A joyful Happy Easter to all our friends and families, do have a great break. We look forward to welcoming everyone back after the holidays.

Work Party

We will be gathering at school on Thursday April 9th for a work party to improve the Nursery/EYFS Garden. We have all sorts of plans afoot but need some strong and willing workers to help out. Come along to school from 10:00 a.m. If you are handy do bring along tools. Even if you are not handy, do come along and we will find work for you to do! There is a second work party planned for the Tuesday focussing on gardening and on painting pallets so they can be used for the more construction based jobs. I believe that work party is being coordinated through the WhatsApps so do look out for messages there.

Bug Hotels

After Oak Classes trip to Powderham to build a bug hotel last week, this Tuesday it was Willow’s turn. The short walk down to the Riding School felt like a jolly long way for some of our smaller people but they held it together and we got there to eat our packed lunches in one piece. We had a great time filling up our bug hotel with leaves, pine cones, twigs, bamboo tubes and all sorts to create sheltered living places for a whole variety of mini beasts.  One junior farmer even showed us how to get the string off a hay bale with predictable results – there was hay EVERYWHERE! I hope to pop back in a few weeks and see the place teeming with bugs.

Book Fair

Thanks to Mrs Best for organising our Scholastic Book Fayre which ran after school on Monday and Tuesday. I’ve seen a lot of children around who look very happy with their purchases! I understand the QR system wasn’t great due to the flaky Kenton mobile signal – we would need a better option for a other year I think.

May Day

Another call to put the date for our May Day Bank Holiday celebration in your diaries and to invite grannies and grandpas, aunties, uncles, friends and neighbours. There’ll be pizza, a barbecue, morris dancers, owls, circus and all sorts of fun, plus, of course, the legendary may pole dancing. Do not miss it.

We are collecting toys for a big bring and buy so do clear your attics. Speak to Heather if you can spare and hour or two to help out on the day.

We the Curious

Chestnut Class had a terrific day at We The Curious in Bristol. They had an amazing time working with chemicals to create different colours, experienced and planetarium and got hands on with all sorts of other fascinating scientific adventures. Thank you to Mr Keirle for all that organising and driving, it must have been a long and exhausting day but it looks like it was well worth it.

Gymnastics Club

Mr Tyrell’s brilliant Thursday Morning Gymnastics Club finished their term in style this morning by giving the whole school a performance of what they have been working on. There were back bends, flick flacks, cartwheels and who knows what all. Every child was a superstar and it would be wrong to pick any out in particular but I am going to give special mentions to Mollie for confident leadership, Grace for extraordinary bendiness and Robyn for being a smiling superstar. It was a lovely way to start our last morning of the term and at least one of us adults had a tear in our eye as we reflected on the bravery and brilliance of our pupils.

That’s all for now – have a wonderful Easter Break and see you soon everyone.

Best wishes,

Ed Finch (head teacher)

The post Newsletter 2nd April appeared first on Kenton Primary School.

Gosh what a busy week! I think we are all ready to drop. I hope you get a relaxing weekend then come back bouncing ready for the last week of term. DOn’t forget that there’s no school on Friday – this last week of term is just four days.

Ivy Music Festival

A group of children from Oak Class impressed us all with their performance on stage at the Langstone Cliff Hotel as part of the Ivy Music Festival on Thursday evening. They had worked with Pat and Elfyn from Sonopera to write their own song based on their own ideas about working together and performed as part of an evening where each of the eight schools in the Ivy Trust showcased their own composition. It was a jolly long old day for the children who rehearsed from 1:00 p.m. and gave two full performances – as well as courage to perform and responsibility to each other they showed us bags and bags of resilience. Miss Phippen and Mr Finch were very, very proud of each and every one of them.

The Girl Locked in The Library

Last week we hosted a theatre performance from MED Theatre of their show ‘Locked in the Library’ about a girl who finds herself, as the title suggests, locked into the library by the fiendish Rumpelstiltskin and has to prove she knows about lots of the characters in the books in order to be let out. One very clever performer played lots of characters – Heidi, Mr Toad, The Grumpy Ladybird and a very funny bookworm. The children were very engaged in the show, they liked the way that the performers gave them lots of ways to join in and feel part of the show and they thought the performers were very clever with their puppetry skills and their range of funny voices. It was a very happy afternoon indeed with children from Nursery to key Stage Two all sitting and enjoying the show together. Who knows, it might even encourage them to widen the scope of books they check out in the library!

Scholastic Book Fayre

We have a Big Book Sale after school on Monday. Come along at Pick Up Time and have a look at what we have. There are books for all tastes and price bands as well bookmarks, pencil sharpeners and other items at pocket money prices, nothing is more than ten pounds. Children who are going to after school club will have a chance to visit the fayre before they leave for Starcross so they can bring some money in an envelope to buy a book – otherwise all payments will be made through a clever QR code system. If it’s hard to make time to visit the library or a book shop then this is a great way to give your child the chance to make a choice for their own reading. A little bonus is that we get to choose some books to keep for school – the more you buy, the more we get to keep!

May Day – a message from the KSPA

The children have been preparing for May Day by brushing up on their Maypole Dancing skills.

Work Party Call Out

We will be hosting two work parties in the first week of the Easter Holidays to create some fun and interest in our foundation unit garden. This grassed area was reseeded over the summer and is now just about ready for children to play on – time for us to get our work gloves on and make something of it.

