I hope you caught last Friday’s assembly video.

Leave a comment below to nominate award winners for THIS week’s video. Here’s a reminder of the awards:

• Head of School Award – showing the school values

• Jackie Johnson Award – good manners and kindness

• Tidy Friday Award – helping out by cleaning and tidying

• Readers of the Week – showing a particular passion for reading

• Writers of the Week – showing passion, aspiration and resilience in writing

• Sports Personality of the Week – showing the values through exercise, PE and sport

Keep visiting the Year Group blogs and Tapestry to find your learning guidance from teachers and if you can, please do use Seesaw or Tapestry to show teachers what learning has been going on at home.

Mr Poyton

As Poplar class pupils and their families already know, Mrs Archer gave her notice before the school closure and last week was her last week with Lawford Mead. Mrs Archer has been with Lawford Mead for a long time (she was an LSA at the old junior school before), so it’s the end of an era! She will be missed and we wish her and her family the very best.

Of course it’s extra sad to say goodbye when we can’t actually SEE Mrs Archer to say goodbye right now due to the school closure and lockdown. But she has promised to come and visit us all once we have reopened so we can say goodbye properly.

For now you can leave a comment below to say goodbye to Mrs Archer, thank her for her service to the school and community and to send your best wishes.

We’ll miss you Mrs Archer!

Another week of learning at home means another chance to nominate learners for an assembly video award. Remember, as well as the Head of School Award for showing our school values in learning, we also have…

Leave a comment below this blog post to nominate. We’ll text you when the new assembly video is online this Friday.

If you haven’t seen it yet, check you email inbox for an email sent out on Monday this week, pointing you towards additional home learning resources. But teachers are still updating the year group blogs everyday and on each blog you’ll find weekly links to downloadable Word documents that include a lot of the blog content. Here are recent posts that explain how to use Seesaw in Years 1 to 6 to show teachers the learning going on at home. Reception teachers will see families on Tapestry!

Seesaw in Year 1

Seesaw in Year 2

Seesaw in Year 3

Seesaw in Year 4

Seesaw in Year 5

Seesaw in Year 6

Take care,

Mr Poyton

NEW NOMINATIONS

Thank you to everyone who visited the blog last week and nominated children for an assembly award. Well done to all the children. I hope you all enjoyed the latest video. I plan to get another video up on the site this Friday so do leave a comment below with your new nominations by Thursday lunchtime at the latest.

Please don’t feel you can’t nominate your child again just because they already received a ‘shout out’ the previous week. We will always try to mention as many children as possible and if a nomination comes through too late for that week’s video, we’ll try to carry it over to the following week. I know you adults at home are working very hard to support children with their learning so I’m thinking you deserve the occasional nomination yourself! Feel free to subtly suggest to your children that they nominate you, especially for the Tidy Friday award if you want to make that one a little competitive!

Please just use first names and the first initial of surnames for children and for yourselves in the comments. You can mention the class or year group too.

LEARNING AT HOME

Teachers continue to update the blogs on a daily basis and they are now starting to include the blog content as a downloadable Word document or PDF in case that is helpful for families. Visit the blogs to find these files.

• Year 1
• Year 2
• Year 3
• Year 4
• Year 5
• Year 6

All the learning going on in your homes is something to be proud of. Well done for all you are achieving as a family. Thank you.

Mr Poyton

I hope you all managed to enjoy your Easter break and, despite the necessary limitations we are facing, had a fun and relaxing time with loved ones.

Teachers have updated all the blogs with new home learning guidance:

• Year 1
• Year 2
• Year 3
• Year 4
• Year 5
• Year 6

If your child is in Reception look out for Tapestry emails.

You can also find Knowledge Organisers and related home learning ideas (many of which can still be attempted during the lockdown) for the new Year 1-6 topics here.

The BBC have also launched new Bitesize home learning resources today which you may want to explore.

