Sure Start/0-19 Early Help & Prevention Facebook Page

From Monday 4^th January Sure Start East, West & Central are merging to one Citywide Facebook page.

“ Sure Start Family Hub Southampton”

 

There will be activities for families to do at home including: singing, stories, healthy cooking and ZOOM sessions as well as signposting to other services such as health, wellbeing, training and employment, plus much more.

https://www.facebook.com/Surestartfamilyhubsouthampton

Virtual Group for Lone Parents

Parent and pupil e-safety workshop - you said, we did!

Bitterne Manor Primary hosted another very successful e-safety workshop; this time for parents and pupils to attend together, following your suggestions from the last session.

We ran through scenarios that children may face when going online or using mobile devices; including unwanted or unkind online messages; what to do when someone shares a photo without your permission and how to avoid ads and pop-ups within apps.

Parents and children acted out what would happen in different situations, then we shared suggestions and advice on how to handle that situation. It is hoped that once these subjects and situations have been talked about in a role play environment, it will be easier to discuss if the situation were to become real.

Here are some of the comments from the workshop:

What did you find useful?
"Children listening to the advice so it could back up what we’ve learned before"
"All of it! Really useful to have children with us in discussions"
"Everything; hand outs were great."
"The bit about WhatsApp (age limit) and children using certain apps for bullying"
"Starting conversations about online safety, “Go home” concept (Internet like a city), recommended apps"

What you said you wanted next time:
"More scenarios to go through with children"
"How to help children use the internet critically; like how to verify sources of information on the internet, how to spot fake news, virus alerts, etc."

There will be a date for the next workshop coming soon, watch this space. In the mean time, please do not hesitate to ask any questions; ask for Phil Wickins, the E-Safety Coordinator.

Helpful websites:

Think U Know - A website for parents, carers, teachers and children all about online safety, run by the National Crime Agency. Some great educational games and clips for kids!

Parent Consultations: 27th and 28th February

This week we are holding our parent consultations on Tuesday 27th February (3.30 till 5.30) and Wednesday 28th February (5.00 till 7.00). We would very much like every parent to take the opportunity to see how their children are progressing. If you are unable to make an appointment, please let staff know so we can provide and opportunity outside of these hours - this is not a problem!

We have shared information with you already about your child's progress and attainment. This is a chance for you to have this explained to you in more detail. To understand how our assessment system works please take a look at this page of our website: www.bitternemanor.co.uk/assessment/

We have also shared information with you about your child's learning behaviours and we would strongly encourage you to discuss these with the class teacher.

Lastly, don't forget to fill in our 'Proud Parent' forms when  you see your child's amazing work!

Keeping our young people safe online - You said, We did!

Important: Change of date, now on Wednesday 7th March 2018

We held a very successful e-safety parent’s workshop on Wednesday morning and evening, where we explored child protection laws, helpful websites and ways to keep an open dialogue with your child about their online activity. The feedback you gave us was overwhelmingly positive; almost all of you who attended requested more sessions like this - with the majority wanting a session you could attend with your children.

In the light of this, we have decided to run at least one session each term where we can join together to discuss new situations and issues, learn how to use parental restrictions on devices and software and have meaningful discussions with our children. Therefore, the next workshop will be a join parent-child session (suggested by you!), where we will be encouraging discussion and learning through fun activities and websites, exploring together scenarios and situations that you and your child may find yourselves in.

There will be a KS1 (YR - Y2) session from 3:30pm until 4pm, followed by a KS2 (Y3 - Y6) session form 4 - 4:30pm on Wedensday 7th March 2018. There will be a letter coming out to you with a reply slip so we can get an idea about numbers. This session is for you and your child/children to attend together.

Need a reminder? Add this to your google calendar:
E-Safety Parent and Child Workshop, 3.30pm, Wednesday 7th March 2018

Here are some of your comments from Wednesday’s workshop:

What did you find useful?
“All of the session – particularly being informed about the resources we can use to find out more & educate ourselves & the children. Opportunity to ask questions was great.”
“All of it! Very useful to learn about a ‘safe’ search engine for kids and the illustration of the safe and unhelpful places in a city was also helpful.”
Other comments:
“Really useful – Main danger is peer pressure of not being able to contact friends if you don’t have app, so the wider we can spread the word, the better”
“Great that this is being offered to parents and definitely an area of concern that I don’t currently feel equipped for.”

Helpful websites we explored in the workshop:

Think U Know - A website for parents, carers, teachers and children all about online safety, run by the National Crime Agency. Some great educational games and clips for kids!

Kidrex.org - A customised Google search engine that returns child-freindly results and eliminates the image search.

Please make sure you save the date!