On the 7th we want to get together to paint a whole bunch of pallets. With many hands this shouldn’t take too long we just need people who don’t mind getting their hands mucky, who can get some paint on and who can bring a brush or two to do it.

On the 9th we need people who are reasonably handy with tools and can follow instructions and plans scribbled on envelopes to makes some things like a water wall, a big mud kitchen, a music board and so forth. Exact timings for both days to be agreed and publicised next week. Do get these onto all the class WhatsApp groups if you can please as I know some people see those who don’t always read this newsletter.

We’ll provide all the tea you can drink and maybe some biscuits and snacks too.

Mike Taylor – Hugo and Mabel’s dad – has cleverly sourced lots of materials for us to work with but we are still looking out for things like offcuts of chunky timber 2″x4″ and 4″x4″ in particular. We are also on the look out for decking boards – these could be offcuts and we don’t mind at all if they’ve been used already. Any car tyres you can lay your hands on would be put to good use. If anyone has guttering clips or downpipe clips going spare we would be very grateful for them. We would REALLY like a couple of sheets of marine ply – we know that’s a bit of an ask but just in case you know someone in the business – that would be SO helpful. We are more than happy to thank suppliers or trades on our social media or to do a little local news story if that would be persuasive to anyone.

If you have any thoughts or queries about this, do have a word with Ed or Mike.

Bug Hotel Project

This afternoon, Oak Class are off to Powderham to create a bug hotel. We are looking forward to taking the muddy route over and finding out exactly what they have in store for us – will it be a bug palace? A bug tenement? A bug castle! Hopefully, by the time you see this newsletter, I will have added the photos! Next week it will be Willows turn – what fun!

UPDATE: Yes – it was lots and lots of fun and the Powderham staff were incredibly kind and welcoming. HOw nice to run into friends from Starcross School while we were down there too.

Fun in the Sun

The brief window of lovely weather last week may have proved to be a false spring but it still gave us the chance to get out and enjoy the sunshine. We have been back out on our field for the first time in what feels like a long time. Willow Class even got the parachute out and enjoyed playing games together.

Ordering Meals

Thank you to everyone who is ordering meals on Arbor, it’s is now the majority of the school and it is saving SO MUCH TIME and making our mornings a lot more seamless. It really, really helps us if you can record that your child is bringing a packed lunch from home – we can’t safely assume that or some children would be going hungry. It’s worth noting that if you need us to provide a packed lunch for a trip, we really need to know at least a couple of days before the visit so we can order it from the kitchen at Kenn and get them to bring it over the day before. If you order it via arbor on the morning we really cannot help. The best thing to do is to speak to Tammy on reception or send her a message at least two days before the trip takes place.

The post Newsletter 27th March appeared first on Kenton Primary School.

Well! That has been my busiest week yet at wonderful Kenton Primary – all good I hasten to add, but super busy and I hope you will forgive me if this is a shorter than usual newsletter.

My main purpose today is to say a huge thank you to everyone who has supported us this week. It’s a long list and no doubt my tired Friday Afternoon Brain will forget someone but I cannot miss out Ron Morton, Liz Spowage, Gemma and Mike Taylor, Matthew Johnson and that whole team who helped us make the Community Welcome Morning such a success. The children were outstanding, the tea was hot, the scones were delicious – everything went beautifully. I have heard back from several members of the community about how much they enjoyed the event – we really must do it again soon.

Thanks also to all the people – many of them named above – who have been working so hard on the Forest School site at Powderham. The pictures I’ve seen are amazing and I can’t wait to get up there in my boots and do a few hours helping out. If you are interested in getting involved or in donating a few pounds to help us get that provision set up before the children can start using it then do step into the school reception where there is a display board and a sign up sheet.

Thanks to everyone who has been so kind and cooperative as we have jiggled forest school dates around to try and make them work for everyone. I know it has been a little confusing but no one has had a cross word. All the children have been having such a good time up at Gin’s site – the pictures I see are heart warming.

Most of all however – a special, special thanks and shout out to Heather who has been working her socks off for KSPA and for all our children. The flying dragon and the castle in the library are her work as was a great deal of the work for Community Open Morning and, indeed, the Forest School project. We are so very lucky to have her.

The next project that Heather is turning her energy to is the May Day celebration on Monday May 4th. Please, please get it into your diaries so as not to miss it and if you would like to help out I know that Heather and the KSPA team would love to talk to you. There will be jobs of all sizes so even if you can only help a bit, they will find a way to put you to work.

Nursery

Nursery is now running five days a week. We have two new members of staff working with us to make this possible and they have to be paid so please, please help us spread the word. We take children from their second birthday up to the age of four after which they can join reception class. If you know of anyone in the village or in the area who might like a look around our provision and a chat about a place in our nursery, please put them in touch with Tammy or me and we’ll make a time for them to have a look see.

Disabled Football Coaching Sessions.

Most of you won’t have met our friend Laura Shaw. She’s one of the unseen army of people who work behind the scenes to keep our school functioning day to day. As well as a brilliant member of Team Kenton, Laura also runs various football coaching opportunities and she would love you to know about the Disability Football project she is running every Tuesday at Dyron’s Leisure Centre in Newton Abbot. If you know a young person who would love to be playing football regularly but who due to additional needs has struggled to find a coaching session which is sufficiently inclusive for them then this could be just what they need. The session is fully inclusive of children with learning difficulties, physical disabilities, neurodiversity or any other additional need. We would love you to pass this on to any children and families that you know of who might be interested. The sessions are fun and aim to build confidence, friendship and social skills. Laura’s website is here.

