Newsletter 11th March 2022

Another busy week draws to the end. Thank you to those parents who attended the forum on Wednesday. It was very helpful to hear your views, and your continuing commitment to the school is heart-warming. We have taken your concerns on board and will endeavour to address issues at every level. I will send a separate letter with more information about the Dartmoor Multi Academy Trust next week. Dan Morrow (CEO) is looking forward to coming  out to  talk to parents about the vision and values of the Trust and how it could  benefit Milton Abbot in the very near future. I assumed all stakeholders had received more information about our involvement in the managed partnership and the nature of the Trust. As I mentioned last week we operate an open door policy and always welcome your thoughts or ideas. If you have any concerns or worries don't hesitate to come in and see us. Everyone wants Milton Abbot Primary to thrive, to ensure the children can achieve at the highest level. 
Leadership Team at Milton Abbot
We feel it is very important that parents understand the nature of the leadership team and can put a name to a face.  Finding a full-time suitably experienced head to lead Milton Abbot and accelerate school improvement would have taken a considerable period of time to recruit. Dartmoor Multi Academy Trust felt placing very experienced leaders with a range of expertise  would be an excellent option for the school. Mrs Underwood, Mrs Stevens and myself liaise via Teams at least twice a week to ensure there is consistency across the school. We have a shared action plan and are determined to ensure every child loves school and is engaged and challenged by their learning at all times.  

Early next week we will be sending home a leaflet providing more information on our Milton Abbot team, complete with photos of the people you see regularly around school. 
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Debbie Buckingham: I have a part-time contract with the Trust and will be in school on a Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. As I mentioned before I have been long term head of several schools and have been seconded by the Local Authority several times to support schools for short periods of time.
Elizabeth Underwood 
Elizabeth is a very experienced Headteacher and an Executive Principle in the Trust. She will be working on a Tuesday
Suzie Stevens  
Suzie is the Principal of St James Church of England Primary and Nursery School and an Associate to the Primary Executive Board of the Trust. She is an Early Years Lead Teacher and will bring great expertise to our early years unit. She will be in school on a Friday 
   
​Debbie Buckingham                                  Elizabeth Underwood                    Suzie Stevens.

School drop off and pick up 
As from Monday 14th March, the children can be dropped off outside their classrooms and picked up from the same place. There will still be a member of staff on the main gate. This will further improve lines of communication. Just remember teachers are very busy first thing in the morning!
Parent's Evening 
Ensuring parents are well informed about how well their child is doing and the progress they are making is vitally important. You should have received a letter about parents evening yesterday for the week beginning 
28th March. Please complete the slip and return it to the office. After Easter we will be providing much more information about what your child will be learning through the term and how you can help them. 
Foundation Class 
We were delighted to welcome the Reception children to the dinner hall this week. We are endeavouring to make lunch a much more enjoyable experience for everyone.

Author
The  author will be coming into school on Tuesday 15th March as he was ill on World Book Day. If you would like to purchase his book please send in £5.00 on Friday.
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Information for parents and carers on COVID-19 vaccination for at risk 5 to 11 year olds
Children aged 5 to 11 years who are in a clinical risk group or who live with someone who is immunosuppressed can get the COVID-19 vaccine, in line with advice set out by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). Eligible children include those with diabetes, immunosuppression, learning disabilities, and other conditions as outlined by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) in the Green Book.
Vaccinations help to increase protection against COVID-19, which is particularly important for those with underlying health conditions.
Further information is available in the guide for parents of children aged 5 to 11 years published by UKHSA. We have published some frequently asked questions on the vaccination programme including information on eligibility, accessibility and advice for parents of children at high risk from COVID-19. Following advice from the JCVI, healthy 5 to 11 year old children will also be offered two 10 microgram doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. The NHS will prepare to extend this non-urgent offer to all children during April.

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Little Owls This week in Little Owls, we have continued expanding our knowledge about dinosaurs and incorporated it in other areas of our learning.
This week in maths, we have been looking at comparing, and using dinosaurs to help us! We have investigated height by comparing tall and short towers, we arranged ourselves into height order and compared who the tallest and shortest person was in our class. We have also compared ‘empty, half-full and full’ containers using water. The children had great fun experimenting with different amounts and comparing them to one another.
In literacy, we have been learning our words of the week by sounding out the letters and blending – just like phonics – and even drawing a beautiful picture of the words! The children have produced some fantastic work this week, and have really put a lot of effort into each of their area of their learning.
In Forest school, the children are going on a muddy dinosaur footprint hunt, dinosaur egg hunt as well as digging for dinosaur bones. Next week the children are going to start learning all about space, looking at the planets and some astronauts. There will also be lots of dance and music with the children having the opportunity to dance to The Planets by Gustav Holst, and there will lots of opportunities for art with lots of glitter!

Ukraine  
On March 18th - Comic Relief. We would like children to wear yellow/blue or both.
Each child will plant a sunflower seed which will bloom in the summer, representing our warm thoughts for everyone. A donation of at least  £1 would be welcome.
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Tawny Owls 
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​This week in Tawny Owls we have begun our investigations within our Design and Technology lessons, we explored how wheels and axles work as well as how we could make them move without us pulling or pushing the mechanism along the floor. Some great discussions were had and the children all persevered very well. 
In our RE lesson, we looked at the holy book within Islam and what it means to Muslims. The class made their own mini Qur'an fact books and could recall so many key facts. 
Within our History lesson this week we learnt all about Hadrian's Wall; including how it was built, why it was built and who built it. Tawny Owls loved creating their own mini walls in their books - not made out of real bricks but real facts and new knowledge!
We also enjoyed speaking to Mr Hill, Maths Lead across Dartmoor Multi Academy Trust, who visited on Tuesday, about our amazing Maths lessons. He was blown away by the children's high level of understanding, oral skills when discussing their work as well as their presentation skills. 

Eagle Owls
​Religious Education
This week we have been carrying on with our learning about Hinduism. The children have focused their learning on what ‘Atman’ is within Hinduism as well as looking at sacred texts / stories which guide Hindus towards goodness. The children learnt the story ‘The Man in the Well’ by completing some roll play / acting and which is one of the Hindu stories centred around hope and being a good human. Great acting and fun for all.

Forest School
 
Today was Eagle Owls first ‘Forest School’ session. They had a great time in our lovely school grounds and spent the time recapping forest school rules and safety as well as playing outdoor activities and discussing shelter / den construction techniques.

Barn Owls
It's been another great week of learning in Barn Owls!
In maths this week we’ve been continuing our work with height and length. Year 2 had a wonderful time measuring the school in metres following their previous focus on centimetres. They are now moving on to comparing measurements and solving word problems. In Year 1 we’ve been focusing on measuring with non-standardised forms of measurement and discussing the most suitable way to accurately measure objects.
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Year 6 Transition
Our year 6 pupils received notification of their secondary school places this week. I hope that you were all pleased with the allocations that you received. Please respond to your offer before Tuesday 15 March 2022. We will make sure there is an effective transition programme for our Year 6 pupils.