Newsletters

George Spicer newsletter - Friday 16th September 2022

Collection of children at the end of day - A reminder that if your child is being picked up by someone other than yourself or the adult that regularly picks up, an email should be sent to the office so that teachers know who the child is due to go home with. If we don’t have this information, the child will not be allowed to go home with the adult.

Reporting absences - If your child is unwell or will be absent from school please leave a short message on the answer machine clearly stating your child's name, class and nature of the absence.  Please advise what exactly is wrong rather than 'feeling unwell'.  Absences must be reported by 9am, either by phone or email.

Reminder - Year One Phonics Workshop Dates:

Monday 10^th October with Mrs Georgiades for Willow class

Tuesday 11^th October with Miss Guy for Ash class

Wednesday 12^th October with Mrs Grover & Mrs Rolland for Oak class

Thursday 13^th October with Mrs Amponsah for Elm class    

Ofsted Parent View

Ofsted Parent View is an online survey that allows parents to give their views about their child’s school. By ‘parents’, Ofsted mean any person with parental or caring responsibility for a child at the school.

Parents can complete the survey at any time, we have not had sufficient surveys completed since before the pandemic.  It is also the main mechanism for parents to give their views to inspectors at the time of a school inspection.

The survey can be accessed directly from the Ofsted Parent View site.

George Spicer School values this opportunity for parents to give feedback, we are currently working through the information provided by the school survey after some in depth analysis by one of our Governors.. The vast majority of feedback is extremely positive and where it is not, we will be able to use it to improve what we do.

The survey will ask parents how strongly they agree or disagree with statements about George Spicer School.

The survey asks parents to respond to 14 statements and questions, thank you for taking the time to complete it and support our continued improvement.

Admission to Secondary School - September 2023 

The deadline for secondary school admissions is the 31 October 2022 – please click on this link to apply School Admissions and the online portal  www.eadmissions.org.uk

Reception Starters 2023-2024 Tours

                             "Learning well today to live a better tomorrow"

Mr Spong, the Headteacher invites you to a tour of our school on the following dates: 

Monday 3rd October at 9.15am

Thursday 20th October at 9.15am

Thursday 3rd November at 9.15am

Wednesday 30th November at 9.15am

Tuesday 10th January at 9.15am

One of the best ways to get to know a school is to request a visit.  Please call or click below to register your interest and for any further information.

Reception Tour Registration

Safe Driving/ANPR cameras are now operational

Please be safe, respectful and responsible when driving and parking.  Please do not enter any of the side roads leading to Sketty Road.   Some of our parents have been spotted mounting the pavements when performing a dangerous U-turn to avoid the cameras.  This is dangerous and putting pedestrians at risk.

Craddock Road carpark is for staff only.  No parents should be driving into Craddock Road.   

A reminder that ANPR cameras are now operational and you will be fined if you travel into the School Street Zone between 8:30am-9:15am and 2:45pm-3:45pm during term time.  

Attendance week ending 16/09/2022

Overall school = 96.06% Lates = 34

Best attendance: 1st Robin 99.14% 2nd Woodpecker 99.13% 3rd Oak 98.75%

Punctuality: Well done Thoth & Cheyennne and Robin with 100% punctuality

PSHE - Being Me In My World   

This half term in our PSHE lessons, our theme is ‘Being Me In My World’.  This covers a wide range of topics. To begin, the children will discuss the sense of belonging that comes with being part of our school community, our wider community and also being a member of the global community.  Some year groups will focus on how to be welcoming to others who join these communities. All year groups will think about the UNCRC rights of the child and the responsibilities that they have in order to ensure these rights are respected in their classrooms.  Another key discussion point will be how to work as a team and how to socialise with others, as well as the importance of pupils having a voice.   

A year group specific overview of what your child will be learning in their PSHE lessons will be emailed to you directly. Once you have read all the information, any questions or queries that you may have will need to be directed to your child's class teacher via email.  

