Weekly Update ☀️
We began the week cheering on some of our lovely staff who took place in the Macmillan Cancer Mighty Hike up in Northumberland. The weather was kind to them, and they completed the 13 miles in fantastic time. Well done to Mrs Prince, Mrs Ingledew, Mrs O’Callaghan, Mrs Cottingham, Mrs Formby-Jackson and Miss Edwards who raised over £1800 for this amazing charity. A huge well done to you all.
Year 6 enjoyed an exciting trip to Eden Camp on Wednesday to support their history unit on World War Two. They had lots of hands-on experiences, and the museum allowed them to really experience what life was like during this significant time in British history.
Mr Jackson took a group of boys to a football tournament at the Sports Village on Tuesday. The boys are a great day and showed their best effort across the matches. The girls’ event was postponed until next week due to being rained off.
On Friday, we welcome Mr Laidler, from Acklam Grange School, who came to speak to Year 5s and 6s about their upcoming Open Evening at his school. It was extremely useful to hear the information as some of our older children make decisions about the next stage of their education journey.
We hope you have a lovely weekend.
Class Round Up
Year 5
Year 5 have had a great start to the new term and have been fully engaged in their learning. In Science, as an introduction to our new topic, the children were learning about the properties of materials. We revised previous scientific vocabulary before learning some new properties and playing a mix and match game. The children then explored different materials using a range of resources including electrical circuits, magnets and torches. They then feedback to the class all they had discovered whilst working in their groups
During music, the children have concentrated hard on learning to play a Three Note Bosa as part of their unit called Classroom Jazz. They used three notes on the glockenspiels to rehearse the tune before improvising with their own tune in the middle section using the three notes. We can’t wait to perform our final tunes to the jazz music.
As part of our Place Value of Punctuation and Grammar programme the children so far have learned about different forms of nouns and verbs as well as focusing on the subject of a sentence. They loved being detectives, finding sentences around the classroom, and deciding whether the correct subject was correctly identified.
Year 6
Attendance Matters
It is so important that we see your children in school every day as any missed days means missed learning. We have had a very positive start to the new term.
There are our attendance figures for this week:
Overall 96.9%
A big well done to the 11 classes who got over 96%, and to Class 511 who won the attendance trophy.
Let’s keep this up and aim for even more classes in the green next week.
Reminders
*Thank you to everyone who has named their child’s uniform; this really helps us to return any lost property to its rightful owner, and we would encourage all parents to make sure that uniform is named please.
Links to support our parents and children….
Links from Middlesbrough Council regarding the use of AI
- The ParentsZone charity have a useful article to demystify AI which you can access here Demystifying tech – AI | Parent Zone
- You may also want to take a look first at Internet Matters` A guide to artificial intelligence (AI) for parents | Internet Matters
If you are looking for an activity for your young person to do you may wish to consider making use of the interactive Once Upon Online activity. This quick story-based activity which is part of the Digital Matters series lets your child make choices that could be risky in real life so they can learn about the consequences in a safe space. Have them complete this journey on their own or complete it together to talk about your choices. You can access it here Introduction to Online Research free lesson | Digital Matters.
Also available is the parents guide PDF for download Online-Research-Parent-Guide-2024.pdf
There are also other resources available you may also wish to consider:
Headstart
This week’s edition is bursting with exciting updates — from our successful summer holiday club, training opportunities, info on the new HealthStart programme, staff wellbeing and all things emotional wellbeing.
There’s something for everyone!
Let’s make this term one of connection, inspiration, and positive impact.
HeadStart Newsletter 8th September 2025
Disclaimer- Inclusion in this newsletter does not necessarily ensure that Public Health HeadStart South Tees or Middlesbrough Council endorses any specific services and/or views.
Lunch Menu
Action for Happiness
Wellbeing is so important in our day-to-day life. Use the ideas on the Self-Care September calendar to support us as we reset for the new academic year.
