International Schools Foundation Award!

We have been awarded the International Schools Foundation Award!
This means we are providing an enriched curriculum enabling our children to gain an insight into life around the world, experiencing multicultural activities and events.
(Such as our Chinese New Year Day celebrations this week.)
We are now looking for a school to connect with in another country and will let you know when we have chosen one!
Thank you Mrs Brown for all your hard work with our International Schools!

School Re-Opens

I am so excited to be back to work tomorrow I cannot wait!
Staff have been tidying and decorating over the summer and it looks great!
The uniforms have all arrived!
New Staff start with us tomorrow too, its going to be the best year so far!
See you Tuesday everybody.
Remember if you need anything school is open tomorrow but not for lessons until Tuesday.

Mrs S x

Brookhill Leys Condemns the Rioting

I am so sad to see the riots hurting Britain and all the people who work so hard. Frightening.

Our sad broken society needs fixing. We can’t fix the recession, we as individuals feel powerless in world politics but we can ride the storm and come out the other side, together.

We can also show the country how Brookhill Leys School Community looks after our children. The example you set your child is the one they will take forward in their lives.

You are the people who will determine Britain’s future, through your children and their values.

We need to make sure they don’t see violence, aggression, adult themes. They need to be allowed to have a positive opinion in life and celebrate their childhood, even if you weren’t able to do the same as a child.

The recession cannot be used as an excuse for what’s happening on the streets around the country. Many of us have teenagers who can’t find jobs and they feel frustrated and fed up. But if they have been brought up knowing what is right and wrong and with respect, they would not dream of rioting.
All parents should know where their children are late at night.

Recent research shows that the average time given to a child from their parent is 49 minutes a day. 49 minutes a day? That’s less than one episode of Eastenders and Emmerdale? What is more important? Finding out if Max and Tanya (Eastenders) are going to be found out, or some extra minutes with our children?

So what needs to change to ensure children some quality and proper attention? Well we can’t change the pressures we are under, it’s a recession and prices are rising all the time. So it’s about making sure our lifestyle and routines put children first. Make use of your time cleverly by making games out of housework; singing in the car; talking about your childs hobbies and interests; looking at old family photos; weeding the garden and more. We have 7 potato peelers in our house (0.29p each) and when our children were little they would sit with us and we would all peel the potatoes together and talk. They still do but complain more now, as teenagers do. 


And most importantly. Tell them you love them, praise them and tell them they are wonderful.

A practical idea I challenge you to this week.

Check out my make a meal with your child challenge, here on my blog and have a go. Your children would love to be part of it and we will be having a display in school with your contributions first week back.

There is a £30 Tesco voucher for the winning picture or photo of your end result. But remember it has to be about spending time together, you and your children.

Enjoy 

Remember you can always contact me on head@brookhillleysprimary.notts.sch.uk for advice and support. If I can’t help, I will find someone who can.

Make Food With Your Children Challenge- £30 Prize!

Make Food With Your Children Challenge
Make the following meal with your children.
Take a photo and email to

head@brookhillleysprimary.notts.sch.uk

Or bring a photo or a drawn picture into school first week back.

One picture or photo will be chosen to win the £30 Tesco voucher
Come on we want 100 photos/pictures to put up in school!


Bangers and Mash
Fruit Jelly


Sausage, beans and mash

Just think of all the things you can talk about whilst peeling potatoes.
Potato peelers can be bought for 0.39p. Makes the job quicker and gives you time for a chat.
Mashing – who can get all the lumps out? How does it happen? Magic!
Where do potatoes come from? Shall we plant some next year and watch them grow?

Fruit filled jelly

Packet of orange jelly 0.30p or less
Tin of peaches 0.29p

This is an excellent opportunity to read instructions together, talk about what is happening and use measuring skills. Getting a child to put 100ml of water into a jug is a great skill that will help their maths.

Melt the jelly; when its cold add the peaches.

Do not go over the liquid measurements or it will not set but you can replace some of the water they say you need with the juice from the tinned fruit.

Remember pineapple placed in jelly stops it setting.

There are lots of rhymes about jelly for your tiny ones.



Jelly on a plate!
Jelly on a plate!
Wibble wobble!
Wibble wobble!
Jelly on a plate!

Sisters Act!

I am getting excited now as its only 3 days until I see my gorgeous sister , for the first time in over three years!
She lives in Singapore,South East Asia, as the children will all tell you, we often discuss Catherine.
She has three children and is expecting a baby in November.
Singapore is a wonderful country. I went to visit my sister last ten years ago , before I became afraid to fly.
The thing I like the most about Singapore (after the weather) is the clean and well behaved society.People would never dream of dropping litter, or fighting in public. They show up most respect for visitors and make them welcome and looked after.
The people of Singapore work really hard and this is the normal expectation.
Singapore has changed considerably since I was last there, my sister says I would not recognise it with huge building projects. The second best swimming pool in the world (according to some poll I read recently)opened last year at the top of a very tall hotel built in the shape of a cruise liner, on top of concrete stilts.One of the most luxurious hotels in the world, Marina Bay Sands.
They have built the pool to look as though the edge falls over the end of the building. Infinity pools I think they call them.
Singapore is set right on the equator,the invisible line that circles the globe.
Singapore has no winter or summer. It is hot and sunny all year round, usually 30 degrees.
My sister lives permanently in the summer holidays :-)
I wonder what she is making of the grim summer holiday weather we have had so far.
I keep hoping she moves back to England one day but I think she finds it too cold now. She must also be the only person in the world that I know who hasn't heard of Jedward! Passing them in the airport last week she sent me a text saying "Who are Jedi? Some funny looking boys with sticking up hair just walking past"
Anyway I have 4 days to catch up on the last three years and store up memories for the next three.
I wonder which children of Brookhill will travel the world when they are older?