We hope to get another assembly video up on this website on Friday. Thank you for the kind comments about the last one. Please start commenting below this blog post with your new nominations! Preferably by this Thursday lunchtime please. You can nominate children for their behaviour and attitudes during the Easter break, not just this week. A reminder of the awards:

• Head of School Award (for showing one or more of our school values)
• Sports Personality of the Week (showing the values through sport and exercise)
• Readers and Writers of the Week
• Tidy Friday Award
• The Jackie Johnson Award (for good manners)

Have a great week everyone. Stay safe and take care.

Mr Poyton

Our first online assembly is now here. Thank you to parents and carers for all the nominations. Apologies if your child’s name wasn’t mentioned this time but there’s always the next one! Do take a moment to read the comments below my previous blog post to read about the wonderful things children have been doing at home. They are inspiring!

Wishing you all a Happy Easter holiday despite the restrictions there will be on egg hunts! Teachers will be back on the blogs from April 20th. You can read the final newsletter of the term here if you haven’t received it in an email.

One last thing for now…It is inevitable that children will be spending more time online during this period. A reminder then that we have guidance for keeping children safe online here.

Take care all,

Mr Poyton

The school has been closed for two weeks now and I know learning at home in this new way must be taking some getting used to. Thank you and well done to all the children that have been engaging in learning activities each day. A HUUUUUUGE THANK YOU must go to all the adults who have become the teachers, on top of doing everything else they have to do!

Our teachers all miss their pupils terribly and they have been updating the year group blogs and Tapestry regularly, so keep going back to those pages to find more tasks and challenges. Look out for blog posts about ‘Seesaw’, a special way for families to show to show teachers the learning Year 1-6 children have been doing at home. I have shared additional ideas and guidance here.

On the subject of sharing your learning, did you know you can leave comments under these blog posts too?

Parents and carers can use the comments section below this post to nominate children for the following awards and I will post a Friday assembly (of sorts) on the website this Friday:

• The Head of School award (for outstanding demonstration of one of our school values this week)
• The Sports Personality of the Week award (showing the values through PE, sport and exercise)
• The Tidy Friday award (can you guess what that one is for?)
• The Jackie Johnson award (good manners)
• Writer of the Week (effort and passion in writing)
• Reader Leader award (daily reading and love of books)

I look forward to hearing who the nominees are!

Mr Poyton

Hello children,

I am so sorry we had to close the school today. All the staff miss you already and we hate having to take a break from helping you learn. This is a very strange and challenging time for everyone but you don’t need to worry. All the adults in your life, at school and at home, are doing all they can to take care of you.

Your education is very important BUT, as I often say in assemblies, being SAFE is the MOST important thing! So Mrs Baker and I had to make the difficult decision to close the school today. We have been sending emails and letters to your parents and carers so adults at home will be able to explain more to you.

Whilst you are off school, your teachers are adding learning activity ideas to your year group blogs:

• Year 1
• Year 2
• Year 3
• Year 4
• Year 5
• Year 6

Reception teachers will use Tapestry instead. You can visit our Links page for ideas too. Please do check these ideas out and keep on learning at home. AND READ LOTS OF BOOKS! You could try designing a timetable for your day.

Never forget to be kind and take care of each other.

From Mr Poyton

p.s. Here are some fun activity suggestions to keep you busy…

We were delighted to support our local community today by allowing pupils who attend Rainbows, Brownies, Guides, Beavers, Cubs and Scouts to wear their club uniform instead of their school uniform. Children were able to show off their badges and share the achievements with their classmates. At least 37 Lawford Mead pupils attend these clubs after school!

The day gave us the opportunity to discuss what other hobbies we have and what achievements we are proud of. Lawford Mead is full of talented children who have worked hard to achieve something special. Many of them, including our musicians, martial artists, swimmers and athletes have earned medals, badges, belts and certificates to prove it!

School gives us a chance to achieve and feel proud every day too! Of course, we have our various trophies, certificates, medals and badges for attendance, punctuality, reading, writing, showing our values and much more. But, every lesson can be achievement. Climbed your first tree in Muddy Adventures? Met your times table target? Know all your spellings? Every page of work in your book is something to take pride in!

What have you achieved recently and what are you aspiring to achieve next?

The report from our inspection in January is now available. Please find the document here.

Mr Poyton