SSELP Sheffield South East Learning Partnership Newsletter Spring 2016SSELP Sheffield South East Learning Partnership Newsletter Spring 2016

...THE NEWSfrom GleadlessThere has been some great news since the start of the school year. The plans have been passed for the new school building and we are hopeful that work willstart soon.

Children have been involved in the Cue Zone snooker club in school. The children have loved the snooker sessions that have been held every lunch time and lots of children are attending the after school snooker club. Staff have become expert at coaching the children after attending the functional snooker course with Steve Davies.

This year, we are making a huge change to how we use our outdoor space. We are in the process of getting a Scrapstore Playpod to encourage our children to use their imagination and develop their play during lunch times. As part of this, we have been looking at a variety of funding methods. Before Christmas, our Year 1 and 2 pupils won £2000 singing a Frozen song for Hallam FM. We have also begun a year long training program to use the outdoor spaces to support our teaching of maths, English and SPaG. We have already begun taking Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation outdoors as much as possible and will be concentrating on how we can take maths beyond the classroom. Our gardening club are developing our school garden and a group of children have redesigned an area of the school grounds that is currently overgrown. Watch this space for more excitement as the year progresses.

The Life Skills programmes at Red Robin House at Arbourthorne continue to go from strength to strength, with the Spring term full of activities for both our pupils and parents.Y3’s are currently looking at Road Safety, preparing a hot snack and giving the house a good ‘bottoming’ to achieve their household responsibilities badge, whilst our Foundation pupils are exploring the different ways of introducing language through books and singing.

A large group of parents meet every week for “Knit and Natter” and these sessions also include time in our internet cafe and crafty corner. This half term we are inviting the children/grandchildren of our volunteers to take part in a family sewing/craft project. They plan to make personalised cushion covers which will feature templates of handprints from all family members.Our Red Robin House staff have also just completed a paediatric first aid course to enable them to start a 0 to walkers mother and baby group in the next half term, which will also coincide with the opening of our fantastic new multi-sensory room, giving pupils a relaxing and calming place to go, as well as improving their creativity and concentration skills.

We have launched ‘Extreme Reading’ in school and this holiday lots of children managed to read in some interesting places.

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Some of our older pupils were involved in a ‘Maths Roadshow’ event held in school. Simon Wilks, a secondary maths teacher from Tapton Academy visited the school to challenge the year 6 children with their maths skills. He ran a fun maths session and the children really enjoyed solving the different maths problems

What’s happening at St Theresa’s

Life Skillsat Red Robin House

At Norfolk Park we have been busy settling in to our new building. All of the therapy rooms are now up and running so our children are now

accessing Rebound Therapy and Hydrotherapy

During the Autumn term we celebrated Eid, Harvest and Christmas which provided us with plenty of opportunities to get together as a whole school and enjoy a variety of sensory activities and dress up. The

Children enjoyed a jazz music production from Live Music

Now and are looking forward to another live music event in February.

Our sporting events for the year took off with the Rugby World Cup, we explored foods and music from some of the countries involved. Sheffield Wednesday FC and LINKs are coming into school each week to enhance

PE for some children, our KS2 children are in training for a Boccia Tournament next half term and will be joining MoveFest

for the second year running! Woodpecker Class went to the SnoZone in Castleford to experience winter

Our children have been getting out and about in the community; visiting the local park, Sheffield Centre and Crystal Peaks, Some of the children went to watch a live production of Raymond Brigg’s “The Snowman” as part of our Christmas celebrations and some of our Foundation Stage children will be going to see “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” at the end of January. Our Y6 Children will be attending the Crucial Crew event in March to enhance their independence skills in the community.

SSELP Sheffield South East Learning Partnership Newsletter Spring 2016 SSELP Sheffield South East Learning Partnership Newsletter Spring 2016 54

Using Drama to improve writing

Norfolk CommunityPrimary School

News from Phillimore!

Pipworth Community Primary School

This academic year we are building on the school’s great track record with drama. We are delighted with the prominence given to drama and performance in the new national curriculum and have embarked on a collaboration with Simon Wells from Open Minds Theatre Company to really embed

our use of drama techniques to enhance the whole curriculum.

All staff have had two full days of training in drama techniques and Simon is now working intensively with the Y4s to develop techniques such as Mantle of the Expert in the classroom.

During a unit of work called “Imaginary Worlds” the children used physical theatre techniques to help them imagine the journey into a different world and the sights, sounds and feelings they would encounter there.

The use of educational visits in combination with drama has produced some great writing. A recent visit to the General Cemetery really stimulated language and imagination as the children discovered strange objects with Simon’s help. The impact on writing is clear-

“You are standing at the entrance. Straight in front of you is a large dog with blood dripping from the end of its nose. Terrified, you step forward.”

“Nervously, he walked into the ancient chapel.”

“Behind him, the old, rotten gate creaks and slams shut, locking him in. He sees the cracked gravestones. He hears cracking sticks and crunching leaves.”

Don’t have nightmares!

We’d like to share Phillimore Primary’s recent success in achieving a national award in school swimming. On 14th November, the school was awarded ‘silver’ as Primary School of the Year 2015 by the ASA (national governing body for swimming). This prestigious award recognises achievement, innovative high quality swimming lessons, contribution to whole school improvement and the impact the school has on the lives of children in Darnall. The award will sit with other regional and national awards the school has received in the last few years (participation in the London2012 Olympic opening ceremony; selected to perform at the UK Student Games opening ceremony 2013; won the national Paralympic Day competition 2014; awarded gold at the S Yorks Gymnastics final 2015.

At Pipworth community Primary School we are very excited to be celebrating Careers Week. We are welcoming many interesting visitors, including ex-pupils with interesting jobs, an MP, a professional female football player, a business entrepreneur and a pilot. Children are learning about the careers our visitors have, as well as asking questions and discussing their own aspirations. We think this will help our children to think about their future hopes and dreams and ‘reach for the stars’.

Just before Christmas, all the children at Pipworth Community Primary School were very fortunate to have their very own live musical performance in the hall. A travelling orchestra performed some wonderful music, which the children enjoyed listening to and then they also played some Christmas carols and songs that the children loved joining in with, singing and celebrating the festivities. We now have a number of aspiring musicians!

Norfolkpark school

Making bread for theHarvest Festival