Fostering in Devon Conference: Friday 20th March 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Fostering Devon have been in touch to ask if we would help promote their event where you could find out more about fostering and how you could make a difference to a child or young person’s life in Devon. They will have a team of experts and experienced fosterers on hand to talk to you and answer all your questions.

• Fostering with your local authority
• Training and support, including a Skills to Foster taster session.
• Approaches to therapeutic parenting and the support that Fostering Devon offers
• What children and young people want from their carers

If this sounds at all interesting to you have a look at the event and consider booking your place on this link.

Parking

I’m sorry to nag again but please can we talk about parking again? Local residents love having the school here, they tell me it’s a pleasure to see the children every morning and it’s a joy to see the playing fields being used more. They do say, however, that it’s a real worry that people are still parking right on the corner opposite the entrance to the fields.

When people park on that corner it really restricts the road and the view up the road. There are genuine, justified concerns that this will cause an accident or that it will prevent the emergency services getting vehicles around that corner. There are quite a number of elderly residents living further down the road and it doesn’t bear thinking about that we block that corner and an ambulance can’t get through.

When the school was in the old site on Mamhead Road, almost everyone was in the habit of parking in The Triangle and walking around the corner. Of course, it’s a little further now and the slope up to the school can feel like the Matterhorn when you’re tired, but it would be really great practice for more of us to get back in the habit of using the Triangle and walking up. It would be good for our heart health too.

The post Newsletter 13th March appeared first on Kenton Primary School.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed that we are really trying to push reading this year. I hope you have.

Out of the many things that you could do to help your child flourish at school and beyond, promoting their enjoyment and fluency in reading is the most effective and, as a bonus, maybe the most enjoyable!

If a child leaves primary school reading confidently, with good fluency and comprehension, then they will be in a good place to access the whole curriculum as they progress through secondary school, to cope with important aspects of the adult world and – hopefully – to derive a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction from their reading life – whatever they like to read whether it’s car maintenance manuals, poetry, true crime magazines, political blogs, fiction or whatever. If schools can get just one thing rtight for their pupils (after keeping them safe and happy) then it should be ensuring that every child is able to read.

Thanks to the hard work of a lot of people and the generosity of the KSPA and all the parents, our library is now an attractive and cosy place to read and it’s much more full of books which are attractive to a wider range of children. Our improved use of data from Accelerated Reader is helping to support and challenge children more eff3ectively. The Reading Parties are incentivise some children who have been a bit more reluctant to read to really get stuck in.

The impact is that I am seeing more children excited about their reading, seeing rapid progress for a good number of children, seeing teachers more empowered in their teaching of reading and seeing the school starting to really hum. It feels good, which is why it felt extra special to celebrate World Book Day today.

World Book Day

World \Book Day is always a pleasure. I love standing on the gate in the morning and welcoming the children in their costumes – always a few princesses of various provenance, a handful of Harry Potter characters (I think those are going down year by year), a clutch of superheroes, a whole coven of witches and more. Today’s stand outs for me were an amazing Aslan in full regalia, some very nicely done Beast Quest costumes and a lovely collection of coloured pencils.

The children spent a very happy day celebrating the love of books in lots of different ways – making book themed hats, parading the costumes in the playground, figuring out who our masked ‘Mystery Readers’ were, participating in a choice of workshops and  – most importantly – reading and sharing beautiful books. What a great way to spend the day.

Reading Targets

After the great success of last term’s Reading Party most of the children have hit the ground running this half term – the classroom displays are showing me children who, after just two weeks, are already on forty and fifty percent of their targets. I was particularly proud to see a pupil who did not make enormous progress on their target last term makign massive progress already. I have said a big well done to that child already and I need to make sure I say it to their parents as well as I’m sure encouragement at home will have played a big part.

If you’re not sure what your child’s reading target is, have a look in the front of their reading record or drop a message to the class teacher via Seesaw – they will be more than happy to help.

Reading with Your Child Workshop

It’s not always easy to find time to read with your child and not knowing quite what to do with that reading time can put parents and carers off. Come along to our reading with your child workshop on Tuesday 24th March at 9:10 a.m. then again at 3:00 p.m. We will also make and share a video version of this workshop so that you’re able to take part even if you can’t make it at drop off or pick up.

We’ll look at what works and what doesn’t work, finding a time to make sure it happens, how to encourage reluctant readers, tips for getting the best out of reading time and what we DON’T need you to do. IT will be quite fast paced and won’t take longer than half an hour. Yes – there will be cake. Yes – we are happy for little children to come along and join us.

Attendance

I don’t know if it’s something I said or whether we’ve just been lucky with the coughs and colds but this week’s attendance has been OUTSTANDING. We managed an average of 98.82%.

I can’t wait to see the whole trust data which will come through on Monday morning – I will be very surprised if we aren’t the best in the trust. I feel like I should throw a party – and if we keep this up for another few weeks I definitely will – you will all be invited.

Thanks to people who responded to the biscuit questionnaire, I have some good ideas to spark a bit of interest in attendance and encourage people to feel positive about getting to school every day. I love the idea of a whole school camp out when the weather warms up a bit, that would be lots of fun. Some people thought that attendance certificates would be a good idea; I would never do rewards for 100% as it’s not reasonable or kind to ‘punish’ a child because they had a cold for a couple of days or couldn’t attend for some other reason but I am very happy indeed to give certificates for children who have attendance of 95% or greater – that would include more than half the school by the way! I am looking at the other ideas – a special thank you to the parent who write us a long and thoughtful email full of helpful ideas.

