Information for Parents

13th June 2010

Dear Parents /Carers,

We have a packed last few weeks of term and there are several news items to celebrate, events to highlight and appeals to those of you with some time and talent……read on!

Bushfield School on the leading edge of learning!

Internationally leading Professor of Learning Sciences, Guy Claxton, visited Bushfield this week to see for himself how the school has been teaching pupils to “learn how to learn”. This gives them a new language to talk about being skilful learners in all aspects of life, not just in school. Children talk naturally about building “learning muscles” like managing distractions, collaborating, and questioning — just what they'll need to thrive in a fast-changing world.

Prof. Claxton's visit followed a colleague's review of the school who reported that she'd never seen such rapid, effective adoption of the approach. After observing lessons and meeting with staff and pupils, Prof. Claxton commented,

“I saw 7 and 10 year olds collaborating and talking about their learning in ways that would have defeated many Cambridge undergraduates. I was thrilled to see what Andr and her team have been able to achieve, when you coach children in the right way – and trust them to take more responsibility for their learning. Fantastic!"

‘Parents Forum' – an invitation

We are always looking for feedback on different aspects of our provision as individual parents and carers you we get a lot of feedback informally from you – thank you. However, we have been thinking about ways in which we could get some broader feedback. We have decided to trial a ‘Parent Forum'. Despite the title (and we may yet rename it together), the format will be very informal involving a half-termly coffee and chat with me where we can talk about aspects of education / learning / provision impersonally and I may throw some questions in for discussion too.

So – to get us started I am inviting you to a coffee morning (tea if you'd prefer) in the Pottery Room on Wednesday 30 June at 9.30-10.20 am. It would be great if you can spare some time to drop in and I promise it won't be too taxing!!

Please fill in the reply slip attached if you can attend.

Keeping safe in the sun

We try to get children outside as much as possible. Please ensure that children have hats / water bottles and come to school with sun cream already applied on hot days. Children may bring additional sun cream if necessary but will be expected to apply it themselves.

Uniform

A reminder that pupils should be wearing black, dark brown or navy shoes, not trainers . The uniform standard has been very good this year, please help us to maintain this throughout the summer term. Thank you for your ongoing support. New uniform orders for September can be made at the office.

Water bottles

In Bushfield's bid to try to save the planet, a reminder that we sell Eco water bottle made from fully recycled plastic and very durable are available from the school office at a cost of £1.50.

Parent Mail reminder

Please remember to keep us updated with phone numbers and contact details including second contact points. We are increasingly using Parentmail especially around school visits as it is a very efficient way of notifying you if the trip has been significantly delayed.

‘Being the Best we can Be'

Bushfield Musicians

Our talented musicians are in the spotlight this term. Our choir, orchestra and drummers are practicing hard for their special evening sharing music with other schools at Milton Keynes Theatre on 23rd June. Additionally, we have our own music evening planned for 1st July for all those learning music to show their skills.

Sports Round Up

• An impressive performance by our Athletics Squad in the qualifying round at Stantonbury on Friday but just as importantly I have received very complimentary reports about the sporting attitudes and conduct ‘that stood out' from our Bushfield pupils. Well done and thank you!
• Tag Rugby - Our year 5/6 tag rugby team have had a very impressive term as they won the Milton Keynes championships and have qualified for the Bucks Youth Games
• The Rounders team trained very hard and won the Radcliffe cluster tournament and coming 6 th in the Milton Keynes finals.

Bournemouth (Year 6) and Treejumpers (Year 4) residential visits

Children have returned tired but full of excitement about their residential experiences. Once again I am a very proud Headteacher having received very positive feedback from people outside of our community about the fantastic conduct and behavior of our pupils.

We hope that Year 5 have an equally fantastic time at Pioneer Centre this week.

Y6 Enterprise Week

Some of our Year 6 pupils have stretched their learning muscles of planning and collaboration to work as a team to research and make biscuits and plan a marketing and selling campaign. Teams each had a sum of money to spend and had to buy ingredients from Tescos and were also charged for consultancy and other resources. Overall, the teams raised about £75.00 in profit that will contribute to their end of year celebration day out.

Our special thanks goes to...

A mixed team of wonderful volunteers within our local community who have contributed so much towards the development of Bushfield Secret Garden. In particular Tracy Whitmore (our Community Mobiliser), Pat Bell and Fiona Felce who support Gardening Club; Brian Bailey, who has given up hours of time to build our Chicken Hut and develop the garden and grounds and Dave who has given us the value of his expertise as well as 6 chickens and Kate Bulman, Hayley Seal and Marie Osborne who look after them out of hours.

Do you know anyone who…

• Would be interested in being part of the back up team helping with the chickens over the summer?
• Enjoys cooking, sewing or Gardening and would like to run a club after school?
• Would be prepared to offer music lessons after school or at lunchtime (that can be charged) to pupils at Bushfield?

To discuss any of the above or find out more, please contact me at school.

I am looking forward to seeing many of you in the school during the various events and open evening over the last few weeks of term.

With best wishes,

Headteacher