Caring Curious Courageous

Enabling all children to learn and grow

Dear families,

It has been a great week at school and hopefully, spring might be about to arrive!

Preparing for our open morning for prospective parents yesterday drew my mind to our unique selling points. It is easy to take our location for granted. The fact that we have so much space and the children can play and learn well away from any roads is definitely a bonus for a school in London and even in Richmond. The air quality and abundance of nature for our children has obvious benefits for their physical health, but also their mental health. The Vineyard is truly lucky to be set in such a wonderful space. 

Hopefully, many of you will be at the VineYARD sale on Saturday 11am -2pm. As well as stalls, there will be bouncy castles, a coffee van, and a food stall selling bacon baps and sourdough toasties to keep you fuelled.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend, and for those celebrating, a joyous Passover.

Frances Bracegirdle

Headteacher - headteacher@vineyard.richmond.sch.uk

Teaching and Learning at The Vineyard

Learning Bulletins

How to make the most of our learning bulletins

The learning bulletins are a great resource for parents to find out about the topics and knowledge your child/ren are being taught this half term. They can be used as a conversation starter around what they are up to at school and if you wish to plan a family trip to a museum/gallery to see a specific exhibition, you can link it to a topic your child is currently covering in class. We know from research that the more over-learning your child carries out, the more likely they are to remember the key knowledge.

Here are some ideas on how to use it best:

• Have a look at what is coming up alongside your child
• Find out about what they are excited to learn about and if they have any questions around that topic, building their curiosity
• Pick some key words that your child is unfamiliar with and pop them where they will see them regularly in the home
• Visit your local library and use the topics to guide your selection of non-fiction and fiction
• Pop the key dates on your family calendar

Click on the relevant link for your child's learning bulletin:

• Reception
• Year 1
• Year 2
• Year 3
• Year 4
• Year 5
• Year 6

Ms Reilly and Mrs Dempster 

Assistant Headteachers for Teaching & Learning

Junior Maths Challenge

This week, we had many courageous students from Years 4, 5, and 6 take on the Junior Maths Challenge. The room was buzzing with excitement as the children embraced some complex mathematical problems, utilising their impressive reasoning, deduction, and trial-and-error skills to find answers. Results will be available in 2-3 weeks, and certificates will be handed out.

We look forward to offering this same exciting opportunity to the children in Years 2, 3, and 4 in June with the FMC.

Mr Jackson - maths lead 

Earth Day celebrations

A group of the Green Team members delivered a fantastic assembly to Reception, KS1 and KS2 about Earth Day. They spoke clearly and passionately to encourage the children to think about how much plastic they use and what changes that they could make at home. The children enjoyed dressing up in green and blue clothes to show their support for Earth Day and some classes enjoyed reusing the plastic to make something new! 

Relationships and Sex Education workshop - 01.05.24 at 9am or 5.30pm

All families are invited to come to the annual RSE (Relationships and Sex Education) presentation next week on Wednesday at either 9am or 5:30pm. It is an opportunity to share how we teach this part of the curriculum to the children in the Summer Term. It covers the vocabulary and resources that we use for learning about their bodies, growing up and keeping themselves safe from Reception to Year 6.

A couple of reminders following emails from our neighbours

The pavement by the shops is very busy in the morning with our families making their way to school. Please can you remind your children to be mindful of people trying to walk in the opposite direction. If there are children on scooters or all holding hands in a long line it can be hard for members of the public to walk past.

Terrace Lane

'Please could you remind your parents that Terrace Lane is a private road and, as such, should not be used for school parking. We have one particular repeat offender who I, and my neighbours, have asked to stop parking on Terrace Lane on multiple occasions, but they continue to do so. The same applies to the private car park at Stuart Court.'

PTA News