I do feel that I need to say that I really don’t need or want your child to come to school if they are too poorly to be here or if there’s a worry that they are still contagious. My thought and care for your child’s wellbeing easily and entirely outstrips my worry for my attendance figures. I also want you to know that I trust you as parents and carers and believe you are in the best position to make the judgement over whether your child is well enough to come into school. ON the other hand though, having worked in primary schools for nearly thirty years, I do know that most of the time if a child is on the edge of ‘shall I take them to school or not’ they perk up once they are in school with something to do and friends around them. A child who seems pretty glum and down at home often turns into a cheery little person once they’ve got stuck in and forgotten to be poorly. You know that we will let you know if the judgement turns out to have been not quite right.

RSHE Survey

At Kenton Primary we use the SCARF scheme to teach our programme for Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PHSCE). That’s the part of the curriculum that looks at keeping ourselves healthy, thinking about risks and dangers, learning the very basics of looking after our money, thinking about relationships, learning how out body changes as we grow up and so forth. Our resource ‘SCARF’ is made by Coram Life Education who are very well respected across the country.

The team at SCARF have sent me a questionnaire that they would like parents and carers to fill in. It will help to inform our teaching and improve the information we share with parents. A copy was attached to the email when I sent the link to this newsletter out to the community. I have also printed off a stack of questionnaires and put them in the leaflet rack at the front office in the school reception so you can simply pick one up and drop it back. I would be very grateful for as many returns as possible so do fill in per adult, not per child if that makes sense!

Community Welcome Morning

A last reminder that we are hosting our community welcome morning on Thursday from 10:30 to 11:30. We’d love to see people who used to attend the school, people who have moved into the area, people who remember the old school and would like to check out the new location. We’d just love to show off this lovely setting and encourage as many people as possible to have a little nosey around and have the chance to celebrate this lovely school community.

I imagine most people who might be interested have already hear about the event and will be coming if they are available, but there is certainly no harm in us all giving it another boost in our various networks and on our various platforms. I would love your help and support with this.

Great Potheridge House Residential

Parents of children in Years Four and Five will have received a letter with details of the Residential Trip to Great Potheridge House coming in September when their children will be in Chestnut Class together. Payment has been set up on Arbor so first payments can be made. It looks like a great trip and I’m delighted it is happening in September – not later in the year – so that relationships can be built and a class culture of trust and responsibility can be built that will carry the pupils through the year. If you have any questions about the residential, Mr Keirle is the person with the answers.

Changes to Forest School Programme

Due to some complex scheduling issues, next week’s trip to Forest School will be for the Oak Class pupils who are owed a session from earlier in the week. Some Oak parents are yet to pay for the forest school sessions that children have had already, the payment is set up on arbor and we would be very grateful if this could be done.  Willow will be having the rest of their sessions on Wednesday 25th instead of the Thursday so pop that in diaries with a picture of a set of welly boots.

The post Newsletter 6th March appeared first on Kenton Primary School.

welcome back. It has been a jolly busy week here and half term already seems like a long, long time ago. I hope that you had a good break – our love and solidarity to those members of the community, and I’m afraid I think there was a few, who spent much of the break suffering with various coughs, colds and viruses. There seems to have been an awful lot of it about.

STOP PRESS- PE Impact Day – Monday 2nd

It is our PE Impact Day on Monday – can children please attend school in their PE kit – Key Stage Two will be playing handball and the younger pupils will be throwing and catching and working on their coordination.

Nursery News

It’s official. As of next Monday, the Nursery at Kenton Primary will be going to five days a week. We’ll be welcoming a new colleague, Karen Wickett, to help us run the setting on Mondays and Fridays and we do have plenty of space so if you know of any families nearby with two and three year olds who would like a space, please do pass this flyer on to them. Ask us for a handful of printed copies if you know somewhere useful that you could share them.

Thanks to the KSPA!!

Our library is looking better and better thanks to amazing work from the KSPA – today we received a load more bean bags and two beautiful little sofas so the space is getting cosier by the day. It’s just lovely seeing children snuggled up really enjoying those beautiful brand new books. This has been funded from the children’s hard work in our Readathon and the generosity of the parents, carers, family and friends who donated. Isn’t it nice to see that hard work pay off!

World Book Day FRIDAY March 6th

A reminder that Kenton Primary will be celebrating World Book Day on Friday next week – a day later than other schools so that it doesn’t clash with dance, PE and Forest School!

Children are welcome to come dressed up as a character from a favourite book. Some children don’t like dressing up and that, of course, is absolutely fine too – there’s absolutely no pressure and no expectation. Please don’t spend money on this – we all have enough money problems at the moment and imagination always counts above presentation in my World Book Day league table!

Community Welcome Morning

Please carry on spreading the word about our Community Welcome Morning on Thursday March 12th. We really want to see ex-pupils and all members of the community to let them see our lovely new site, make sure they feel warmly embraced into the ongoing community of the school and entertained by the children’s singing and dancing. It should be a lot of fun.

May Day – A Message from KSPA

 SAVE THE DATE!!!

Monday 4th May 2026 – May Day is back!!!

