Last week at Gainsborough…
We took a walk for Walk to School Week
Years 2, 3, 4 and 5 took a walk around our playground and completed a scavenger hunt to find a list of objects. National walk to school week encourages children to walk to school. We have provided ‘scavenger hunts’ in this week’s homework to promote the children taking an interest in their environment and hopefully motivating them to walk more! Walking and talking is a great way for families to spend time together and engage in high quality conversations about the children’s environment. During the short walk around our playground children asked questions about objects, nature and their school triggered by things they have walked past every day and not paid attention to. These are some of the conversations we heard, during our 15 minute scavenger hunt, in our playground:
- When we were in reception we had….
- Why does the school have a ‘boys’ sign over the door?
- My hand is bigger than my friends, we found something approximately the size of both of our hands.
- Can we help in nursery today, the children were trying to talk to us?
Year 6 Doves Learning in Nature Workshop with Bloom
Year 6 visited the Olympic park to work alongside Bloom. Bloom, Nature in Education, help schools bring nature into the curriculum. Year 6 explored interdependence in the environment, linking to their science unit, and thought about how nature features in their everyday lives.
https://www.bloomeducation.co.uk/
Reception Mini Beast Hunt
Reception went on a walk through our local area to find mini beasts! They stopped off at the park to play and reward themselves for a wonderful half term. Throughout the summer term we will use our local environment as much as possible to support our learning.
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:
Reader of the Week
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 Niqo and Riley
Year 2 Vayda and Zayn
Year 3 Shaun and Chelsy
Year 4 Mikeal and Arielle
Year 5 Ibrahim and Karima
Year 6 Dominik and Daniella
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
Ludwick was nominated to receive a Gainsborough Gold Award for settling in nursery and exploring your surroundings! Well done Lulu!
Nursery – Geese
Tariella was nominated to receive a Gainsborough Gold Award for always sharing how you feel and excellent effort in writing your name! Well done Tariella!
Nursery – Swans
Eniko as nominated to receive a Gainsborough Gold Award. You have shown a great attitude towards your learning and worked hard to sound out and write new words during phonics sessions. Well done Eniko!
Reception – Wrens
Lyra was nominated to receive a Gainsborough Gold Award for being a great role model and being a helpful friend!
Year 1 – Owls
This week Elsa has been nominated to receive a Gainsborough Gold Award for her amazing efforts in writing this week. Elsa has been working really hard to improve the presentation of her work. She has also been using her phonics to sound out new words independently.
Well done Elsa!
Year 2- Hummingbirds
Derek was nominated to receive a Gainsborough Gold Award for working really hard in all subjects and showing good listening skills. Well done!
Year 3 – Herons
Dontay was nominated to receive a Gainsborough Gold Award for great listening and following instructions well, being ready and respectful in lessons and moving around the building quietly. Well done!
Year 4- Skylarks
Ibrahim was nominated to receive a Gainsborough Gold Award for writing an excellent letter of persuasion to local MP’s outlining the need to still campaign for children’s rights. Well done!
Year 5 – Magpies
This week Martin- Anthony was nominated to receive a Gainsborough Gold Award for working hard during his maths classes and for becoming more independent during his solo work.
Year 6 – Doves
Henil was nominated to receive a Gainsborough Gold Award for his dedication and perseverance during SATs. Henil gave his all for each exam and tried his best. We are very proud of you!
Half term
Strings Club at Gainsborough – May half term
Strings Club offer a music themed holiday club for children aged 5 -11. Strings Club have been running half term clubs at Gainsborough for several years and are a known and trused, OFSTED registered provider. Please see your school email and Instagram for further information, or see their website https://www.thestringsclub.org/ Please note: bookings are not made via the school.
Badu and Barefoot Planter SEND workshops
Badu and Barefoot Planter have partnered together to bring a gardening experience to families in our community. The Barefoot Planter will be hosting a 2 hour sustainable gardening session for young people with SEND. Each child must be between 5-15 years old and accompanied by an adult. A healthy lunch will be provided at the Badu Cafe. The meeting point is the Badu Cafe, in Hackney Bridge, E15 2SJ on Thursday 30th May, 1.45-4pm. Please join them for this unique opportunity to celebrate National Children’s Gardening Week.
Revel Pucks Circus Tickets – still tickets remaining for half term!
We have been offered £2 tickets for families to attend the Revel Pucks Circus on the Olympic Park this summer. Please see https://www.revelpuckcircus.com/ for dates, times and more information. Staff from Gainsborough highly recommend taking children from aged 3 -11 to the show. It is a really unique and child friendly, acrobatic extravaganza that the children will love. The show times are all outside the school opening hours so it is over to families to take children as and when they can! To access the £2 ticket offer please check your emails, instructions have been emailed to all families.
Next term at Gainsborough…
Summer 2 Priorities at Gainsborough
We will focus on the following next term in a bid to improve outcomes, teaching, our engagement and well being at Gainsborough:
- Assessment – all staff will look at assessing pupils through: lessons, observations and tests, to ascertain progress for the end of the year and set targets for next year
- Transition – we will ensure good transition for all pupils to their next year group
- Science – we will be developing our practical approach to science lessons
- Maths – we will be embedding the use of Maths – No Problem in our maths lessons
- Sustainability – we will be running our family cooking programme, selling our home grown fruit and vegetables, cooking our home grown fruit and vegetables in our school kitchen
- Attendance – supporting families to remove barriers that prevent good attendance
- Keep Healthy – we will focus on healthy eating. We will address packed lunch contents, suggest healthy snacks to bring and promote more eating of fruit and vegetables in the dinner hall
WAMH’s at Gainsborough – Monday 10th June 2024
We have access to a WAMH’s clinician 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
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’:
A family member is getting married abroad and you are consulted on the wedding dates and destination. The family decide a wedding in term time, in Italy, is what they want. You have a very difficult decision to make as to whether you say something or go along with the plan! In this situation it is the discussion you have right from the start, outlining that your child CANNOT miss school, that impacts your family’s decisions. We would ask that in all cases you make it clear to extended family members this is not an option for you and your children.
