Caring Curious Courageous

Enabling all children to learn and grow

Dear families,

It has been a wonderful week all about books!

Mr Jones led a 'book club' style event on Wednesday evening and I came away inspired by the power of books. Listening to 'Cloud Busting' written by Malorie Blackman and discussing the links you can make with children, particularly with PSHE, was extremely thought provoking. Thank you to all those that came to the evening and saw Mr Jones teaching mode in action!

This was one of the many activities that Mr Jones and the PTA have planned for book week. These included author visits from: Gareth P Jones and Lucy Unwin, a Little Red Riding Hood workshop, a book quiz on Friday after school and World Book Day which saw all sorts of book characters in our classrooms.

The week has been so much fun and couldn't have happened without Mr Jones and the PTA - thank you!

Wishing you a wonderful weekend,

Frances Bracegirdle

Headteacher - headteacher@vineyard.richmond.sch.uk

Safeguarding

We have noticed that children younger than year 5 are being dropped to school by their year 5/6 sibling. We advise families not to do this to ensure their children are kept safe. The observations made on Friar Stile Road before school have shown us that the older children in some cases are not supervising their siblings. As a school, we advise siblings older than 14 to collect children and this is the same at drop off time. 

Miss McArdle, Safeguarding Lead 

Attendance

Well done to all the year groups getting above 96%!! 

Punctuality

Well done to Amethyst and Ruby class for getting no lates this week!! They are one step closer to a pizza party. 

Miss McArdle- Assistant Headteacher 

Teaching and Learning at The Vineyard

How to support children’s use of their working memory?

This week, all staff attended a talk by Achieving for Children psychologist Dr Alicia Crane on working memory and the strategies we can employ as teaching staff to support children when they are faced with learning something new or a change.

Following the explanation of research and theory behind working memory, each staff member was asked to think of a child in their class where short term memory is a challenge, and think of the child’s strengths, barriers when following instructions and current strategies they use. Through very thought provoking questioning from Dr Alicia Crane and discussions between colleagues, valuable insight was gained and a list of approaches revealed the following strategies below:

• Write it down. Can your child use a notepad/post-its to write down the instructions you have given so they can refer to them when they have forgotten a step?
• Simplify or chunk up your instructions into 3 steps maximum
• Include one or two keywords in your message/instruction, e.g. instead of ‘get your book, open it and find page 15’, try ‘open book, page 15’
• Rehearse the key elements of the message/instructions before carrying it out. Ask them ‘what’s your first step?’
• Repeat the instructions or information to reinforce the message
• When a child shares that they don’t remember, celebrate the fact that they are communicating their need for you to either write it down or simplify it – praise works wonders for confidence and confidence affects our ability to remember in the moment

As a family, you may be able to think of times where these approaches could support your child’s working memory at home, especially when there is a change of routine at home, and/or when your child requires a list of instructions to do something new. For example, a child leaving home independently to walk to school for the first time in Year 5. Reminders/instructions could be written down and stuck on the front door: coat, school bag, lunch box, homework, house keys.

Ms Reilly and Mrs Dempster 

Assistant Headteachers for Teaching & Learning

Lost Property

Renee and Micka, our site managers, have been working very hard to sort out lost property and ensure that items are reunited with their owners. Any unnamed items will be collected daily and put in the new lost property shed. This can be found outside the main office. At the end of every half term, any unclaimed items will be donated to the PTA or sent to charity.

Please ensure you name all items that your child brings to school.

PTA News