Dear Parents and Pupils

I thought it would be nice to write to you all as we come to the end of the half term, to reflect on some of the great things that have happened at Canonbury this term, and to look at some of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

To begin with this has been a wonderful term in terms of sporting achievements. Our school football team went to represent Arsenal in the National tournament held at Anfield. They were able to stay overnight and despite not coming home with the trophy did extremely well against the best the country had top offer. Thanks to the children and parents who have represented and supported the school team and to Karl and Cate, our staff members who made this happen and gave up their time. Just this week our girl’s football team won the Islington Access to Sports Project, Girls Primary School Football tournament. More of this will follow in the next newsletter, coming out immediately after the half term holiday.

This term has also seen the launch of a new Friday “Not the World Cup” tournament, which is the brainchild of our acting Headteacher, James Wiltshire and Karl our sports coach. The tournament will take place during the lunch hour and should provide a focus which will captivate the children and help improve excitement and engagement during the lunch break. There will be medals, trophies and celebrations when the results of the tournament are announced in the last week of term.

Our tennis team have also won the Islington mini-tennis tournament and now go on to play at the London Youth games. Our Hockey and football teams as you may remember have already represented Islington at the London youth games for their sports so this is becoming something of a pattern, which is great for our school and our children.

I have enjoyed coming back from my Executive Headteacher work at Copenhagen School and seeing Canonbury each Monday and Friday whilst working with James and the staff team to shape the school as it grows and develops. The environment looks amazing and this is a testimony to the growing influence of Barry with his Artistic talents, as well as reflecting the hard work of our teaching and support staff as they develop the International primary Curriculum across the school. pupils seem to be demonstrating a high level of artistic skills and the quality of displayed art is becoming truly outstanding. We are hopeful that this summer we will be able to build a new Art modeling suite and recommission use of our kiln as part of this. Some of these pictures below show our children at work in the Art Room.

As a school we are aware from the parental survey this term that understanding at home about the content of the International Primary Curriculum (IPC) is still inconsistent, and we are aiming to do more through Parentlink and by putting a new video on our website, to ensure this is all fully explained.

We have two more exciting school journeys ahead this term. When the Year 6 children return after the holiday they are heading to Kingswood Activity Centre in Norfolk for a week of activities and challenges. Then Year 4 will head for the, now annual, day trip to France. Canonbury is a school where trips and visits are really valued and it is exciting for our children to know they can go overseas in Year 4, faring for a week in Year 5 and on an activity holiday in Year 6. Again you should all feel proud of the efforts made to fund raise for all these trips, which ensures that every child can attend regardless of financial background.

Finally I promised I’d also mention Al Harper, Steve Boswell, Paul Makin and Lu Zurawski, plus a few ex-parents who are all raising money for Breast and Prostate Cancer by cycling  from Brest in Brittany to Ars in Ile de Re. If anyone wishes to support this fantastic, if badly named (I believe it originated from a night in the Compton Arms following a football match), venture then please go to the following site:

www.virginmoneygiving.com/brest2ars.

Have a wonderful half term and I hope that your children return to Canonbury on June 3rd, refreshed and excited about the learning ahead of them.

Kind Regards

Matt Britt, Executive Headteacher

This term will see the publication of Canonbury’s new School Magazine. It will be written entirely by the children, reflecting the whole school community and celebrating all that is good about Canonbury School.

Please get involved:

Children: We are looking for poems, stories, jokes, reviews of books/film/theatre, sports writing, pictures, recipes, riddles etc etc. Please hand your work in to the school office, making sure it has your name on.

Parents/carers: If you can spare a little time and would like to help out with design/production/advertising, please do get in touch.

Mary Rampton

maryrampton@hotmail.com

The Curriculum plans, detailing what is being taught in each class across the term, have been added to the site today, for all pupils and parents to be able to access freely.

The curriculum planners can be found in the “Term Plans” menu which is available within the relevant year group section from the school years menu bar.

We hope these plans give you a flavour of the learning taking place in your child’s class this term, and will help you to support and extend their home learning, as well as giving you themes and ideas for choosing trips, presents and books you might provide for them at home.

Please see our video gallery page, which can be accessed from the day to day drop down menu from this web page, to be able to access a hot off the press copy of our latest school video.

This clip shows the wide range of talent which was displayed at our latest musical concert held at the Union Chapel. We are sure you will agree that Canonbury is really developing as a centre for excellence in primary musical education! The video really shows these talents. Once again we thank the school Foundation and YouthMusic for their support for our work.

For a week, children in Years 4 and 6 took part in Bikability training run by Islington Council cycle safety officers.

Those Year 4 children who took part gained their Level 1 Bikability award, and those in Year 6 gained their Level 2 Bikability award. The children braced the snow and icy wind throughout the week and learnt skills which prepared them to take their bicycles on the road in a safe and confident way.

Well done to you all for taking up the challenge against the elements and showing off this sustainable and healthy (not to mention fun!) method of transport.

Following last term’s successful Bike Doctor surgery and Bikers’ Breakfast, during the week of Cycle Safety training the Bike Doctor returned. Children and adults alike brought their two wheels to be checked over to make sure they were roadworthy for the year ahead, and stoked themselves up on hot porridge for the day ahead.

