December

• Tuesday 6th - U9 Dodgeball
  
• Thursday 8th - Christmas Jumper Day
• Thursday 8th - Rock Steady Concert
• Thursday 15th - Nativity
• Friday 16th - Last Day of Term

The idea of Crawford's knowledge organisers is to map out the children's 'Prior Knowledge', 'Key Threshold Concepts', 'Key Knowledge', 'Key Skills', 'Key Language', Reputable Resources, and Enrichment Trips linked to the term's curriculum.

We also hope that our knowledge organisers serve as a helpful guide to what your child(ren) will be learning over the Spring Term.

Watch this space!

This week, our subject update is science!

Our science subject voice is: Mr Francksen.

Here is a little update on Crawford’s science journey so far this year.

Curriculum

This year we are following Plymouth Science as our primary scheme of learning. Our curriculum intent is to deliver a science curriculum through practical and engaging learning, which is underpinned by evidence-based pedagogy (teaching).

The Plymouth Science resource is a comprehensive and robust approach that offers a wide range of resource boxes to deliver quality first lessons where children can get hands-on.

At Crawford's, we are extremely fortunate to have 3 teachers who have a Bachelor of Science degree (BSc); alongside this, we have a staff team that value the science curriculum enormously and believe that teaching 'Knowledge and Understanding of the World' is pivotal for shaping children's experiences and understanding of life.

We have strong science teaching and we embellish our science approach across all aspects of the school community and environment, namely, Eco Pupils (our pupil-led council), OPAL (our play provision) and Forest School.

Science Week is 10-19th March 2023; watch this space as we look to share our exciting plans.

Gina has a wealth of experience, having previously worked as a teaching assistant and; more recently, she has worked as a lead Specialist Provision Officer in Inclusion Services for Suffolk County Council. This work has entailed her supporting schools and children with safeguarding, health and safety, Pupil Journey (attendance, progress, suspensions and permanent exclusions, transitions), data protection, and pupils and parent/carer views. To boot, Gina also possesses an impressive BA (Hons) in Psychology and Early Childhood Studies.

I've heard through the grapevine that Mr Bourne has already been cast as the 'Grinch Who Stole Christmas' in our staff panto. Keep that under your hat as I don't think the children...or Alex knows yet.

The scheme, which we launched in September, serves to support every child during their day at Crawford's. From Monday to Friday, we have a fully stocked fridge, which our children can access if they fancy a healthy snack and an energy boost. Typically, our fridge is bursting with fresh fruit, raisins, juices, and the odd cheeky waffle.

Greg said, "We hope this donation will directly support the communities that we all serve in order to create and sustain help!"

Mrs Mason, stalwart of the community fridge said, "This donation makes such a difference to our school community. It supports our passion for ensuring every child, adult and member of our school never goes without a healthy addition to their day."

Mr Francksen said, "It's brilliant that we can help in any way possible; we are in a fortunate position where we see, daily, the impact such projects and initiatives can have. Kieron Palmer, from Palmer's bakery, also supports us with weekly bread donations - this also goes a very long way to ensuring we have happy, healthy, and content individuals. This project has been so beneficial, the staff now have their own lunch grab-box provision where staff donate food items so we can benefit from the odd day when we haven't the time to source a meal."

It's official...all of the support from you, and members of the community (by placing a blue token in Stowmarket Tescos) have enabled us to build upon an exciting project which further develops our school grounds and play provision.

Tesco Community Grants are run in partnership with community-focused charity Groundwork, which has awarded grants to thousands of local community projects every year.

Tesco’s Community Grants scheme – previously Tesco Bags of Help - has already provided over £90 million to more than 40,000 projects across Britain.

Groundwork’s National Chief Executive, Graham Duxbury, said: “Tesco Community Grants continues to give local projects the boost they need to help their communities thrive. We are pleased to have been able to help so many local good causes over the years and look forward to seeing what community organisations can achieve in the future with the right resources.”

Watch this space as we look to communicate our exciting plans, shortly.

