Newsletters

March  2023

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March 2023

MESSAGE FROM MRS ROBINSON

It has been wonderful to welcome the pupils back to school after the Half Term holiday and to see them settle down to their learning once more. We have had such a busy couple of weeks already, with Ofsted paying a visit almost straight away (more about that below), Milestone 2 assessments taking place, and of course our very exciting Book Week this week.

OFSTED

I was extremely proud of all the Bosmere children when the Ofsted Inspector visited the school – they spoke so well to him about everything we do at school, showing him just how engaged they are with their learning. As you will know from the letter that went out to parents at the start, we are not able to share the outcome until the report has been published. This will be in the form of a letter addressed to Bosmere parents from Ofsted. I am hoping this will be sent out before the Easter Holidays, but, as I am sure you can imagine, sometimes the checking process these things have to go through takes some time.

STAFFING NEWS

Mrs Baker, our Spanish teacher, and Mrs Taw, our additional teacher in Year 5 are both still poorly at the moment and will not be in for the rest of this term. I will let you know once we know any more about when they will be returning to school. Mrs Clarke continues to cover our Spanish teaching and Mrs Wicks continues to teach as part of the Year 5 team.

PARENT CONSULTATION MEETINGS

We are really looking forward to meeting with parents for our parent consultation meetings this half term. An email was sent out about these earlier this week and parents can now book an appointment through ParentMail. These meetings are extremely important for ensuring we can work together in partnership to ensure your child is happy and successful in school so please make sure you book an appointment. Your child will be bringing home their Milestone 2 assessment report on Wednesday next week, which will form the basis of the discussion at the meeting.

MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT WORKERS

Some of you met our new Mental Health Support Workers, who were visiting the school during our pre-loved uniform event. They were able to chat to parents about the support they can provide and signpost other resources which are available. They will also be in school between 4pm and 4:45pm on Monday 20th March as part of Parents' Evening.

RED NOSE DAY – FRIDAY 17TH MARCH

We are offering children the opportunity to come in non-school uniform (or fancy dress if they would like to!) on Red Nose Day, for a £1 contribution to Comic Relief.

YEAR 3

We have been continuing our focus on reading skills in Year 3 over the past few weeks, looking at a range of texts, story books and visual online texts. The children are really beginning to demonstrate increasing confidence and have approached some challenging questioning with positivity and determination!

Phonics continues to be taught regularly and we have enjoyed working together on our phase 5 alternatives... they certainly make our brains ache at times!  A reading highlight for the children has been our paired reading sessions with Year 5. The children have loved sharing their books with each other and we have thoroughly enjoyed seeing the 'buzz' that comes from doing this.

Our History unit on Ancient Egypt continues to be popular, most recently learning about the Gods.  We have also been making links with geography through our studies of the River Nile.  We have discovered some fascinating facts this week and hope your child has shared some of these with you.  We are looking forward to pulling all our knowledge together to create Egyptian fact files in English. 

Continuing the Egyptian theme, please enjoy some examples of our recent Egyptian artwork. We had lots of fun creating these and think you'll agree that Year 3 have transformed themselves into fantastic Pharaohs! 

YEAR 4 

Our focus (and great excitement) this term has been our Project Based Learning. The children have all been so enthusiastic about these afternoons where they can work in small groups to find out more about a certain aspect of Ancient Greek life (which is all about WONDER from our GROW IT values). The children have all showed wonderful TEAMWORK as they begin to plan and carry out tasks linked to their individual projects. 

In last month’s newsletter we mentioned that the children were taking part in a science based DT project. All three classes have now made their fantastic torches and we were blown away by their ambitious designs! 

We have been really looking forward to Book Week and the children were excited to get started on their class collages! As a school, we have been looking at ‘The Lost Words’ which is a beautiful book all about words which are slowly disappearing from our everyday speech. We have also loved seeing your toilet roll characters coming in!

Thank you again for all your support. We have been really impressed by how children are trying to master their times tables and how they have been working hard to earn points for their class in TT rock stars competitions. Please do keep at this! We cannot emphasise enough how important it is for the children to become confident so that they can apply times tables across the maths curriculum. 

YEAR 5

We have had a fantastic start to this half term. Year 5 have enjoyed their visits to the D-Day museum to find out more about life on the home front during WW2. The children have also enjoyed participating in some drama about evacuation. We are hoping this makes their evacuee letters in English really come alive. We are looking forward to seeing you next week for our Drop, Stop and Read workshop.

