Spring Newsletter 2 2012

Dear Parents / Carers,  

Welcome back to the second half of the Spring term.  We had great fun in the snow!

Teacher Update

Miss Georgia Slater will be teaching on Thursdays starting from 1^st March.  Miss Slater works with Miss Wiltshire for Parents Consortium and therefore has excellent experience and knowledge of supporting children with additional educational needs.

World Book Day – Thursday 1^st March

Please remind your child to bring their favourite book to school on Thursday and Friday and if possible to be able to share an extract with their class.  We will be providing the children with World Book Day Books in school rather than issuing the vouchers thereby saving you a trip to the shops!

Personalised Learning

Our very successful focus teaching programme led by Mrs Tremain, Head of Learning Support, will now be called the Personalised Learning Programme.  Pupils will continue to be supported in small groups, booster workshops or 1:1 in order to work towards individual targets.  This is in addition to normal lessons.

Movie Night

A reminder that movie night takes place this Thursday.  Please may we politely ask you to be prompt in collecting your child at 6pm.  Please send your child with a change of clothes.

RE Visits

We had an enjoyable trip to our local church in West Kingsdown in January. We will be visiting the Sikh Gurdwara in Gravesend later this term to find out what is the same and different between different places of worship.  More details will follow.

Parents’ Evenings

We will be holding parents’ evenings to discuss your pupil’s progress during the week beginning Monday 26^th March. Please write in the link book if you have a particular time or date which suits you best.

School Dinners

We are now able to finalise the arrangements for school dinners.  Dinners will be provided by Hartley Primary School and transported to Birtley.  The cost per day will be £2.75.  Please pay in advance weekly.  Cheques to be made payable to Birtley House Kent Ltd  (£13.75) or by direct debit transfer.

Dinners will start on Monday 5^th March – this will be for a 4 week trial period.  Please note that there will be no school dinners on the last week of term 2-4 April.  No refunds will be given for absenteeism.

Animals

Please can you let the office know if you are able to look after a rabbit or guinea pigs (in pairs) during the Easter holidays. Thank you.

Term Dates

Please note that the Spring term ends on Wednesday 4^th April and starts again on Monday 23^rd April.  We are aware that these holidays do not match all the state school holidays and we apologise for any inconvenience however we have attempted to do a ‘best fit’ of matching State and Independent school holidays.  As far as we are aware this is the only time that this occurs in the school year.

Kind Regards          

Mrs E Sillitoe

Dear Parents/Carers/Colleagues and Friends of Birtley House,

Happy New Year!

Parliament Trip

We started off 2012 with a fantastic trip to the Houses of Parliament in the Palace of Westminster.  We learnt so much about the Kings, Queens and Prime Ministers of England and about how Government works.  We also enjoyed riding on the trains and tubes and seeing the sights of London including Westminster Abbey and Big Ben.

Well done to all our children who behaved so well and asked brilliant questions.

Hot School Dinners

We will be offering school meals from after February Half Term.  The estimated cost will be between £2.00 – £3.00.  Menus will be available soon.

School Photographs

School photographs (Individual and Class) will be taking place on Monday 30^th January.

School Council

We have now set up a formal school council to contribute to ideas on school development.  This term’s school councillors are: Matthew,  Brandon,  Lizzie, Andre.  We will be meeting weekly.

 Staff Professional Development

Mrs Tremain (Head of Learning Support) is now qualified as a Child Protection Officer and will be working as Deputy to Mrs Sillitoe as Designated Child Protection Officers.

Mrs Webb and Mrs Tomkins have updated their First Aid qualifications.

Miss Wiltshire continues to work extremely hard towards gaining her SENCO qualification.  She will complete her training in June.

Church Visit

As part of our RE topic on Places of Worship we will be visiting St Edmund’s church in West Kingsdown on Thursday 19^th January.  Reverend Judy will show the children all the different parts of the church and answer the children’s questions.

Kind Regards

Mrs E Sillitoe

Headteacher

Wednesday 14^th December 2011

Dear Parents / Carers / Colleagues and Friends of Birtley House,

Another set of firsts for Birtley House!  We held our Christmas church service in the beautiful 11^th Century Church, St Edmund’s in West Kingsdown, on Thursday 8^th December.  Reverend Judy made us incredibly welcome and all the children greatly enjoyed making christingles.  Thank you also to other members of the St Edmund’s congregation who supported us by providing music and refreshments.

Our first Birtley nativity play ‘Prickly Hay’ was held on Monday 12^th December.  The children were amazing, speaking clearly and singing so well.  I’m sure that all parents, friends and family enjoyed the show!

Our Christmas fayre was very successful – especially Santa’s grotto.  We raised £586!! A big thank you to all members of the PTA who put in so much effort in order to raise such a fantastic amount.  It has paid for all the new reading books.

A huge well done to James who passed his 11+ test and will be going to Grammar School next year.  We are ever so proud of his fantastic achievement.

A brilliant effort from all pupils who entered the ‘Design a Birtley Christmas Card’ competition. Congratulations to Oliver.  We now have his winning design printed and have sent it to many schools and businesses.