Parent/ Carer internet safety (E-Safety) workshop

Parent/ Carer internet safety (E-Safety) workshop

Bitterne Manor will be holding a parent/ carer workshop on: Wednesday 11th October at 9.00 - 10.00am or 5.30 - 6.30pm in the school hall. This will include a short presentation on online risks and how to avoid them, the impact of our actions online (including social media), helpful tips and advice on how to maintain an open dialogue with young people regarding staying safe online and an opportunity to ask questions. This workshop will show you some ways to get involved and help to promote the safe, responsible and positive use of digital technology for children and young people.

Please be aware, this workshop will include content that is not appropriate for children of primary school age; please make arrangements so that you can attend the workshop without your children.

A letter has gone out to parents via email, and a paper copy via your child where a contact email is unavailable. Please respond should you wish to attend, following the request details on the return slip.

A copy of the letter, including the reply slip, can be found in our 'Parent - Letters' section.

Need a reminder?
Click here to add the event to your Google calendar:
9:00am session
5:30pm session

Class Welcomes - this week!

We would like to invite parents to attend our ‘Class Welcomes’ after school on the  20th and 21st September at 5.00pm. These are great opportunities to meet your child’s new class teacher for the first time and to learn a little more about what the year ahead will look like for your child. You will hear about the daily routines, expectations around homework and what topic areas the children will be studying. The session should take around 30 minutes. We would encourage attendance for all parents but for those pupils in the key national curriculum assessment years, 2 and 6 (Swallows, Swifts and Kestrels), please note that we will be looking at what’s involved with the statutory assessment procedures or SATs as well.

All information will shortly be on school website here: www.bitternemanor.co.uk/class-pages/

Don’t forget you will get a chance to have an individual consultation later in the term with class teachers. These dates are on our calendar already and appointment letters will be sent out shortly before.

20th Sept Class Welcome Evening: 5.00pm Swallows, Rooks, Owls, Robins

21st Sept Class Welcome Evening: 5.00pm Kestrels, Swifts, Nightingales

Kingfishers don’t require a session just yet! We look forward to seeing you then.

Super Swifts Parents!

A HUGE shoutout to my Swiftie Parents...you have been amazing this year! Thank you for all your super support throughout the year, we couldn't have done it without you! Watching each Swift grow as individuals and strive to be the best they can be has been amazing to see! Mrs Stubley and I are so PROUD! Super Swifts indeed :)

Nightingales Music Concert

On Monday 8th February, we performed a recorder concert for our friends and family and year 1. Whilst the parents were walking in we sang, signed and played the aardvark song. After everyone was seated, Mrs Clowes showed our audeince noisy bird and silent snail.
After that we showed everyone our amazing progress. We've made lots! We started our show with the song 'glory b'. After that we played them BB blues which was amazing too. We also played strictly b.
Afterwards, we played another great song Thinking A which is very slow and sad. We played Abies Blues, the Mole song and Mr Cool. After that we played Jelly on a Plate which was complicated but brilliant! We finished with our favourite song EBGBs. We loved it!
My favourite part of the concert was the end when we played EBGBs becasue its my absolute favourite.
My mum and my nanny said "That was excellent you're amazing! " I think the parents were happy because we played so well together and didn't squeak once!

By Ellie N

Mrs Clowes was really proud of you all- she said you had a fantastic learning attitude and had made amazing progress. Well done Nightingales!
Miss B

'Quiz Night' on 11th February

We are very pleased to announce details of Quiz Night - an exciting upcoming event in support of J-ROCK at Bitterne Manor. Hopefully, lots of you will be able to put a team together and support the J-ROCK team. We look forward to seeing you there! Entry forms are available in the school office.

A great first half-term for Year R!

We have been very busy in Year R with each day filled with lots of activities! We recently enjoyed our trip to the bear factory where each class made a bear who will soon be visiting each home! We also enjoyed our picnic, thank you to all those who were able to make it and we hope you enjoyed your sandwiches!

We also enjoyed attending our first assembly to celebrate our Harvest Festival, thank you very much for the donations! This half-term we will be joining singing assembly each Thursday with Year 1 and 2.

We look forward to our next topic, Jack Frost, and learning all about Autumn and Winter!

Proud to be a Parent...

It's our parent consultation this evening and next and we would like to ask parents write some feedback to their children about their work. As parents, we're always very proud of our children's efforts in school and elsewhere and while we do tell them often enough, for a change, we'd like to ask you to write a short note and leave it with your child's books. Another chance to tell them how proud you are of them!

Our Super PTA!

