News

Embracing a Whole School Restorative Approach

The hard work and commitment of staff at Istead Rise Primary has led to amazing results, with the more serious behaviour incidents in the school reducing from 18 in 2016-17 (the year prior to the introduction of a Restorative Approach), to 10 in 2017-18 and 0 thus far in 2018-19.

Congratulations from all at Behaviour Matters who are proud to have been part of their journey to become a fully restorative school.  Over the last two years we have run a series of training sessions, training all staff in Restorative Approaches, Year 5 and 6 pupils as Peer Mediators, and parents in Restorative Parenting.

It was great to see their October Ofsted inspection resulting in a rating of GOOD with OUSTANDING features, with the following positive comments:

• “The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is outstanding.”
• “The behaviour of pupils is outstanding. The culture of high expectations, support and nurture that has been established by leaders has resulted in pupils’ exemplary conduct around the school.”
• “Pupils feel happy and safe at school. They feel that the rare incidents of bullying are dealt with very quickly and effectively by adults. They also appreciate the work of ‘peer mediators’, who help to resolve any issues during playtimes.”

Finally, it was very encouraging to see that the historically low rates of attendance across the school have improved, with Ofsted commenting: “Attendance has improved and is currently in line with the national average. Furthermore, the attendance of pupils who have had high levels of absence is quickly improving.”

Congratulations to all the staff for working consistently to do the best for their pupils, to the Peer Mediators who make the playground a happier place and to all the pupils, who together have made Istead Rise a truly cohesive school community.

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Forest School

Acorns have really enjoyed the Forest this term.  They have been super excited to make bread over the open fire and made fantastic reindeer’s from natural resources and a few red noses and googly eyes.

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UK Parliament Week – Christmas Jumper Money Referendum

On 15th November 2018 the children voted in a mock referendum.

They were asked the question: where do you think the money raised on Christmas Jumper Day should go? a) to a charity b) to the school. All of the children had debates and learnt about how democracy in the UK works.  We even had a reply from ‘Your UK Parliament’ via Twitter thanking us for taking part!

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Year 1 & 2 Pupil Voice

On Monday 5th November, Years 1 and 2 had a Superhero day!

Everyone was invited to dress up as their favourite superhero, even the teachers! Our heroes ranged from fictional ones such as Spiderman and Wonder Woman to real life superheroes like fighter pilots and the police service. We had lots of fun learning about the different heroes and what they do to help people. To end the day we had a Superhero parade where we got to show everyone our outfits and head judge Mrs Doe was on hand to give out prizes to each class!

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Year 1 Pupil Voice

This term we have been learning our x 2 tables. We have learnt show them using objects and we have been learning to do them on our fingers. In class we have had competitions to see who can win. It is really good fun and exciting.
Charlie W

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Year 5 Pupil Voice

Last week, the children of Year 5 (Holly and Willow) had the opportunity to experience how it felt to be in space. We were really lucky to be given this opportunity and learnt so much from it!

Everybody had a tremendous time during learning. Despite the fact that there was no ice-cream (like there was during the Horrible Histories trip) we still had a excellent time!

During the time we had in the astrodome, the man talked about space and told us lots of interesting facts. We watched a rocket launch to the moon and saw footage of Neil Armstrong landing on the moon in 1969. When we looked up at the ceiling of the Astrodome we were all gasping on how wonderful it was.

As we were all discussing the experience we began to talk to each other about how wonderful it was. We were also able to ask questions during the experience and the man was really clever and knew lots of things. When talking about the experience, Sarah said: ”This was an amazing experience l would love to do it again.”

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Open Days- Tours and Presentation

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Year 6’s school trip to the Victoria and Albert Museum

On Friday the 12th October 2018, Year 6 went to the V&A Museum for a school trip as an exhibition was linked to our topic, ‘The Time Machine’. It was an amazing experience for all involved.

The future starts here.

Year six had an amazing opportunity to visit the new future exhibition.The exhibition included some revolutionary inventions that people assume will happen in the future; these included laundry robots and a driverless car. We were also left with a thought provoking question asking ‘If Mars is the answer, what is the question?’