         

Kenton School Parents Association (KSPA) are thrilled to announce that we are, once again, organising Kenton’s May Day.

This family friendly event will be on our school playing field from 12-4pm… we’re so excited that The Otter Morris Dancers are joining us again, along with Spangles The Clown  from Circus Berzercus, Big Bear Pizzas, The Local Scoop, Posh Nosh, Glitterology Face Art, singers from Powderham Live, as well as our very own Kenton School May Pole Dancers, the KSPA Big BBQ, the Dolphin Pub Bar and lots of stall holders too!

We’ve also got our AWESOME raffle – with some amazing prizes to win – including two tickets to see Lewis Capalidi at Powderham!!!

Our theme this year is “The Forest  & Fairy Folk  “ – and we’ll be awarding a special prize to the Best Dressed Family, so dig out your wings, wands, fairy skirts, and favourite green outfits! We’d love to see how creative you all are!

We’ll have our Flower Wreath Making stall in the Dingly Dell, where you can make a traditional woven headdress and add flowers and foliage (please bring a bunch from your own garden) and also to add to Wicker Green Man – ready for our closing May Day Parade – which everyone is welcome to join .

If you’d like to get involved, have a stall, or help out on the day we’d love to hear from you. But otherwise, just put it in your diary, and we’ll see you on the day – for one of the most exciting fundraising events of the season!

We are particularly raising money this year for our VERY exciting Forest  School project – which we will be letting you know more about over the coming months!

Please come along to the Community Welcome Morning on Thursday 12th March to meet Heather (Chair) and other members of the KSPA – or message via the KSPA Facebook page.

We can’t wait to see you!

Reading Party and Reading Targets

last term’s Reading Party was a huge success. Lots more reading was happening at home and at school and the party itself went down a storm. There will be another Reading Party in the last week before Easter. Every child should have their target by now so if your child is in Willow Class, make sure that reading record is getting filled in every time you read together and if your child is in KS2 remind them to keep reading and keep quizzing. If you or your child doesn’t know what their target is, do message the class teacher who will be happy to remind them and to make sure you know so you can keep up the support and challenge.

Please and Thank You

Thanks to everyone who responded when we put the word out that we were looking for a child seat or two. We very quickly acquired what we needed so don’t have immediate need of any more. We could, however, do with a couple of booster cushions for children who need those so if you have any of those that your child no longer needs, we would be very grateful.

We have a plan to build a mountain at the back of willow class – for this we need all the old car and tire tractors we can get hold of. If you have any knocking about or have a contact in the car tyre business do get in touch. If you want to drop any off, round the back of the car park by the biffa bins is the spot.

The children would also love any offcuts of decking or timber for their den making, really good quality solid pallets, prams or pushchairs and plastic tubs or buckets. Again, if you have any of this stuff knocking about, leave it by the bins behind the admin block and let us know.

Help Urgently Needed at The Promise School

You will have here the dreadful news last weekend that The Promise School in Okehampton burned down. This is really shocking. A colleague from the school has been in touch to ask for our help. As well as the building itself they have lost all the things that were in the school – we can sympathise with them knowing just how awful it was losing our school and learning resources in the flood. The Promise is a special school for children with social and emotional difficulties, many have experienced multiple ACES and have also been excluded from school more than once so we know they are especially needy and this will have shaken them even more than it might shake some of our own pupils.

Pupils at The Promise will be moving into temporary accommodation of some sort in the next week or so. They are asking if we can help them out with things like lego, toy vehicles of any sort, soft toys, board games, art and craft materials, marble runs, books – all the sorts of things you would find in a set up classroom.

We are collecting donations in the reception area of the school and when we have a carful one of us will ferry it over to Okehampton. Do spread the word please and drop off anything that might be useful to reception any time that the school is open.

Attendance – Biscuit Questionnaire

Attendance does remain a real worry for me at Kenton. We have many children with an exemplary record of attendance; twenty one pupils still have attendance over 98% – a huge well done to those children and their families. However, the average attendance of the school as a whole so far this academic year is 93.6% – that’s significantly lower than the other primary schools in Ivy Education Trust and lower than the average of 94.6%.

I need some help with this, I want to make sure that children who are just a little bit under the weather still want to come to school and that their parents trust us to care for them – and to call home if it turns out that sending them in was the wrong decision rather than playing on the safe side and keeping them home. Can you help me think of a way to incentivise every family to make sure their child attends school every single day? Click this link to get to the biscuit questionnaire and give me your ideas.

No idea is too bizarre – if we need to see Mr Finch in the gunk tank when our weekly attendance tops out over 98% or if it needs a party for parents on the half term we beat Kenn and Cockwood then, believe me, I will make it happen.

Click the link to take part in the survey – one entrant will be picked at random to win a pack of those delicious Lidl Deluxe biscuits.

Sports Equipment

Amongst the many, many things that were lost in the flood was a huge amount of PE and sports equipment. A while ago, once the storage in the new hall became available, we got the go ahead to order replacements for a great deal of what was lost. For weeks now, Mrs best has been signing for mysterious packages which turn out to be full of tennis balls, hockey sets, hoops, bean bags and all the rest. This week alone we got a brand new full size crash mat to add extra fun into our gymnastics lessons and a huge box of Pickleball equipment. Mr Tyrell doesn’t hand around and just a day or two later children were busily batting balls to and fro. It looked so much fun that the staff are considering setting it up for an after school Pickleball session next week.