Reception Class

This week we welcomed the new Reception children into their classrooms. 

We have had a great first few days, with hardly any tears, but lots and lots of smiles! These pictures show the children exploring our classrooms and the outdoor area as they learn the routines of the Reception day. All the staff are excited as we begin the school year with the children and look forward to helping them grow and learn. 

Year 1

On Friday last week Year 1 finished decorating their trains! They carefully followed their planned design and thought carefully about their choice of materials. 

This week Year 1 have been looking closely at the book 'Oi! Get Off Our Train' by John Burningham. This book carries a secret message about looking after animals and reasons why they may become extinct.  Ash Class were shocked to find out that some people hunt elephants for their tusks, and that tigers are losing their homes due to forests being chopped down. We spoke about why it is important to raise awareness for these animals and do our best to protect them. 

In Writing, we got involved in lots of role play and pretended to be the train on a journey! Some fantastic writing was produced.  The children can't wait to continue this story next week. 

Year 2

This week Year 2 have been concentrating on describing settings this week in our English lessons. 

They have worked hard to use amazing adjectives to describe the scene for the story ‘Wind in the Willows’.

It has been a real treat to see how many children have remembered to use golden sentences, and some have even challenged themselves to include adverbs!  Great work Year 2!

Year 3 

ICT

This week in Year 3, we have been learning about different kinds of wireless and wired devices and how these devices connect to form a network. The children enjoyed describing the function of each device, before taking turns to physically represent the network.

Year 5 

PSHE

In PSHE this week, the children listened to some powerful stories based on the lives of refugees. We unpicked what the difference is between a refugee and an asylum seeker.   

The children understood that seeking asylum is a human right. This means all people have the right to look for protection in another country if it is not safe for them to stay in their home country. 

We discussed how people who are seeking asylum are much more than the label. They are human beings who deserve to be seen as the whole person they are. This includes their skills, talents, interests and experiences. 

Our focus questions were:  

Why do people leave the country they are living in to look for safety elsewhere? 

How do you think it feels to have no other choice other than to leave your home country? 

How do you think it feels to begin a new life in a different country? 

To finish, we looked carefully at a number of UNCRC rights and reminded the children that with rights comes responsibility. We not only have to respect the rights of others, but we also have to make sure that we pave the way to make sure others can enjoy their rights.  

In groups/pairs we came up with a corresponding responsibility for each right.  

Article 30: If people speak a different language or are part of a different religion to us we should respect them as individuals.  It is good that we learn about different religions in school and that we learn about different parts of the world and their cultures too. Liliane, Sabrina and Reem.  

Article 23: Children with a disability should be respected and treated equally.  They may need extra help to do certain things but they should not be stopped from taking part in activities that they enjoy. Freddie & Oliver 

We were very impressed by their ability to empathise with refugees who had sought refuge in the UK. 

Year 6 

It has been a busy but fun-filled week in Year 6. We started the week with a wonderful performance by the Young Shakespeare Company who performed Macbeth for us. It was fantastic to immerse ourselves in the story and this definitely inspired our writing this week. 

In Art, we have been continuing our work on Frida Kahlo and the theme of "Life and Death". We built on our work from last week, selecting one word we wanted to focus on from both aspects of this theme. From this, we then sketched ideas for our final piece. As the artists, we critiqued our own work, focusing on one aspect we loved and one we felt we could improve. 

As well as this, we finally went to Go-Ape. We had lots of fun swinging through the trees and conquering our fears. The children were a credit to George Spicer and it was lovely to see how they supported one another on the course, especially those children who were finding it a bit difficult. The squeals of joy as the children flew down the zipline was wonderful to hear. When we weren't up in the air, we played team games. 

Music Lessons at Sketty Road 

Please see below days for music lessons at Sketty Road. 

Guitar-Mondays & Wednesdays

Violin/Viola-Tuesday

Piano/Keyboard-Thursdays & Fridays

Clarinet/Flute-days to be confirmed