YEAR 6

As usual Year 6 have been really busy.  We had our Residential and SATs parents meeting when we talked about what the Year 6 timetable will look like for our SATs week. We then talked about all the fun things we are hoping to do when we visit PGL on the Isle of Wight.  The parents were surprised at how much we pack in and what we hope the children will achieve.  We also talked about how much to pack - not everything in your wardrobe!  On Tuesday 7th March the whole of the year group visited Chichester College where the children took part in numerous science, technology, engineering and mathematical projects.  Some were to do with virtual reality and they even got to solder their own mini robot.  All in all we all had a fantastic time and look forward to another busy month.

ECO NEWS

Action Plan Review 

As we are now halfway through the school year, Eco Club reviewed our Action Plan and found we are making good progress on several targets, have completed some, and have future plans to tackle the others. 

Progressing well: Monitoring Energy, monitoring Water use, working with the Junior Road Safety Officers, reducing use of toilet paper (and hence toilet water flushing), raising awareness of single-use plastics in lunch boxes. 

Completed: RSPB Bird Watch, planting bulbs. 

Planned: Beach clean on 13th March.

Battery Recycling 

We heard from the Big Battery Hunt that our battery collection bin would not be emptied, so instead of collecting batteries at school, we now have to use individual battery collection boxes at home and take the batteries to a supermarket to be recycled. Every Eco Club member made a Big Battery Hunt box to take home. 

Eco Fortune Tellers 

Everyone made an Eco-themed fortune-teller by folding a ready-prepared template, then tried them out on each other. 

Biodiversity 

Eco Club visited the meadow to see the new identification board in position. We visited the Jubilee Orchard to see if the bulbs we planted are growing; the daffodils around the fruit trees are doing well but the crocuses planted in the shape of a big ‘E’ may not have survived an early mowing!  

When the Ofsted Inspector visited in February, he noted that Bosmere has a clear Eco focus and he celebrated the activities of Eco Club.  

Well done, Eco Club! 

E-SAFETY TIP

Please use the following link to go to our latest e-Safety tip on having open and honest conversations with your children about what they get up to when they're online. https://www.bosmere.hants.sch.uk/news/?pid=12&nid=2&storyid=247

WELLBEING TIP

Parenting really isn’t easy. Although it’s often amazing and rewarding to watch your children grow up, it can also be really hard work!  

Make sure your children know you love them and are proud of them. 

Even when things are busy or stressful, a hug, smile or wink can reassure them a huge amount.  

Be honest about your feelings - you don’t have to be perfect. 

We all get things wrong and shout or say unkind things from time to time. If this happens, say sorry to your child afterwards and explain why it happened.

They will learn from you that it’s okay to make mistakes and that it doesn’t make you a bad person. 

Be clear about what is and isn’t acceptable. 

Children need to know what is okay and what isn’t, and what will happen if they cross the line. Follow through on what you say as otherwise they may get confused. 

Most importantly… Own your role!  You are the parent, so don’t be afraid to make tough decisions and stick with them. 

If your child sees you are scared of their reaction and always give in to them, it can make them feel very powerful. Stand your ground. You are the adult and what you say goes. Rules and boundaries make children feel very safe. 

Remember, Mrs Lever is on hand to chat things through and sign post you to courses and other professionals that can help. 

MEET THE STAFF : Mrs Lever

What is your role?

I am the Home school Link worker/ ELSA and deputy safeguarding lead at Bosmere

Where do you find me?

During the day, I have many different places I need to be. You will usually find me at the main gate before school waiting to chat to people or to help children who are a bit sad about coming into school.

I am out in the playground at lunchtimes putting out all the fun games and activities. You can sometimes find me by the stereo having a dance to the music!

During the day, I am all over the school helping children that need me, but sometimes I am in my office at the top of the windy stairs.

When did you join Bosmere?

Mrs Robinson and I started Bosmere on exactly the same day! I’ve been lucky enough to be part of Bosmere since 2015! And I have no intention of going anywhere else!

What do you like to do in your spare time?

I love spending time in my garden and greenhouse and especially love visiting friends for days out! My children who are 24 and 20 also like to keep me busy. I am known as Squirrel when I help at my daughter’s Brownie Pack where she is Tawny Owl.

I also look after my 2 tortoises Mabel & Bertie and my budgie Sunny.

Quirky fact:

I love Irregular Choice shoes! I used to be a drum major and a majorette so can twirl a mace and a baton and toured Denmark with My Troop.

I have a qualification in basic engineering as I used to want to be a helicopter engineer!

Meet the Governor

Helen Faulkner 

Background 

I was brought up and went to school near Preston in the North West of England. I did a degree in Maths and after starting work in computer software, I moved to Havant to work as a Project Manager in 1992. I have 2 grown up daughters who both went to Bosmere. 

 

 

Interests 

I like travelling, seeing new places and going for walks, something I would like to do a lot more of when I retire. To keep fit I do a couple of exercise classes a week. I am also addicted to doing number puzzles, particularly Sudoku (probably comes from being a mathematician!) 