Forest School

Our pupils just love Forest School. It’s a real highlight of their week and, I think, of their year too. I have shared some photos below so that you can share in their joy.

A little bird tells me that we might have some exciting news to share quite soon about our very own Forest School provision a little closer to home. I’m keeping quiet about it for now but I am very excited.

The post Newsletter 27th February appeared first on Kenton Primary School.

Just a very quick message from me tonight. Firstly some ‘thank you’s and secondly, and very importantly we have a job vacancy that we would like as many people as possible to know about – please get in onto all the class whatsapps, the local facebook groups and any other networks that you have access to.

‘Thank You’s

This half term break marks the half way point of the year. Your children are halfway through their year’s journey – which seems mad to think about when it feels like we are only just getting going! I can see so much progress from all our children – in terms of reading, writing and maths of course, but also in terms of emotional literacy, attitudes to learning and so much more.

We have to say a well done and a thank you to each of those children – it’s their learning and the more they take responsibility for it, as we are seeing them doing, the more they will flourish. Thanks also to the wonderful teaching staff here at Kenton Primary – all eight of them in our small but mighty team! They come every day with a beautiful ‘can do’ attitude and a determination to use every minute of the day to see our pupils make progress. Not every school has a team like this, we are very lucky.

Thanks to Tammie, to Phil, to Ross and Trudy and to everyone else who plays a part in the life of our school. We have no weak links, no mood hoovers. Together we get a little bit better every day.

And thanks, last but not least, to every parent and carer who trusts us to do our best for their children. We are moved to know you have put your most precious people in our hands and trusted to do our best to keep them safe, keep them happy, and let them learn to be their best selves. Thank you to every one of you.

JOB JOB JOB JOB!!

I am very pleased to be adding a bit more capacity to the school by recruiting a new teaching assistant to join the team. This is a two day a week post. The days are Monday and Friday which will not suit everyone but hopefully, for the right person out there, this might fit perfectly. The new person will need to be equally comfortable working with the youngest children in our Nursery and with children in Key Stage One and Key Stage Two. Experience of working with children is desirable.

Please do share this advertisement with any networks that you are a part of. I will be shortlisting on the first Monday we are back after half term and I want to have a strong field to choose from so we can employ someone who will really fit the ethos of our school. To apply, just click the link below. To share the link, just copy and paste it!

Teaching Assistant at Kenton Primary School, Exeter, Devon | MyNewTerm

KENTON WORLD BOOK DAY – March 6th

While the rest of the world is celebrating World Book Day on March 5th, at Kenton Primary School, we’ll be celebrating a day later on March 6th. Thursday is a very, very busy day at the school with Katie Whenman’s Dance Lessons, Andy Tyrrell’s PE sessions and Forest School all happening on the same day. Add into that, the fact that Mr Finch is working upcountry on Thursday 5th and it really just makes much more sense for us to have our celebration on the Friday.

As in the past, children are welcome to dress up as a book or book character. Please, please, please don’t feel any sort of pressure to spend money on a costume. We always make sure that we appreciate and celebrate all the children’s costumes but we have a sneaking affection for the home made ones. Cardboard box ‘No Bot’ was one of my favourites and a child who had decorated an oversized t-shirt as ‘The Lost Words’ won my respect.

If your child is anxious or intimidated by the idea of dress up days, please know that there is no expectation at all from us. If they want to come to school wearing their ‘normal’ clothes, of course that is fine.

There will be a host of lovely bookish activities to enjoy on the day. We are looking forward to it very much.

Building Update

If the weather isn’t absolutely torrential, you should see workers on site tomorrow remarking our playground and car park. ALl being well we will be making sure the community has access to these community assets very soon.

If you see vans up here in half term week, it will be Portacabin back on site to sort out some niggling issues and a couple of leaks. Nothing too major and certainly nothing to give us issues returning to school as normal after half term.

UPDATE: I’m up at the school today – Friday 13th February – the marking company has painted the lines and they look GREAT!! I’m so excited to see what the children and Mr Tyrell will make of them! 

have a wonderful break everybody,

Warmest wishes,

Ed Finch

The post Newsletter 12th February appeared first on Kenton Primary School.

Last week I told you about our Community Welcome Morning. Stupidly, I had scheduled that for March 5th which happens also to be World Book Day. That was a silly mistake! I have rescheduled this event to Thursday March 12th. We’ll have a showcase of the children dancing and singing and some poetry as well as coffee, tea and time to chat.

Love to see anyone who hasn’t yet had a chance to see around our new site. Could be curious local residents, people whose children came to the school when we were on the old site, grown up ex-pupils, grannies and grandpas. If you have access to a local Facebook or Whatsapp group, or any have any other way of getting the word out, we would be very grateful for your support. We want the whole community to know that we have a lovely, thriving school here, and to bear it mind when they are thinking about volunteering roles or talking to others about Nursery and School places.

Nursery Goes to Five Days a Week

We are very glad to announce that following a successful recruitment process, we will be opening our Nursery five days a week. We are currently DBSing and onboarding our new colleague and we hope and expect to open up the extra sessions from March 2nd. If you are a current Nursery user and you’d like to shift or extend the sessions you are using into the two extra days, or you have a child you’d like to bring into the setting, then have a word with Tammie Best at reception or email admin@kentonschool.co.uk and express your interest. We expect the places to fill up quickly so don’t delay! I’ll be introducing you to our new team member very soon.