Here are some photographs of our volunteer Saturday on 16th March 2013.

Despite cold weather, we made lots of progress in cleaning up the veg garden and wildlife garden for learning in the Summer term. We had a range of pupils, parents and staff taking part and despite the small numbers we really made a difference.

Thank you to all those who came to lend a hand, it was great to see you – and we look forward to seeing new faces at our next volunteer day in the Summer term.

Here are some of the children’s own accounts of our Habitats and Survival day on Friday 22nd March 2013. Everyone agreed that the children had learnt a huge amount and had a lot of fun.

The children, amongst many many things on Friday, learnt about how eggs are protected from predators:

” We all played a game where you had to find an egg. There were three types of eggs; one was white with different colours which was the easiest to find. The next one was a green colour, it was a bit harder to detect in the playground. The last one to find was the hardest because its colour was the same as the mud – it was camouflaged and protected from predators.” Kate (4 Rowling).

The children had a carousel of activities to take part in throughout the day, related to making habitats for animals and birds.

” First we were making bird nests which we weaved sticks in and out, most of us found it hard but we enjoyed it. Next we made some bird roosts out of recycled plastic and material so birds can stay warm in the cold seasons. Then we made our own bug hotels out of dead plants, roots, thorns and some recycled materials. It was my favourite activity because it was fun and interesting. After that we tried pitching our own tents using Zalt Bahns (a type of coat and shelter/tent). Finaly, we played a game called ‘Big birds vs. Little Birds’ when we had to find eggs and bring them back before 5 second was up. When the game ended we learnt some animals camouflage their eggs to their surroundings.” Freddie (4 King).

” Making the bird house was a big job and a job needing resiliance! The bird houses took a lot of teamwork and effort, but with so much help from friends it was easier.

Making the tents was difficult because you had to think of a range of ideas to succeed.

Doing the game was really hard because you were always short of time! You also had to plan where you were going to find the egg.” Elise (4 Rowling).

“We sat on the top hall floor and Stephen the expert showed us all the useful equipment. I did the weaving of the bird roost first; i found it very hard as if I was a bird and making my own home to hibernate in.

The highlight of the day was for me when we did the  tent making , then the bird house making and then weaving.” Mae (4 King).

“First we made bird nests so when birds are about to lay eggs they can go to a nest to lay their eggs. We made holders for dog hair which birds can take and use in their own nests. My favourite was making bord boxes because we could do the hammering ourselves. It was great!” Hisham (4 Rowling)

“My favourite part about the activities were where we were hunting to find the eggs. It was fun and we also learnt interesting facts – one of them was that birds try to live in places where they can camouflage their eggs. We also showed a lot of cooperation and communication working togther as a team. At the end of the day Stephen asked if we had any questions and we all asked interesting questions.

When we made bird boxes we got to use hammers and nails and screwed some screws – that was really fun. We also used Zalt Bahns and made little dens for everyone to fit underneath.” Jessica (4 King).

Year 3 pupils from Canonbury went on a trip to visit the Ministry of Stories in Hoxton.

The Ministry of Stories is a creative writing and mentoring centre for young people in east London. They use storytelling to inspire young people aged 8-18, in the belief that writing unleashes their imaginations and builds confidence, self-respect and communication.

Nick Hornby, Lucy Macnab and Ben Payne founded the Ministry of Stories in 2010. In its first year, over 3000 young people took part in their volunteer-led workshops and writing projects. The inspiration came from the writer Dave Eggers and educator Ninive Calegari, who opened a shop for pirates and writing centre called 826 Valencia in San Francisco.

The children worked together to decide on characters and a setting before writing a joint story starter. Pupils then used the story starter and continued writing their own stories before submitting to the ‘Chief’ who decided to publish all of the Canonbury stories! Year 3 left with their own bound book containing their story, illustrated by Zoe Gregory, illustrator at The Ministry of Stories.

Click here to see the link to the published Canonbury writing from the Ministry of Stories website.

Liz Stock, our school librarian, has added suggested book lists for each of the Year groups.

These lists can be found on the term planner page of each Year group, in the school years section of our website.

In addition to this Liz has produced a picture book list for children of all ages. We hope that these lists will help you as you guide your child through library visits, and when purchasing books as gifts or presents.

This link takes you through to the recommended picture book list:

Picture Book List

The 2013 Parent Survey is going to be available from here on the website or in paper copy via pupil mail or at consultation evening this week.

The survey is a valuable way for parents to help the school reflect on its successes in the past year, as well as pushing it to think about areas for further improvement.

It is really important that we get as wide a completion rate as possible. If we only hear from one section of our school community then we will always end up reflecting the needs of a much more narrow group. This school has a very diverse population and it would be wonderful if that was reflected in the completion rate of our survey.

If you need assistance in completing or reading the survey then please let someone in our school office know and they will be pleased to help you.

This link takes you to a pdf copy of the 2013 survey. Please return it to the school office by the end of the school day on Thursday March 28th.

2013 Parent Survey

Matt Britt, Executive Headteacher