Summer Holidays Give the Teachers time to Prepare

Summer Holidays the press would have you believe are spent by teachers on the beach and nothing else for 6 weeks.If that's the case our school had a lot of imposters in today, judging by the amount of staff in school.I hope the teachers get a few weeks of total break because they need it but this break actually allows for school maintenance to take place,resources to be made, lessons and new classes to be set up, plans to be made and much more.I do know teachers who count the days down and then walk out at 4 on the last day and return the first morning back ready to start planning, they are the teachers who do not inspire or enthuse our next generation and I haven't seen any of those for a while around here!Our teachers and staff are amazing. I love working in the holidays because the phone isn't so busy and my 200 emails a day reduce to only twenty.I miss the children but it gives me some quality thinking time for the bigger picture. Our School Vision and where we are going;

Well it was a fantastic end to what has been my second year at Brookhill! I knew it was the best school in the world and now we are proving it!
Further improved SATs results
(English up from 44% 2 years ago to 88%)
Brilliantly behaved children and a really good fun packed learning experience right up until the last day.

Sports days; School World War two Production; Arts Carnival; Galleries of Justice; visiting birds or prey and owls; Holocaust museum; picnic in the park; Tai Chi the list is endless and just wait until next year! We already have booked our new Y6 for a weeks residential to The Isle of Wight. Y4 will be swimming. Y2 will be taking part in Tai Chi; many trips out and visitors in are planned. If you have any ideas let me know.

I have never had so many Y6 children come up to me and say things like “Can you put me back a year so I can stay here?…do we have to go?... can you open a Y7?...I’m not moving!...” brilliant! They are a credit to their families and we are very, very proud of them.

Year 6 this year have been amazing. We have some real stars leaving us and will be very sad to see them go but wish them well in their new schools. They are scattered far and wide this year as a few of our families move house over the summer.

Thank you to all the parents for their patience and support whilst my office team have been sorting out a very tricky uniform order. Our new uniform looks FANTASTIC! However the jumpers arrived, 700 of them, and were not all the correct sizes. The ties arrived and the silver and purple looked sky and royal blue! That’s because they WERE! They had produced 400 ties of the WRONG colour. Not a good start I hear you say. Well this company were the best quality for the price we wanted to pay and gave us excellent guarantees. We shall be working with them to ensure it doesn’t happen again and will look into reasons for staying with them when there are hundreds of suppliers out there. This will not affect you as uniform is being stocked in school from September.

The new uniform policy will be on the website by the end of the week and very clearly shows the new uniform expectations based on our consultations and final feedback.

We cannot wait to see a picture of purple and silver, proud, smart and incredible children coming through those school gates on Tuesday 6th September.

I am off to the garden centre today, after spending some time looking at our new curriculum for September and thinking about the school vegetable patch and how to ensure we have vegetables growing all year, I want to go and look what’s out there.Every class is going to have their own vegetable patch this year, a bit of competition. I may even grow some winter vegetables myself, although my beetroots did not do well this year, my gooseberries have been eaten and my rhubarb has died. (I need a gardening book.)One of our parents presented Miss Cox with the most wonderful bouquet of flowers, picked from her own garden,on the last day of term. I think I need gardening tips from that mum!

I have done some gardening this week and get better every year. term has been so busy the garden did get a little neglected, oh yes and the Sun seems to have disappeared again, hopefully not for long.

I've now got some extra space around my pond to fill where Mr. S has created a sunken ledge, so I have to find a pond plant to put there now. I’ll post a photo later.

Hoping that you enjoy the summer time you get with your children, whether that’s day time, evenings or weekend. Make the most of it, they grow so fast!

Are we nearly there yet? Are we nearly there?

What do parents think about school residentials?
Which year group do you feel they would be of most benefit?
How many nights away should it be?
They are expensive, what’s the most you think is reasonable to pay?
What do you see as the purpose of a residential?
We are just starting to explore the future of residentials at Brookhill and value of them to our children.
I have taken children from Y3 to Y6 to residentials and found that they were a good bonding activity at the start of a year and that every year group enjoyed them and got a lot out of them.

Where should it be? Derbyshire? Wales? Isle of Wight? Holland? Yorkshire?

Email your views, we want to know. head@brookhillleysprimary.notts.sch.uk then we can make an informed choice with your views included.