During our time there, we learnt some amazing facts including: one nanostructured glass disc can store around 360 terabytes of data that can last 13.8 billion years and that democracy trust has declined in Europe and in the US!

A large amount of the pupils had a thrilling time sculpting mountains and lakes, in a vast sandpit, with the world terrain projected onto it.

A few pupils had a fun time wearing virtual reality glasses and looking around at a stunning coral reef underwater! After seeing everything else a couple of students discovered an area to create your own word to finish the phrase - the future is … then using the flash on the camera it would illuminate the word you chose.

It should us that even though we live in the present, many of the advances we have today are still seen as futuristic and more like science fiction.

Written by:  Brooke .H, Sarah R, Joseph.V,James.R  Year 6 pupil voice.

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Newsletter

This weeks newsletter is available on the Letters Home page here

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Ofsted Report

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Year 3/4 trip to Warner Brothers Studio.

Last week, Sycamore, Cherry and Birch class were lucky enough to visit where the Harry Potter films were made.  There were lots of glamorous costumes, props and gadgets throughout the Great Hall and many other rooms.  We especially liked Hermione’s dress from the Yule Ball, it was very beautiful and the icicle designs looked even more sparkly in real life.

Whilst having lunch, we had an unfortunate meeting with the deadly Death Eaters.  Miss Summers was very nearly captured but we managed to survive their curses and heckled and booed them until they left us alone!

We were taught about the special effects that were used  during the making of Harry Potter, we even got to experience the Green Screen effect on the broomsticks.

Our favourite part was the Forbidden Forest as it was very eerie, especially with the smoke, thunder and lightning effects.  Aragog, scuttled towards us while other monstrous spiders dropped from the ceilings!

We all had an amazing day!  Thank you to F.I.R.P.S for donating money towards our fantastic trip.

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Horrible Histories Awful Egyptians

On the 21st September 2018, Year 5 went on a school trip to watch Horrible Histories at the Orchard theatre. Willow and Holly class had the privilege of dressing up like Egyptians. Although we did not have the whole day to watch the play, it was still great entertainment and we learnt lots of new and exciting things about the Egyptians and their way of life. During the play, we learnt how to mummify the dead and cool facts.  Did you know that Ramesses the Great had 100 children?!

During the interval we had vanilla ice cream and along with that we had 3D glasses to watch the second half.There were also different schools, so year 5 had to be very well behaved to show a good example for our school. The actors showed us what happened in Egyptian times and we think that it was good for us to learn about them.  It will definitely help us when learning more about Egyptians!

By Poppy, Preet, Sarah and Rosie.

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Ofsted Visit

As you will be aware, Istead Rise has been visited by OFSTED this week.

We need to tell you how incredible your children were during the inspection, displaying all of the school’s core values, impeccable manners and spoke about their learning with confidence. Please do congratulate your children on this. Thank you also to parents and carers for all of your positive comments and well wishes. The inspectors could see how overwhelmingly supportive our parents are of the school and of their children.

We are hoping to receive the report before the end of term and look forward to sharing this with you. Prior to this the outcome of the inspection must remain confidential​ until it has been checked for factual accuracy and quality assured against the evidence base the inspectors collected. Staff and children have not been told the outcome.

What we will say though is that we are incredibly proud of the children and staff here at Istead Rise.

Thank you for your continued support

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Privacy Notices

We have adapted our Privacy Notices in order to provide parents and pupils with clearer and more specific information regarding the processing of personal data.

Our new Privacy Policies

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Pabulum Parental Survey

Pabulum Catering have been working with our school to provide fresh, tasty school meals. This partnership has allowed us to encourage your children to enjoy healthy eating.

It is essential as part of the service, we ask for feedback from yourselves. We want to hear your views about the catering provision at our school; what your child/children enjoy and what you think could be improved.

Please click the link to submit your response. The deadline to complete this survey is Friday 25th May 2018.

Survey

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