I have attached the attendance policy, again, as a helpful reminder of our statutory duty. As headteacher, my duty is to follow the government and trust policy - this is something I am held accountable for and whilst I completely understand we all get poorly from time to time, I must uphold the policy that I am responsible for.

We have just approached the first 12-week period, which means I am responsible for informing all parents whose child(ren) is below the attendance statistic of 95%. This will be via letter, however, please don't take offence. I am always available for a discussion on your child(ren)'s attendance and I only want to support you in any way possible to ensure your child(ren)'s education is beneficial.

Last year, my daughter fell below 95%, therefore, I had to have a meeting with Mrs Francksen, which I duly did. That might seem odd, but it is policy, so I followed it!

Letters for U95% always state that this is not anything to be overly concerned about (unless it continues over the year or even reduces); letters for U90% always request a meeting with me; again, this is to explore if the school and I can help in any way so that your child(ren) don't miss any more vital education.

In summary, I am really impressed with the school's whole school current attendance of 95.6% (National is currently 94.4%); this demonstrates children love coming to school...the only reason our whole attendance isn't higher, I believe, is because of the obvious - we all get poorly at some point and there have definitely been some icky bugs going around lately!

This week, I learned of another really useful resource called Netware for parents. I've created a link for it below so, again, please do take responsibility for reading this if your child(ren) spends time on a device of some nature.

I am currently in discussions with the NSPCC about a potential parent workshop; therefore, watch this space.

There are lots of reasons why people may be in hardship and if you are eligible, we can provide financial help.

The scheme is not intended as emergency support and only one application can be made per household. LWAS is not intended as long-term support. The quickest way to make an application is via the webform, using your smartphone, tablet or computer. If you have all the information required to make an application the webform will take approximately 15 minutes to complete.

To make an application and find out whether you are eligible for support, please visit the Local Welfare Assistance Scheme webpage.

In the event you are not eligible, but would like to read more information about other support available, please visit Cost of living support | Suffolk County Council

Please ensure your child has a healthy snack in school to have at break time - e.g., a piece of fruit, carrot sticks, muesli bar, yoghurt tube. No chocolate bars or crisps please, and nothing containing peanuts.

Younger children (YR to Y2) have fruit or vegetables provided by the School Fruit & Veg Scheme.

Please note, that any snacks brought in to school will be collected by the Class Teacher and handed out at break time. Therefore, please can you ensure that any tubs, bags, etc are named.

We are an allergy-aware school and would like to remind all families that there may be pupils in school with a nut allergy. If a child with a nut allergy comes into contact with nuts, or with a pupil who has eaten nuts, then this could lead to an anaphylactic reaction. Anaphylaxis is a severe and potentially life-threatening reaction to a trigger such as an allergy.

Because of this, the school cannot accept products containing nuts to be provided in lunch boxes or for eating at other times.

It is almost inevitable, in this day and age, that sooner or later our children will ask for a phone. We all love our phones! For many parents, it’s a handy way of checking where children are as they start to venture outside of the home independently. But in turn, this brings the anxiety of social media. As parents, we can feel pressured into allowing our children to have Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter and Instagram so that they don't feel isolated from their peers. These social media platforms are for children aged 13 years and over. Despite all the positive aspects of social media, there is still an abundance of risk factors, such as privacy endangerment, exploitation and online harassment. All these negatives make social platforms a dangerous place for children under 13 years old. As a school, we find it very difficult to support children with the negative fallout of social media that has occurred outside of school. We strongly recommend that primary school children do not have access to social media.

For more information follow this link.

Children and young people use many different social media apps and sites. The most popular are Facebook and Instagram, with many others such as Snapchat, TikTok and Twitter.

There are lots of benefits to social networking. They can allow users to stay connected with friends and family. They can also learn many different things, from make-up or gaming tutorials to making slime, or how to create their own videos.

Like most things, there can be negatives too. For children and young people, there are risks that you should be aware of, to help keep your child safe on social media.

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