We have wanted to do this for quite a while so it is very pleasing indeed to see it happening now.

Number Day

Today we have celebrated NSPCC Number Day with Times Tables Rockstars. We have raised some money for the NSPCC, had lots of fun with maths, enjoyed dressing up and, hopefully, convinced just a few more children that maths is as full of fun, magic and wonder as all our other subjects. We have also participated in a TTRS competition against the other primary schools in Ivy Trust. Let’s see who has the most rockingest times tablers in the trust.

It was lovely to see all the children and staff entering into the spirit of the day so fully. There were some really terrific outfits with a big focus on the eighties for some reason. I feel like I might be one of the very few who remembers that fluorescent look, the ra ra skirts and the fishnet gloves from the first time around!

UPDATE: It turned out that the Rockingest Times Tablers in the Trust were our friends from Cockwood School – Congratulations Cockwood!

Reading Party

Classes will be having their Reading Party on Wednesday. They can bring a teddy to enjoy it with them and there will be drinks, biscuits and games. It’s going to be a lot of fun and it will honour the lovely reading that they have been doing and, hopefully, incentivise them to maintain those great habits next half term when we will be tweaking those targets just ever so slightly higher in order to raise the challenge and encourage more reading time – both at home and at school.

A very, very small number of children across the school have not hit their target yet and the rules as set out at the start of the initiative say that those children won’t be going to the party. It would be SUCH a shame for any chid to miss out and we deliberately made those targets very achievable. If your child is not yet on 100%, or within 20% of that target then could you please make sure that an adult reads with them a few times over the next four days or so and make sure that you record this in their reading journal – I’ll try and find time to read with them too – together, we can make sure that every child gets to enjoy the Reading Party together.

I’m looking forward to sharing some pictures with you next week, it will be a joy.

No Pupils Next Friday

Please don’t forget that next Friday is the Ivy Trust Development Day and that all staff will be working off site in Newton Abbot. School is closed to all pupils and you won’t find anyone here!

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What a week that was! Well done everyone who managed to stay safe and warm through Storm Chandra – and solidarity to everyone who had to deal with floods, flying trampolines, power outages and everything else that came our way.

A bit of news from me before we get started; I have been asked to stay on at Kenton Primary as interim head until the end of the summer term and I was very happy to say ‘yes’. The recent round of advertising for a new permanent head to start after Easter didn’t bring us enough applicants to shortlist from so we decided not to go ahead with the recruitment process at that point. We will readvertise for someone to take the role from September and, hopefully, get a good deal more applicants. I’m delighted to be staying and very much looking forward to finding out what it feels like to drive here in the light!

PE Impact Day

Our friend and colleague Jack Baxter will be with us next Wednesday for PE impact day. That means that next week the pupils need to wear PE appropriate clothing on both Wednesday and Thursday.

Attendance

This is a sad way to start the newsletter but it’s important.

Our attendance figures at Kenton are genuinely very poor. To give you a guide, the Department for Education do some number crunching and compare us with other schools that are broadly the same as us. In our case they will be looking at small schools with mixed age classes in rural areas.

They have compared our attendance data with 308 other schools. We are in 266th place.

Two hundred and sixty sixth out of three hundred and eight puts us in the bottom quarter of the table. That’s not somewhere that I want Kenton Primary School to be.

In a small school, each child represents quite a big proportion of the whole so if even a small number of children have poor attendance for any reason, that does have quite an impact on the overall percentage. Remember, however, that the DfE are comparing us with schools similar to ourselves. These are schools that are facing the same challenges as us and somehow getting significantly stronger attendance results.

Compared with the other primary schools in Ivy Education Trust, the story is the same. Although the difference in percentages is not huge, Kenton clearly comes out as the primary school with the lowest attendance in the trust. Taking the data from just two weeks ago, Kenton managed an attendance of 91.2%, while the other primary schools in the trust achieved 98, 95, 97 and 96 percent respectively. That’s a biggish difference and it’s typical of the week by week figures.

We do have a good number of pupils with very good attendance indeed. In fact 24 of our pupils have attendance better than 98% – you really cannot ask for much more than that. On the other hand we have around another 20 whose attendance gives me cause for concern. We need to work together to help every child to make the most of their opportunities and

It’s not immediately clear how I can challenge and support us as a community so that we can get our figures up so that if I check the portal again in another few weeks we have crept up the table a bit. I never want to put pressure on any parent to make a child attend school who is not well enough to do so – but, at the same time, the data tells me that collectively we are making some decisions which are disadvantaging our children in comparison to children at other schools. If you can think of anything I can do which will incentivise your child to come to school, even on the day that they are feeling only 90% well then do let me know. I’d like us to be absolute champions in every area of endeavour and, as of right now, this is an area we really aren’t doing so well in.

Community Welcome Morning

We are hatching plans to invite members of the wider community into school on the morning of Thursday 5th March to see our new buildings and to share some of our learning. We are hoping to invite retired people, people who used to have children at the school but who don’t have a direct link with it anymore, ex-pupils, people new to the village who may not have met us yet, aunties, uncles, grannies and grandfathers, local businesspeople…

We will be asking you to use all of your communication channels, WhatsApp groups and networks to invite as many as people as possible along.

We’ll be showing off some of our singing and dancing, sharing some poetry, offering tours of the buildings and sharing some refreshments. The KSPA will be showing off what they have been up to and sharing their plans. We’ll also asking people to share memories of the school through the years and decades.