Why I became a governor and what is expected of me 

I became a governor when my eldest daughter was in Year 4 as I wanted to understand better how Bosmere is run and be involved in its future to ensure that Bosmere children get a great education. I also wanted to be more involved in the local community and meet new people, particularly as this is not where I grew up. As a governor I need to make sure that I know the school’s strengths and contribute to how it can develop further. I love coming in to see what the children have been doing and also helping with trips, though as I still work full time I can’t do this as often as I would like.  

My current roles on the governing body and what they involve 

In addition to the overall responsibilities of being part of the governing body, I run the Curriculum and Achievement Committee which supports the Headteacher and staff in developing the curriculum and reviews what the pupils achieve. I am linked to Year 4 so when I have time to help with events and trips I focus on what Year 4 are doing. I am the governor with responsibility for monitoring and supporting the teaching of English so recently I have been learning all about phonics. I also work with our SENCo to review how Bosmere supports children who have SEND needs. 

Throughout my years on the governing body I have learnt so much about the challenges in education, how Bosmere tackles these and how good Bosmere School really is. 

CLUBS

Clubs will continue running up until the end of term. Please note that there will be no colouring club or orchestra on Monday 20th March due to the Parent Consultation Evening. Watch out for a letter in the last week of term about what summer term clubs will be on offer.

INDUSTRIAL ACTION

The next 2 days of planned Industrial Action are due to take place on 15th and 16th March.

As with the previous days, we will not be in a position to provide parents with certainty regarding the situation until nearer the day, as teachers are under no obligation to provide information on whether or not they will be striking until the morning of the strike itself.

Please be assured that we will provide an update as soon as we judge that we can, although teachers in the NEU are still able to change their minds right up to the day of the strike. Please do be aware that, although unlikely, it is possible the situation will change even then.

Please be assured that the safeguarding of your child remains paramount to us at all times. Thank you for your understanding and support.

LIBRARY

Book Mark Competition

Bosmere children love personalising book marks, often by drawing and colouring pictures on cards, so we decided to run a ‘Design a Book Mark Competition’ with the following instructions:

Create a design for a book mark which can be printed so people can colour it in. Use clear black lines using a felt pen or biro. You can make pictures or doodles. You can do letters using bubble writing.

Out of the 61 entries, 10 fantastic designs were chosen which all met the criteria. Several photocopies have been made of each one, so all the children can now colour them in for themselves.

Toilet Roll Book Character Competition

One of our Book Week competitions was to decorate a toilet roll as a book character and we had some superb entries. Click here for more photos.

We will publish more photos of our various Book Week competitions and events in next month’s Bosmere News.

DIARY DATES

MARCH  
13th

Eco Club: Beach clean

Football Tournament 7:15 am

14th Y5 Drop, Stop and Read 9am
15th Interim reports sent home
17th

HEARTS and GROW IT Day

Red Nose Day - non school uniform 

20th

Parents’ Evening 3.45-7pm 

Mental Health Team chat 4pm - 4.45pm

Orchestra and Colouring Club cancelled

20th - 24th Parent Consultation Days
23rd Netball Club cancelled
30th

Spring Concert (time TBC)

Disco L/S 4.45pm - 6.15pm

Disco U/S 6.45pm - 8.15pm

31st

Spring Term clubs finish

Last Day of Term – non-school uniform

Y4 Parents invited to PBL about Ancient Greeks 2.30pm (m/d room)

APRIL  
3rd - 14th Easter holidays
17th

Summer Term begins

17th - 21st Yr 6 Residential to IOW

27th

Y3 Fairy Tale day

MAY

 
1st May Day - Bank Holiday
2nd

Summer clubs start (10 weeks)

Y3 Drop Stop and Calculate (Time TBC)

3rd Y4 Drop Stop and Calculate (Time TBC)
4th 4S Class assembly 9am
5th

9 am Coffee Morning and Chat

Coronation Celebration Event Whole School TBC

8th Coronation Bank Holiday
9th - 12th SATs Week
11th Choir singing at St Faith’s with Solent Male Voice Choir (Time TBC)
15th 4R trip to Tuppenny Barn
16th

4DW trip to Tuppenny Barn

Summer Pre-Loved Uniform Event 3pm

17th Class photos
18th 5S Class Assembly 9am
19th HEARTS and GROW IT Day
22nd 4S trip to Tuppenny Barn
24th Superstars TBC
25th 5B Class Assembly 9am
26th

Y6 Water Fight

Last Day of Term

29th - 2nd June Half Term
JUNE  
5th Return to school
9th HEARTS and GROW IT Day
15th

6B Assembly 9am

Y4 Trip to Dell Quay Class tbc

16th Y4 Trip to Dell Quay Class tbc
22nd Y4 Trip to Dell Quay Class tbc
23rd INSET day