Thank you also to everyone who supported Children In Need Day on 18^th November.  We had a spotty day and raised £30.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank all our pupils, parents and staff for another term of exceptional hard work and to wish everybody a very merry Christmas and new year!

Kind Regards

Emma Sillitoe (Mrs)

Headteacher

Dear Parents / Carers / Colleagues and Friends of Birtley House,

We have been incredibly busy since term began settling back with our expanded two classes!  We now have a Lower Junior Class (Year 3 and 4) and an Upper Junior Class (Year 5 and 6).  The children have adapted brilliantly to their new classes and are now supported even more effectively in their numeracy and literacy learning.

Mr Tait, our new class teacher, is  a fantastic asset to the school and brings with him a wealth of ideas for creative  learning opportunities.  This month we are also delighted to welcome Mrs Goldsmith who joins our super skilled teaching assistant team on a part time basis.

We are now welcoming admissions from Year 1 and Year 2 children -  please contact the school office for further information.

The new uniform has proved very successful and the children are proud to be looking so smart.  The supplier “Graduates” in Orpington are reliable and friendly.  Items of uniform can be bought from stock (kept in school) or ordered via the form in the waiting room.

We are holding a community cake sale next Wednesday 12^th October between 3.30 and 4.30pm.  Everybody is welcome to this event.   We hope to raise money to extend our library book selection.

The arrival of Mrs Sillitoe’s piano (all the way from sunny Birmingham!) has enabled us to extend our music provision including running Music Therapy sessions on Thursdays.  The children participating in this are really enjoying the opportunity to express themselves creatively.  Music therapy is available on Thursdays from 4pm.  Attendance at the school is not required.

Gardening club has harvested its first crop, huge potatoes, juicy tomatoes and delicious sweet peas.  The children decided to cook them into baked potatoes with an amazing array of fillings.  We greatly enjoyed them and cannot wait for the next fruit and vegetables to be produced!  Thank you Mrs Mason for all your hard work.

On Sunday 2^nd October we joined in with the Royal Horticultural Society’s GYGG Day (Get Your Grown Up Gardening!).  Staff,  parents and friends of the school grabbed spades and forks to work on improving our school gardens and dig the ground ready to plant spring bulbs.  The weather was beautiful so a huge thank you to all who gave up their time and energy!

Reverend Judy Thurlow from St. Edmund King and Martyr Church joined us for our first ever harvest assembly on Monday 3^rd October.  The children gathered a super collection of produce to be donated by the church to those within the West Kingsdown community and the Salvation Army in Dartford.

Kind Regards

Mrs Emma Sillitoe

We’ve had an amazing month.

The trip to Brands Hatch was incredibly successful.  The children had such an exciting and interesting day,  seeing the racing cars, the control room and garages.  Many thanks to all the staff at Brands Hatch for making it such a memorable day for us.

We held our first ever Sports Day on June 30^th.  A truly fantastic time was had by all.  Every child participated in a range of events, some silly,  some competitive and of course, parents and teachers joined in the races!  We enjoyed strawberries and cream in the sunshine not to mention Mrs Mason’s delicious chocolate birthday cake for Miss Wiltshire.  Well done to James who was the overall winner.

Achievement afternoon took place on 13^th July, it was a chance to celebrate the amazing progress made by our pupils over the last six months.  A particular well done to Ellie who received the award for 100% attendance.  Staff and parents were all moved to tears in acknowledging the achievements of all our very special children.

We are excited to announce that from September we will be opening another class.  We are proud to have recruited Mr M Tait to join our experienced and caring teaching team.  We have also created two specialist rooms in the outside classrooms, a DT – science – art area and a creative play – music area.  These spacious rooms allow our children to experience secondary type specialist rooms with all the relevant resources to hand.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us over the last six months.  We wish all parents, pupils and staff a restful summer and look forward to seeing you on the first day back, Tuesday September 6^th.

Kind Regards,

Mrs Emma Sillitoe

What a busy month!

We finally had our OFSTED inspection on May 18th and 19^th.  The Inspectors were extremely impressed with everything that has been accomplished in establishing the school and particularly in meeting our children and noting their progress and achievements.

We were particularly pleased that the Inspectors recognised how well we cater for children’s individual needs within our creative curriculum and that academic gaps are being closed whilst  successfully raising children’s self esteem, confidence,  co-operation and communication skills.

A huge thank you to all the staff team for working so hard in order to achieve our deserved recognition and especially to Miss Wiltshire who was inspected in every lesson!  Of course thanks also go to our parents who were fantastically supportive (as always) throughout the week and to our amazing pupils!

The final report can be accessed by visiting our Inspections page.

On 17^th May Blue Class had a fantastic experience dressing up to engage in a day of learning about World War 2 at the Museum of Kent Life.  Learning how to march was the highlight of the day.

We have now started swimming lessons and the children have really enjoyed developing their water skills although by some inexplicable reason we do end appear to end up with a remarkable number of missing socks!

We are delighted to announce that we are running a residential trip for Year 5 and 6 pupils at Bowles activity centre in Tunbridge Wells next May.  This will offer our pupils an amazing array of opportunities as well as developing their independent skills by being away from home.  I have enjoyed many fabulous trips to Bowles over the years and I know that a super time will be had by all.