Can you help us spread the word? It would be lovely to know that we’ll have a hall full of people who can see what we are up to and, maybe, help us attract more children to the school.

Number Day

Next Friday will be our awesome Number Day where we’ll be celebrating all aspects of maths – hoping to build up our positivity and sense of wonder at the wonderful world of patterns and possibilities. Children are invited to come to school dressed in something numbery or something rock star inspired. Have fun with this and pelase don’t be tempted to spend money on it – it’s just for fun and we all have more pressing things to do with our hard earned cash. Through the day the children will be exploring fun and fascinating aspects of maths and they will be linking up with other schools across the trust to take on some times tables rock stars challenges.

Biscuit Questionnaire

Thank you to everyone who responded to the Biscuit Questionnaire last week to share ideas of how we can spread the word. There were some very, very helpful suggestions in there so thank you all.

Last week’s biscuits were won by Jazmin and Bo, this week Archie will be sharing the prize with his family.

Apropos of that, this week’s biscuit questionnaire is a bit different. To win the biscuits, we are asking for children to design us a poster that we can use to advertise our Nursery. Think lots of colour and joy. The children do not need to do any of the lettering or add the school logo – we’ll add al that in post production. We just want a big splashy colourful poster image. There’s a deluxe packet of super nice biscuits in it for the winner. Deadline is next Friday.

Dates for Your Diary

Number Day – Friday 6th February

Come dressed up for a fun day of fascinating numbers, patterns and possibilities.

No Pupil Day – Friday 13th February

Staff will be working off site all day and the school will be closed

Half Term – Reopening on Monday 23rd February

Community Welcome Day – Thursday 

Let everyone you can think of know about our community welcome morning. Songs, dances, poetry, refreshments, see around the new buildings – please spread the word to everyone you can possibly think of.

The post Newsletter 30th January appeared first on Kenton Primary School.

the wind is absolutely howling around me as I write this. I do hope you are all safe and warm and no one is losing slates off their roofs. It has been a week with a great deal of weather but there has been lots of fun and lots of learning at Kenton Primary and a great deal to be proud of. One of my happiest moments of the week was watching Nursery acting out Handa’s Surprise with Lydia taking the lead role. I’m so sorry I don’t have a photo of that to share with you all!

New Ipads

This week we’ve been really enjoying getting familiar with our set of thirty brand new Ipads.  Children have been using them to research topics, to access apps like Timestables Rockstars and NumberClub, take photos of their work to share on Seesaw, zap QR codes to access resources, practice handwriting, take and edit videos as part of their computing curriculum, take Accelerated Reader quizzes and more.

The purchase of these Ipads was organised centrally by the trust and are a really big step up in the schools tech capability and has, astonishingly, cost us nothing from our own school budget. It’s a real game changer for how our teachers can use technology in the classroom.

Musical Fun

It’s lovely to see the children getting so much enjoyment out of our set of boomwhackers – colourful plastic tubes that make an accurately pitched ‘bonk’ when struck. There have been some really fun lesson activities going on. Perhaps they’ll give us a performance soon.

Ordering Meals on Arbor

Just another plea for parents and carers to, please, take five minutes to order children’s meals on arbor. It genuinely saves us so much time in the morning and makes for a much calmer and more productive start to the day if teachers don’t have to go round the class reminding children what the choices are and asking them to make a decision. It means we get numbers to the kitchen in Kenn School that much quicker too which makes life so much easier for them. There will a great celebration for everyone on the day we find that all meals have been ordered in advance!

Biscuit Questionnaire

We ran a rollover week on the Biscuit Questionnaire and we managed to collect a reasonably convincing eighteen entries by the end. W3e asked people what they were hoping for in 2026 and we enjoyed the range of answers very much indeed. We had someone who is hoping to get better at tap dancing, someone planning a dream trip to Disneyland, someone who wants to reconnect with family, someone hoping for peace and togetherness, someone hoping for a government that puts children first and much more.

The biscuit winners were chosen by a human random number generator (thank you Elizabeth), this week the lucky winners were Bo and Jazz from Willow.

To take part in this week’s Biscuit Questionnaire just CLICK THIS LINK.

Gymnastic Joy

The children are loving Andy Tyrell’s gymnastics lessons at the moment. Andy puts his heart and soul into his work and brings our children so much happiness. It’s a real pleasure to see.

Thanks

There’s always people to thank around the school. Two for this week –

Thanks to Miss Phippen for some truly amazing, transformational work. Over the last couple of weeks we’ve seen some children in her class turn from determined non-readers to absolute super readers. At the same time some of these children have made absolutely astonishing changes to their handwriting. It’s genuinely gob smacking. Poor old sentimental Mr Finch has shed more than one tear seeing all the hard work paying off and seeing the very great pride that these children have in their work. Thank you Miss Phippen

Thanks also to Eliza’s dad who pointed out to Mr Finch that the school website is enabled with Google Analytics – something he’d somehow failed to notice before. As a result, Mr Finch has figured out that he can see how many people are looking at the website and visiting the newsletter blog. It’s a good deal more than we’d imagined so that feels much more purposeful. SOmetimes a quiet word from someone who knows their stuff is all you need. Thank you! One thing that puzzled me is that Google Analytics teels me that the vast majority of you are accessing the site via a desktop computer rather than a mobile device. That astonished me – can it be true?

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