Thanks for the overwhelmingly positive feedback from the Science Morning – we appreciate that it is hard for some parents to attend these events (it is the same for our staff who are parents as well) and would never wish to add to parent guilt. As ever, we will take on board constructive feedback and always consider where we can make changes to help parents as much as we can, such as offering some of our events in the morning as well as the afternoon. 

As some of you may know, Miss Simmons hosts half termly parent forum meetings. The aim of the group is to share and discuss important educational issues affecting the school and to get parents even more involved in decision making that directly affects your children.  It is an opportunity to provide feedback, discuss future initiatives and national news related to education. Each and every one of you is an expert in what it is like to be a parent at our school and would be very welcome to join Miss Simmons at the next meeting. Please email admin@almondhill.herts.sch.uk if you are interested in attending the next meeting which will be held on Wednesday 22^nd May - 5:30 - 6:30pm. 

I am pleased to tell parents that we will be offering another opportunity for parents to find out about their children’s experiences at school. Mrs. Cleaves our music co-ordinator has kindly offered to ‘throw open the doors’ for our weekly singing assemblies. Parents are invited straight after drop off on selected Friday mornings to spend around 30 minutes listening (and participating if they wish!) to our music assembly.  There will be 30 places each week. Places can be booked on School Gateway on a first come first served basis and once full, it will automatically close. The booking will open on Monday 22^nd April and unless full, will close the day before each event.   

Lower School – Friday 17^th May and 14^th June 9.00-9.25am
Upper School – Friday 24^th May and 5^th July 9.00-9.25am

As previously mentioned, we have now moved to a new uniform provider. Along with many other schools in Stevenage, I am pleased to tell you Smarty Schoolwear will be providing our branded uniform. You can order online using the link below or pop into their store in the town centre.

https://www.smartyschoolwear.co.uk/find-your-club-school-c1/almond-hill-junior-school-c730

Uniform is still available from our previous supplier, My Clothing.

This term, we are shining a spotlight on reading so families can feel fully informed in how to support children with developing this key skill.

• All children in Years 3 and 4 are expected to bring a book banded book home irrespective of reading level and this is to ensure they choose a book of appropriate challenge.
• Children in Years 5 and 6 that are not yet reading at the age-related level are also given the opportunity to choose books from the colour bands to ensure that they have access to books that are suitable for their reading level.
• All children who are reading book banded books are assessed half termly (and once in the Spring term as it is shorter) by their class teacher to check whether they should go up a stage/colour.

All children are encouraged to choose any book they please from the extensive class libraries and this is to support reading for pleasure. The books are organised by genre and children might choose easier reads for fun or harder ones they need support with from parents at home

If your child is undertaking extra reading as an intervention, you will be invited to observe them during this time so you are able to support this more fully at home. You will notice that children having this intervention will bring home a Twinkl phonics reading book to read at home as well as their colour banded book and the book they can choose to read from the classroom library.

This Twinkl book should be fully decodable except for the specific grapheme/phoneme they are working on. This means they should be able to read it fluently for meaning. Your child should be able to tell you which grapheme/phoneme they are working on which will feature somewhere in the book such as ‘ai’ in the word ‘train’. Ideally families should read the Twinkl book several times with their child across the week (as well as the times they read it with an adult in school). This is because there has been some significant research to show that learning to read some texts really fluently for meaning has a positive impact for children learning to read any text more fluently. However, we know reading the same book over and over can feel a bit boring so the book banded book should provide the chance for reading something different but accessible too. Reading fluency is important for all children even if they have secured all of their phonics and we will be offering parents the chance to come into school and observe the teaching of reading fluency later this term.

If your child is undertaking extra reading as an intervention, you will be invited to observe them during this time so you are able to support this more fully at home. You will notice that children having this intervention will bring home a Twinkl phonics reading book to read at home as well as their colour banded book and the book they can choose to read from the classroom library.

This Twinkl book should be fully decodable except for the specific grapheme/phoneme they are working on. This means they should be able to read it fluently for meaning. Your child should be able to tell you which grapheme/phoneme they are working on which will feature somewhere in the book such as ‘ai’ in the word ‘train’. Ideally families should read the Twinkl book several times with their child across the week (as well as the times they read it with an adult in school). This is because there has been some significant research to show that learning to read some texts really fluently for meaning has a positive impact for children learning to read any text more fluently. However, we know reading the same book over and over can feel a bit boring so the book banded book should provide the chance for reading something different but accessible too. Reading fluency is important for all children even if they have secured all of their phonics and we will be offering parents the chance to come into school and observe the teaching of reading fluency later this term.

You will also find stuck in children’s home learning books next week a glossary of grammatical terms that are used in each year group. It was brought to my attention by a parent in a meeting that they were trying to support their child with the home learning but did not always understand the terminology. This information can be found on our website but I appreciate parents don't always think to look there or have the time.