of the Week. The award is for commitment, reading progress, engagement or sharing their love for reading. Please support your child with reading at home! After all, reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

Year 1  Amiyah

Year 2  Zain

Year 3  Asia

Year 4  Mohamed S

Year 5  Sodbeyer

Year 6  Jahnya

GOLDS!

Each week we celebrate an amazing achievement from each class. Children are celebrated in assembly, receive a gold certificate and their name in the newsletter. Please celebrate their learning at home too!

Nursery – Ducks

Oscar was nominated to receive a Gainsborough Gold Award for creating lovely stories when playing and engaging in different friendship groups! Well done Oscar!

Nursery – Geese

Eileen was nominated to receive a Gainsborough Gold Award for the lovely interactions shared with both peers and adults; as well as using different vocabulary in your play! Well done Eileen!

Nursery – Swans

Swans class were nominated to receive a Gainsborough Gold Award. You have all participated fantastically during our phonics session. You have been able to repeat sounds, the sound phrases and showed amazing effort at writing the graphemes.  Well done and keep up the great effort.

Reception – Wrens

Yusuf was nominated to receive a Gainsborough Gold Award for amazing effort in reading. He has tried really hard in phonics this week to remember his new sounds. Well Done Yusuf.

Year 1 – Owls

Vasil was nominated to receive a Gainsborough Gold Award for amazing effort in all lessons and showing great listening, partner work and group work skills. Well done Vasil!

Year 2 – Hummingbirds

This week Thiago was nominated to receive a Gainsborough Gold Award for making connections in his lessons and using fantastic vocabulary to explain his ideas and link his thinking. Well done, Thiago. A great start!

Year 3 – Herons

Lola was nominated to receive a Gainsborough Gold Award for demonstrating excellent behaviour and being very positive about all activities and learning. Well done Lola!

Year 4 – Skylarks

Yusuf was nominated to receive a Gainsborough Gold Award for always modelling excellent behaviour, partner work and listening skills. Well done Yusuf, you are a great role model.

Year 5 – Magpies

Macey received a Gainsborough Gold Award for working incredibly hard in writing this week and making great contributions to class discussions. Macey you are amazing, well done.

Year 6 – Doves

Beverly was nominated to receive a Gainsborough Gold Award for her incredible improvements in testing scores over this half term. Well done Beverly!

Next week at Gainsborough…

WAMH’s at Gainsborough 

We have access to a WAMH’s clinicin at Gainsborough. This service supports both school and home and identifying and supporting pupil’s well being and mental health. Alice Zacharia is our dedicated WAMH’s worker, she is in Gainsborough every second Monday, and she is able to meet parents to discuss any aspect of pupil well being. Please email admin@gainsborough.hackney.sch.uk if you would like to meet with Alice.

The objectives of the WAMH’s programme are listed here:

• The school environment supports well-being (supporting schools to be mentally healthy settings)
• Supporting the personal, social, and emotional development of all children in schools
• Supporting schools to be inclusive places/ increase inclusive practices
• Promote cohesive and cooperative linked working between schools and mental health services
• Increase capacity within schools to identify early and meet the wellbeing and mental health needs of all pupils
• Engagement with parents and the external world

More information about WAMH’s can be found here: https://www.hackneylocaloffer.co.uk/kb5/hackney/localoffer/advice.page?id=DUgwy6CmZ6k

Year 6 SAT’s and Kench Hill Meeting

Families are invited to find out more about the Year 6 SAT’s tests, how to help their children revise and what the SAT’s week will consist of. The meeting for families is scheduled for Thursday 25th April at 3.30pm in the Year 6 classroom. Families will also be allocated Kench Hill equipment lists and have the chance to ask any further questions about the Kench Hill residential trip happening from Monday 17th – Friday 21st June. We look forward to seeing you there.

Attendance at Gainsborough

We are working hard to ensure good attendance at Gainsborough. To help you understand the importance in having good school attendance, we will be informing you about how we teach cycles of learning at Gainsborough in each week’s newsletter. We want families to understand the impact of absence on well being, the progress in subjects, friendships and the work load absence has on the school work force. We are doing this to help families be more mindful about taking days off.

This week’s ‘absence impact snapshot’:

Your child misses 3 days of school for a cough.  Your child comes into school on lesson 4 of the writing cycle. The class have been on a trip, gathered ideas and words to describe the Victorian school day they saw on their trip. They have planned a diary entry and are confident and ready to write. Your child hasn’t had these experiences as they were off school. Your child now has to write from another child’s plan, in a  small group with the class teacher.  They are a bit confused about the process and haven’t written their best work. They are disappointed and now the teacher finds assessing what they have written really hard as well. The teacher reassures your child the next cycle will be better as they will be more confident and have all the tools they need. The teacher worries they have let the child down, but also knows if they take them out of other lessons to catch up in writing they will fall further behind in other lessons.