Towers Three SUMMER NEWSLETTER 2017 Message from the Head Teacher Miss Isherwood Welcome to our For parents it is a chance to all achieved and sets the spend more time with standard for what we must Summer Newsletter children and see how long it continue to do and improve The end of the academic year is until those words that on next term. parents dread are uttered — is always a strange time. I remain proud to be part of ”I’m bored!” Staff and learners look this vibrant, diverse, forward to the long summer However, it is also the time challenging yet positive holiday as a time to relax, when new things are starting community—the Three recover, see friends and to take hold: for Year 11s it is Towers community. Thank family, catch up with jobs on GCSE results in August with you to our learners, staff, the house/car/garden and college places, families, governors and generally to have some fun. apprenticeships and jobs all trustees for your ongoing Year 11s celebrate the end of interlinked; for Year 6 it is support. compulsory education and the move to ‘big’ school as it I look forward to seeing some GCSE exams; the Year 6s was known in my school of you on August 24th when likewise celebrate the days; for staff it is about GCSE results are out. For completion of SATs and the getting to grips with yet more ‘primary’ part of their curriculum changes and for those of you returning in education. Staff leave and new staff it is that trepidation September term dates are on builders move in to schools of wondering what the new the back page. In the across the country to school will be like. meantime, happy holidays! refurbish, renovate and repair rooms ready for the demands This newsletter allows us to of the next year. look back at the past term with pride at what we have 20172015 Rowan Learning Trust Three Towers is part of a multi-academy trust called the Rowan Learning Trust (RLT). We are featuring details of the Trustees in our newsletters so you know who they are and what they do. Previous newsletters can be viewed at www.ttapa.net or you can visit the trust website for details of other trustees at www.rowanlearningtrust.com Margaret Woodhouse was Director of Education and Early Years for Trafford Council until her retirement in 2012. She is currently the Operational Director of By Schools for Schools (BSfS), a not for profit company led by Greater Manchester Headteachers, representing Greater Manchester school leaders and supporting the development of school-to- school support across Greater Manchester. It is a single point of contact for Local Authorities and schools and holds the data base for all Teaching Schools, National and Local leaders of Education and National Leaders of Governance in the Greater Manchester area. Margaret is also the Joint Lead for the Yorkshire and Humberside Pathfinder initiative- a collaborative project supporting schools across the 15 Local Authorities, working together on their journey to “good” Margaret chairs the Fostering Panel for Trafford Council. She is Chair of Governors at Manchester Academy and serves on the governing body of her local primary school. Anthony Ball is a C-level financial professional and Chartered Accountant. He has 19 years of experience spanning financial services roles within the City of London and Europe. His responsibilities are centred in the Global Investment Banking arena and recently within PE investor strategies and start-up SME’s. Anthony has sat on several Boards and has significant Corporate Governance and Regulatory experience. Prior to his role in the City, Anthony was a Regular British Army Officer. More recently he served with the Grenadier Guards in Afghanistan. He is married with 2 children and is a keen amateur cyclist and runner. KS1 Literacy We have been focussing on using our very own writing steps, punctuation, exciting story openers and describing words to create stories. We received a letter from a scary monster who wanted us to write back to him! He sent clues to us and we went exploring in the woodland. We found the story of The Gruffalo and used ‘Talk for Writing’ to learn some of it. After making a story mountain together, we created our very own story maps to make our own versions of The Gruffalo story. We even came up with some more exciting and descriptive sentences to make our stories more dramatic! KS1 Maths This term we have been focussing on number bonds, place value and using what we know to add and subtract. We have done lots of physical maths activities such as addition bowling, passenger doubling using cars and addition and subtraction with natural materials in the nature garden. We have done lots of problem solving and investigating ways of making 10 and 20 and have worked hard to solve missing number problems using lots of different methods and resources to help us. We have also been challenging ourselves independently using our maths challenge board. KS1 Emotional Literacy Cooking In cooking we have been learning about healthy eating, we learned that the recommended amount of fruit we should be eating has now changed and that we now need to eat 7 portions of fruit or veg every day. We tasted lots of different fruits to see what we liked best then designed our own fruit kebabs. We enjoyed eating the kebabs in choose time. Art In art we talked about different textures, we spent time in the garden area where we collected items such as leaves and bark. We then created some pictures by rubbing crayons on paper that had different textures under it. We made different mini beasts using clay and some very hungry caterpillars using different textures such as stones, glitter, pipe cleaners and sand. To finish our hungry caterpillar theme we then made some butterflies by threading ribbons pipe, cleaners and wool through butterfly shaped card this method created symmetrical butterflies that look great on our display wall. KS1 Trips Key Stage 1 class were lucky enough to earn a reward trip to Run and Jump! We had great fun playing on the slides and in the ball pool together and everyone had an amazing time. KS2 Literacy Summer term always brings more opportunities to take literacy outside of the classroom, especially with our topic habitats! During the term learners get to explore different habitats and produce pieces of non- fiction writing around their favourite animals. Learners began this term with a trip to Blue Planet Aquarium to explore all the underwater habitats. They got to discover all the different habitats that can be found underwater including the amazing and beautiful Coral Reef. Many of the learners enjoyed this habitat the most as it reminded them of Finding Dory. After discovering the Coral Reef learners were encouraged to find out and write about their favourite animal. First they gathered research and then wrote stunning reports about what they had found out. We also looked at habitats closer to our school - we explored the new outdoor classroom and found many different habitats, we also created butterfly and frog habitats. We also went to local woodland and was extremely shocked to see the amount of damage that people do to our local environment. Learners felt so strongly about this they decided to write letters to the council. As the weather got warmer into our second half term we welcomed some guests to our classroom- 5 tiny caterpillars! We watched them grow and shared their lifecycle with Key Stage 1. We watched in fascination as they grew and grew then finally made their cocoons. We all waited in awe until one day the learners came into school and we had 5 beautiful butterflies! We finally released them into the habitats we had made earlier in the year. From this learners made their own Very Hungry Caterpillar books and wrote some excellent care sheets for our caterpillars. As we say goodbye to our habitat topic learners and staff are looking forward to September and our topic of Fairy tales. KS2 Literacy In English sessions some of our learners have written articles telling everyone about our new outdoor learning area! “The outdoor classroom has attractive flowers that shimmer. People always get a great view of the garden in the sunlight. The bees that visit our garden habitat are interesting to watch, as they collect their pollen. The pond is full of breath-taking sights such as our new tadpoles. Have a quiet moment at our pond and reflect on your day. It will make you wonder for hours. Sit in the shade of the grassy square underneath our most fascinating tree. Study the beautiful squirrels and the way they move whilst resting amongst the music of the birds…” By Zakai “The pond is good to explore and learn about frogs. The outdoor is good to spot cats and foxes. Teachers are sometimes terrorised by squirrels! Underneath the big, shady tree is the perfect place to have a picnic. The new outdoor classroom is beautiful and full of animals and habitats like flowers, ponds, rocks and trees.” By Llaytton “Our outdoor literacy garden is very fun, especially in very warm weather. Soon we will have an outdoor chill zone in our garden! Our key stage 1 class are probably going to love it when it’s finished! To complete our outdoor garden we need to keep the path clear and trim back the brambles and nettles to make it safe for everyone to enjoy!” By Troy KS2 Maths In Maths learners have been completing lots of outdoor work within our Friday’s Big Maths lessons as the weather has started to be much warmer.