Garden Village
Primary Academy
Newsletter

Issue No. 5

11th October 2024

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Headteacher's Message

Can you believe that the children have now completed their sixth week of school at GVPA? As the saying goes, “time flies when you’re having fun”.

Our attendance to date is 98.43%! Once again, this is fantastic and above our 96% target.

The character education themes that we have been working on for the past two weeks are ‘helpful’ and ‘kindness’. Across the curriculum, the children have been learning and supporting each other to develop these important skills and again, they have amazed the staff and visitors to the school with how incredible they really are. From the wider Garden Village Community, some wonderful acts of kindness have also been given, supporting the children and staff to resource our new school. Parents, thank you for your ongoing support.

Drawing Club

Last week, in Drawing Club the children went old-school in their learning. Miss Matthews and Mrs Guild took a trip down memory lane sharing the cartoon clip of the ‘Magic’ Roundabout’ to inspire the children. We drew Zebedee, Mr Rusty's house and we invented the characters a new bubble machine.

Here is some learning from Drawing Club...

This week, linked to our theme of ‘Kindness’, the children listened to The Colour Monster story. The Colour Monster is certainly a favourite story in Reception Maple, one which the children have requested to read more than once. It is a great story to teach children about their emotions.

Furthermore, in one of Mrs Burke’s assemblies, we continued to learn about being ‘kind’ and we enjoyed watching and talking about the short clip ‘Colour Your World With Kindness’: Color Your World With Kindness (youtube.com)

We are also enjoying role-playing schools in the provision. This is a photograph of one of our staff meetings. We like to take it in turns to be the teacher and lead on Drawing Club!

Little Wandle - Phonics and Reading

Thank you for the great attendance at the first Phonic and Early Reading workshop and to all the parents who have spoken to us about how best to support your child at home with phonics and reading. Miss Matthews is delighted with the progress the children are making learning the weekly sounds. Every day we have more children who are starting to blend the sounds learnt to read words. Here are just a few of our super blenders!

We also enjoyed listening to stories which we played on the CD player. Room on the Broom is our favourite!

Maths

In mathematics, we have enjoyed learning about measure and patterns, learning the correct vocabulary to measure the weight of objects and describe patterns including the words: smaller, bigger, taller, longer, shorter, heavier, lighter, balance, holds the most, holds the least and pattern. We even used this knowledge to make our own playdoh. Here are some photographs to show you how good we were at doing this:

Please remember, the first Maths parent workshop is on Wednesday 16th October 2024, 6pm-7pm.

Music

The focus for our music topic this term is ‘exploring sound’. We have explored the sounds that our voice and body can make, but we particularly enjoyed exploring the sounds our new percussion instruments can make. It is fair to say, it was rather noisy at first! In the outdoor area, some children have independently extended this, turned the metal bowls from the mud kitchen upside down and started their very own percussion band. We love being creative!

Lenny the African Snail

Lenny the African snail has moved into our Nursery classroom. Last Friday, Miss Burford brought him through to meet the Reception children and we instantly adored him! Miss Matthews is yet to be convinced!

Rocky the Snake

A kind man from Garden Village Amington Residents group contacted Mrs Burke to ask if GVPA could become a forever home with the community snake ... Mrs Burle said yes! Rocky is long and colourful; it is a wonderful example of collaboration and community spirit. The Nursery and Reception children enjoyed settling him into his new home, and we can’t wait to paint our own pebbles to make his body even longer.

Redrow Midlands Donations

In the theme of kindness this week, Redrow housebuilders, have been incredibly generous in donating £250 to GVPA to purchase more reading books for our beautiful library. They also donated an external 'book swap box' for our children to read and swap books for free, enhancing our love of reading. In addition, Redrow also donated a hedgehog home so we can help hedgehogs to hibernate during winter. We have homed this in our Forest School.

Thank you, Mikey’s dad, for the tree stump donations – these are great to sit on!

Mental Health Awareness Day

On Thursday 10^th October, we participated in World Mental Health Day. During the day, we celebrated what makes us happy and focussed on making each other happy.

In the morning assembly with Mrs Burke, every child shared at least one thing that makes them happy. Their responses included:

"A hug", "broccoli", "my two dogs", "the sunshine", "singing songs", "diggers", "my friends", were just some of the wonderful ideas shared by the children.

Maple Tree Planting in our Forest School

Mrs Blundell, the GVPA Chair of Governors, kindly gifted our Reception class with a maple tree sapling. Reception Maple had a great time today in their wellington boots, digging and planting the tree sapling named after their class.

Dates for your Diary

14.10.24 School Website Photographer in school

14^th-18^th October National Re-cycle Week (bring in recycled material on 15.10.24)

16.10.24 Early Maths Parent Workshop (separate Form to be sent to book a place)

21.10.24 Family Lunch – eat with your child (12:00pm-12:30pm)

21^st/23^rd October Parents Evening (4:00pm-6:00pm)

24.10.24 Spooky Lunch (children only)

Garden Village Primary Academy News

07 Oct 2024

Reception 2025-26 Open Days and Evenings

Garden Village Primary Academy would like to invite the parents and carers of children who are looking for a Reception class place for September 2025.