On Monday 19th October 2015 we held a ‘Fire Safety Assembly’ in the school hall.  Richard Brown and David Bell from Middleton Fire Station very kindly gave up their time to come in to school to deliver a very informative presentation on the dangers of fire during Halloween and Bonfire night. This awareness assembly follows the incident from October 2014 regarding the TV personality Claudia Winklemans’ daughter, whose fancy dress costume caught fire during some ‘trick and treating’.  We felt the true message of fire safety was brilliantly delivered and the children left the assembly fully armed with fire safety knowledge.

Dear Parents, Carers and Guardians

Please navigate to the ‘about us’ tab and scroll to ‘school performance’ to view the latest KS1 and KS2 school data with progress measures.

Dear Parents and Carers,

I would like to take this opportunity to inform you of the key areas of action the school will be pursuing over the course of 2015/2016 in order to raise pupils achievement (as stated in our school improvement plan) and how these actions will impact on the children’s teaching and learning, particularly in writing and reading comprehension.

Self evaluation of our school’s performance carried out by the Headteacher, teaching staff, school Governors and outside agencies, such as the Local Authority and Ofsted, have provided a platform for the school to initiate and implement further school improvement. Subsequently raising standards of writing and reading comprehension across all key stages are at the forefront of our plans. (Available to view on our website under ‘school performance’).

It is clear, from self evaluation, that pupil’s achievement (attainment and progress) in reading at all key stages is good and especially so by the end of Year 6. However we are passionate about developing children’s skills of reading comprehension (particularly skills of inference, deduction and prediction) through reading ‘age appropriate’ fiction or non-fiction texts. We are also passionate about extending the children’s breadth of rich vocabulary so they can improve the quality of their writing.

Consequently, we have audited the quality and provision of our reading books, including the ‘Oxford Reading Tree Scheme’ and examined ways in which we can enhance and extend children’s reading before they move to the next level. The ‘Oxford Reading Tree’ is a reading scheme (with ‘stages’ that range from 1 to 16+) rooted in reading for pleasure and with systematic phonics at its heart. We believe that ‘comprehension’ is not only learning to read but also reading to ‘understand’. In order for our children to become fluent readers and, consequently better writers, they must truly understand what they have read. Please refer to the Oxford Reading Tree recommended stages for each year group below.

The Oxford Reading Tree Stages

Moving forward

Adhering to the above age related guide will ensure that all children will be operating at the appropriate reading comprehension level. However, there is provision already in place to further challenge, engage, enhance and excite children who have read all the books within any given stage. Rather than simply moving children on to the next level they are able to access an extensive range of other reading books and resources available in the school library, classrooms, newly purchased non fiction texts at KS2 and boxes of books ordered from Durham Learning Resources,

Some children may need to revisit a level if; they have not fully comprehended the text, even though they have read it accurately or because they may simply have missed out some books within a level or indeed a full level. Rest assured that children will not be expected to read books they have already read. We aim to enrich and broaden children’s reading experiences; we certainly do not want to ‘hold children back’.

Top tips for parents and carers with Reading homework

In order to assist parents and carers, when reading with their children at home we would like to recommend, for example, the following:

• Listening to your child/children read – little and often is best (as many times a week as you manage).
• Questioning your child – There are a number of books in school which provide parents and carers with key questions to ask. These may be on the inside or back cover.
• Discuss your children’s reading book – What is it about, who are the main characters, can you describe the main events within the story, can children explain why characters behave in a certain way etc. Asking ‘open ended’ questions is a very good strategy to engage the reader, develop comprehension and extend vocabulary.
• Punctuation in books – identify the range of punctuation used by the author and discuss the effect it has when reading out aloud.
• For some books we have in school, there are comprehension tasks and activity sheets for the children to complete before they move on to another book.
• Having other reading material available at home, such as; books, comics, newspapers, magazines and possibly programmes/fanzines from football and rugby matches etc.
• Most of all; make reading fun and pleasurable!!

I would greatly appreciate any feedback from parents and carers on the above issues and how we could further explore with all parents on a whole school basis. Please do not hesitate to contact me at school with any comments or ideas you may have.

Kind regards,

Steve Vallack

Head teacher

On Friday 25th September 2015, our school hosted a ‘MacMillan Cancer Support’ Coffee Morning which was held in the school main hall.  Along with serving coffee and cake, there was a Tombola, Raffle and a Cake Stall – all of which were looked after by our pupils.  We would like to say a big thank you to all those who donated gifts and cakes and also to everyone who came and supported this worthwhile event.

To date, Middleton-In-Teesdale Nursery and Primary School have raised  an amazing amount of £628.50 towards MacMillan Cancer Support.

The children celebrated their achievements on Thursday 10th September 2015 of last week.  The number of points that each house gathered was very close.  Kirk Carrion and Cross Fell both now have 18 points, Cow Green with 17 points came 3rd and High Force with 16 points came 4th.

We also presented new ‘Excellent Behaviour Lunchtime ‘ certificates to the children in the picture below.  Well done to everyone!!

On Monday 14th September 2015 our children learnt about the 20 teams competing for the ‘Webb Ellis’ trophy, starting on Friday 18th September 2015.  Mr Vallack will also take another assembly on Monday 21st September, where our children will learn about key values such as discipline, passion, integrity, respect and solidarity – all of which are essential qualities and values in any team game.