Thank you to everyone who came to the PTA AGM last night and for all the work Sam Carey and the PTA have done in the past year. The new team were elected as Jennie Mugridge (Chair), Kirsty Niziolek (Vice Chair), Sarah Bradley (Secretary) and Jools Gowan (Treasurer). They are ready and raring to go with organising fundraising events to help raise money for the school. This year the aim is to raise enough money to fund new House Team flags, funky furniture for the school library and even an outdoor classroom. But they need your help to make it happen! 

There are various ways to get involved: join the committee and attend half-termly meetings, give your time to help out at fundraising events, help prepare behind the scenes for various events (e.g. wrapping presents, baking, making bunting), donate goods or services for raffle prizes, or use your contacts to access free or discounted supplies! We don't expect you to do everything, but if lots of people do a little bit, we can make a big difference. If you would like to get involved in any way - no matter how big or small, please email ptahelpers@bitternemanor.net. 

You can also help by shopping online via easyfundraising.org.uk where you can automatically start raising money for the school without having to do anything!

Look out for more news on the notice board, the newsletter, on the PTA web page, or find the Bitterne Manor PTA Helpers group on Facebook. The next meeting date is Tuesday 3rd November 2015, 3.30pm at school - we look forward to seeing you there!

Follow @BMPrimarySchool

Bitterne Manor Primary School is now on Twitter. We will be using it to share updates about the school and links to our blog. Feel free to follow us by using the button to the right of this post.

Sharing the Challenge

As you know, we are promoting our learning values this term and focussing on ‘challenge’. With our Learning Leaders, we have been thinking about ways of sharing these values with friends and family at home. We would therefore like to ask you to share a challenge with us. Something that you, or a member of your family or friend, might have experienced or achieved. This could be in the past, something that you are doing right now or are planning in the future. If you feel able to, we would very much like you to share these with us in school. Please describe your challenge on some paper (there is a letter going home today!) and give it to your child to return to school. We very much look forward to hearing about your challenges and sharing these with the children in school. Our Learning Leaders feel it is important that we are all good role models for them.

We would appreciate it if you could return the challenge to us by the end of February. Feel free to add any additional pictures. Please don’t share anything with us that you are not happy being discussed with the children.

Kind regards

The Learning Leaders

Maths Book Look and helpful hints!

Come along after school from 3.30- 4.30 today (Monday 2nd Feb) for Maths Book look and helpful hints. Make your way to the hall and music room and join in with the activities on offer. Have fun!

Evacuation cum VE Day celebrations

To round off our History topic 'We'll Meet Again', Year 4 were evacuated to different locations during the morning. Each group experienced a different reception at their host 'school', which we were able to share in the afternoon. All groups did some baking plus planned a menu for the day using rationed items 'bought' from a local shop using ration cards.

VE Day was celebrated in the afternoon. At the end of the afternoon, many parents and family came to our 'street party' to celebrate with us. Work was displayed, along with homework projects. The class also showed their WWII documentary films, made using 'movie maker' during our ICT lessons. The class dressed in role and looked superb. What a great way to finish our topic!

 

 

 

 

City Athletics - BMPS brave the rain!

Despite the very wet and cold weather, the Athletics Team pulled out all the stops and gave of their best at the sport centre, competing against other local schools in the City Athletics competition. There were a mix of nine 1st, 2nd and 3rd finishes - well done to everyone, including the group of parents who came to cheer us on!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Support for helping with reading....

Following our recent appeal for support with reading in our March newsletter, we thought we would share this comment from one of our amazing helpers....

'One of the best moments I had in school recently was watching a class assembly and witnessing certain children reading passages out loud with expression in front of their peers and parents, knowing that six months previously, this was something they were unable to do. They had made so much progress that reading was now something they enjoyed and found effortless. I smiled to myself, thinking that my weekly Friday morning visits listening to children of all abilities may have made a difference. It takes 90 minutes out of my busy working week but I really look forward to coming. The children are forever asking if it's their turn to read and I love the conversations we have about the stories and the ideas they come up with. The staff are so appreciative that I come. It's great for me. It helps me understand a bit more about school life and how I can my help my children at home more effectively. Please consider volunteering because everybody wins especially the children.'

Year 4 round off their 'Save our Rivers' topic

This week Year 4 will be visiting Cheriton, close to the source of the River Itchen. Our visit will give the children first hand experience of geography fieldwork and a chance to study elements of river formation.

                          The river source springs from underground, forming a pool of water

Year 4 parents are invited to an assembly at 9am on Friday morning, 8th February, to learn more about our topic work this term. We hope to see many of you there!

After school, also on Friday 8th February, the class are holding a cake sale to raise funds for the charity WaterAid, which we have been supporting. Their aim is to use practical solutions to provide clean water, safe sanitation and hygiene education to the world's poorest people. Please support us by visiting our cake sale. Thank you.