Dear Parents and Carers,

It is hard to believe that we are half way through this term already! We are truly grateful that we have had such a wonderful start to 2020 considering the events in January. The children are very happy and settled. Playground duty is a pleasure and classrooms are busy and productive.

Challenging Learning

When teachers are designing questions for lessons they consider them carefully. Good dialogue is an important feature of Challenging Learning as it encourages students to think more deeply. Just one of the strategies in Challenging learning is Odd One Out? You take three items and ask students to decide which one doesn’t belong. E.g. 128, 253 and 1089. Students need to reason as to why they have selected one to be the Odd One Out. They may say it is 128 because it is the only even number, or 1089 because it has 4 digits, or 253 because it doesn’t have an 8 digit in the number. Teachers can use any three items to use in this strategy and it is highly effective. You may like to discuss this one in your household tonight.

New Staff

We have two new staff members starting with us soon. Ms Courtnee Leigh will be taking Year 2/3 starting Monday 16 March and Ms Deborah Wild will be our School Welfare Officer/Music Teacher, for one day per week, starting Thursday 12 March 2020. We warmly welcome both Ms Leigh and Ms Wild into our St Mary’s community.

Three Way Interviews

Thank you to all the parents who were able to attend their Three Way Interview with their child/ren and class teacher last week. If you were unable to attend please contact your child’s teacher to arrange an appointment.

Batlow Show 28 March

The Batlow Show is coming up soon! You may like to show your support by helping to ‘man’ the back gate for an hour or so. Please see the link in this newsletter to put your name down on the roster. Students may even consider entering some items into the exhibits. Please see the categories on offer at the Batlow Show in this newsletter. Our school display will be there once again and all students will have an item on display.

This week I am attending the Catholic Leaders Retreat from Wednesday to Friday. This is held annually and this year we are looking at the Learning Agenda. In my absence, Ms Anne Saunderson (REC) will be available if you have any queries or matters needing school support.

 Have a lovely week everyone.

 Jannine