We are so excited to be visiting Brands Hatch on Monday 20^th June.  The children are going to write reports about the trip which we will publish on the website for you to read.

We are looking forward to an even busier month over the next few weeks with sports day,  achievement assemblies,  community visits and a host of exciting curriculum activities.

Kind Regards,

Mrs Emma Sillitoe

Headteacher

We had another successful open day on Saturday. Thank you very much to Matthew, Ellie
and Lauren who did a brilliant job of showing people round. We now have our first full
class and are preparing for our second class to open in September. The school building and
grounds look better every week. We are continually improving the gardens and the mobile
classrooms are now looking bright and ready to use.

Our pet area is complete and the animals now have a large secure area to enjoy. We have
3 new baby rabbits named Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail and 4 new guinea pigs named
Splodge, Tufty, Patch and Bert. They are having a fabulous time in their new environment.

We had a fantastic day out to London to visit the Tate Modern art gallery. The children
really enjoyed looking at the wonderful and weird art on display! It was a fabulous
opportunity to see the sights and sounds of our capital city despite the rain!! We are really
looking forward to our next trip on Tuesday to the Museum of Kent Life for a World War 2
Experience. Out of door learning experiences are so valuable for our children’s
development.

We are really excited to be able to offer the opportunity of music therapy sessions from
September. Music therapy is a psychological therapy which can be especially effective to
support children with a wide range of specialist needs. Laura Reining MA is a qualified
music therapist with experience working with children with autism and other learning
difficulties.

Kind Regards,

Mrs Emma J Sillitoe

Well done Miss Wiltshire for working so hard to produce such a creative, interesting and interactive curriculum. The children are learning so much whilst having a huge amount of fun every day!

An enormous thank you to Maisy’s Grandad Mr Berry for all his efforts to fundraise for the Birtley pet area. This has been a fantastic success! Welcome to Badger Fluff and Percy Fluff, our rabbits, Ham and Cheese, our guinea pigs, and Worm 1, Worm 2, Worm 3….. Worm 500, the new inhabitants in the Birtley Wormery!

The children are learning how to be responsible for our new pets as well as how to compost our leftovers. Our next fundraising efforts are for the development of the tennis courts and sports facilities. All donations will be greatly appreciated.

Pancake Day was a huge success. As well as learning how to measure out ingredients and cook pancakes we took part in our Pancake Olympics which involved pancakes, bats and assault courses!

The recent Spring weather has allowed us to take even greater advantage of our beautiful grounds and we take our learning outside whenever we can. The children particularly enjoyed creating their own Bear music in the gardens using a variety of instruments.

Thank you to Ron and Jenny McCrohan who kindly donated two full-size netball posts, netballs and footballs so that we can make better use of our tennis court space. The children are really enjoying using these.   Thanks also to John Brierley for repainting the netball posts, outside play house, making new benches and building a rabbit run!!

Lastly, Congratulations to the Russell family on the birth of their baby boy Harry on 23rd March.

Kind Regards,

Mrs Emma Sillitoe

Headteacher

What a busy and exciting time we have had over the last 6 weeks.  We opened the school with our first class on January 5th 2011.

Thanks to the excellent teamwork between parents and staff, the children come to school happy,  motivated and eager to learn.  They have developed enormously in confidence over the term and have adapted fantastically well to their new school environment.

Here is a summary of some of the areas we have learnt about: multiples,  data handling,  measures,  surveys,  nature patterns,  abstract art (Kandinsky),  materials,  magnets,  animal reports,  phonics,  World War 2 evacuees,  air raid shelters,  gas masks,  rationing,  pictograms,  recorders,  gymnastics,  social and communication skills,  motor skills and developing our understanding of our own emotions by learning about who we are.

The children€™s favourite topics were: learning how to do forward rolls and star jumps,  playing twister, uno and social skills games,  learning about the modern artists from the Tate Modern,  developing reading skills through our phonics programme,  making Chinese lanterns and eating fortune cookies for Chinese New Year,  using the new netbooks to research, learning how to play tunes on the recorders and using the Wordshark,  Numbershark and TTRS programmes on the laptops.

On Thursday 10th February we invited parents into school to see the children€™s progress,  work displays,  individual portfolios and to see an Interactive Whiteboard presentation created by the pupils using Clicker 5.   Parent feedback was overwhelmingly positive.  We will be actively taking on every element of parent feedback and are currently investigating how to extend our music and singing curriculum.

The classrooms and open areas of the school are now filling up with fabulous examples of children€™s work and the pupils are rightly proud to talk about their achievements.

Work continues in the building and grounds to complete the new fence,  update the play houses, redecorate the library and reorganise the offices.

The children have also begun a project in the school gardens to make their own vegetable patch, composting area and wormery!  We are also getting guinea pigs in order to help the children to develop their sense of care and responsibility for others.

Thanks so much to everyone who has made our first term a success €“ especially our pupils!  We are confident that we will grow from strength to strength in the coming weeks and months.

Kind Regards,

Emma Sillitoe

Headteacher