Autumn Parents and Carers

The Active Learning Trust

Newsletter www.activelearningtrust.org

Autumn Term 2023 Welcome to the Autumn Term issue of our newsletter for all parents and carers across The Active Learning Trust.

With Christmas just around the corner and a very busy term behind us, I am sure you will all be looking forward to the school holidays. Over these last few days of term I know our schools have some wonderful performances, concerts and celebrations planned which I hope everyone will really enjoy.

As ever at the end of term, and particularly at this time of year, it is important that we find a moment to reflect on all that our children and young people have achieved, in and out of school, and look forward to the fresh start offered to us all by a new year ahead.

For me, the arrival of the new term in January will mark the first anniversary of me joining The Active Learning Trust and beginning this exciting and fulfilling journey with all of our amazing pupils, families and staff. I look forward to continuing this with you all into 2024.

A very Merry Christmas to you and your families, and thank you for your support throughout the year.

Lynsey Holzer Chief Executive Officer

Join our team in 2024!

You can view all the current job vacancies across the Active Learning Trust in one place.

So if you would like to join one of our friendly and supportive teams based at a school near you, click here to search today!

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We are The Active Learning Trust....

Albert Pye Primary School - Chantry Academy - Chesterton Primary School - Cromwell Community College - Earith Primary School - Grove Primary School - Gusford Primary School - Highfield Ely Academy - Highfield Littleport Academy - Hillside Primary School - Isle of Ely Primary School - Kingsfield Primary School - Neale Wade Academy Pakefield Primary School - Ravensmere Infant School - Red Oak Primary School - Reydon Primary School - Sidegate Primary School - Westwood Primary School

Earith Primary School, Earith Earith Primary School has been continuing to celebrate a culture of reading, wonderfully captured in Mrs M’s Reading Blog. Here you can find out all about the school’s themed activities including Spooky Legend (pictured), Roald Dahl Day and a brilliant competition to design a new logo for the popular book club.

Pakefield Primary School, Lowestoft Every spring the children eagerly await the announcement of the new theme for Lowestoft in Bloom and this year was no exception. As soon as the news was announced our school garden became a hive of industrious activity. We planted the wheelbarrow full of plants to make it ‘bold and bright’ and made a scarecrow to resemble George the giant from one of our favourite Julia Donaldson’s books ‘The Smartest Giant in Town’.

After months of working together we are proud to announce that we have received 4 trophies this year. We were presented with a staggering 3 gold awards for the best scarecrow, the best wheelbarrow display, the best planting and growing diary and a silver award for best fruit and vegetable garden. The Lowestoft in Bloom committee also recognised the children's continued hard work by presenting them with an additional Sidegate Primary School, Ipswich award for the best overall primary school.

Chantry Academy, Ipswich Year 9 History students and four members of staff recently had the opportunity to experience life in the trenches on a trip to Ypres, Belgium. The students explored the impact of WW1, the conditions of the trenches, and how the conflict impacted the local geography. We are immensely proud of the students, who were a credit to the academy.

Our Year 7 girls have had a school record breaking start to their time at Chantry Academy with their recent football success. They have gone unbeaten in Suffolk at both U12 and U13 age groups. The achievements include beating the whole of Suffolk in the EFL Girls Cup at Portman Road. They will go on to represent Ipswich Town FC at the next stage of the tournament. Their success has also continued Nationally, reaching the last 16 of the National Cup for the first time in the school’s history. The squad is made up of 15 girls and everyone has contributed to the success so far. As a PE Department and School we are very excited for what is to come in the new year and thank everyone at Chantry, the Trust and Community for their support.

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Kingsfield Primary School, Chatteris Following the arrival of Miss Green as the school’s new Headteacher, we have launched our six new school values which our children can define and can even share in BSL. There have been lots of opportunities for parents and carers to come into school. At our Friday assemblies there is a great turn out each week with adults coming to the front of the hall to celebrate with their child. Parents and carers have also been in school for a phonics morning and new Reception open day.

Mrs MacNeil, our PE Lead, has also arranged a number of sporting opportunities for our children to participate in competitions this term, with the tag rugby team winning their latest tournament!

Albert Pye Community Primary School, Beccles Congratulations to the Year Four children who took part in 'The Big Sing' at Snape Maltings in November. It was a fantastic opportunity to sing alongside other Suffolk primary and secondary schools and be led by vocal experts. There was even rehearsing and singing on the coach!

The children have been coming together for extra curricular activities - including the new Give It A Go Club where they have enjoyed making new friends and trying new activities.

Ravensmere Infant School, Beccles Ravensmere held their first Bedtime Stories events, along with Albert Pye. Staff, children and families came together after school and enjoyed stories and hot chocolate.

Children representing Ravensmere and Albert Pye did a fantastic job paying their respects at the Remembrance Parade in Beccles with both schools laying wreaths.

Hillside Primary School, Ipswich Pupils and staff from Hillside Primary school and Nursery in Ipswich had an inspiring visit from their local MP, Tom Hunt. Tom gave an engaging talk about his job as a member of parliament and the ethos of public service, community and responsibility.

Tom said, “It was lovely to visit Hillside Primary School. The pupils were really engaged and asked me some brilliant questions about my job. I was particularly impressed with the School Council’s ideas for spreading kindness throughout Ipswich!”.

Isle of Ely Primary School, Ely We are very proud of Miss Lewis, our Early Years and Reception Lead, who won ‘Best Teacher’ at the 2023 Ely Hero Awards. In the nominations received, Miss Lewis was described as being fun and enthusiastic and a firm favourite of pupils and was recognised for her kind and respectful manner along with her strong work ethic.

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Neale Wade Academy, March Our amazing student leaders and staff raised over £1,000 for Children In Need and a local cancer charity by organising and competing in a football match. In an exciting game, ‘AFC Baxter’ beat opposition team ‘Ambler United’ 7-6 in a tense penalty shoot-out, after the game finished 3-3 at full time. PE Teacher, Mr Young, was crowned ‘Player of the Match’!

Westwood Primary School, Lowestoft Along with Grove Primary School, we recently received the prestigious ‘HSBC Smart Money Award 2023’, in recognition of our commitment to the financial education of our pupils. We were praised for our continued focus on developing an age-appropriate understanding of finance, working in partnership with HSBC, who have been actively involved in visiting the schools to assist in delivering the sessions.

The goal is to develop pupils’ financial knowledge, skills and attitudes for a successful financial future.

Chesterton Primary School, Cambridge We are developing strong links and connections with external agencies to strengthen practice in EYFS by working with Early Excellence, New Wave English Hub and Ark Curriculum Plus. We also received a National Online Safety Certified School Accreditation for our whole school community approach to protecting children in the online world. In addition, we received National Mental Health & Wellbeing Accreditation for successfully engaging the whole school in building a culture where mental health and wellbeing is placed at the heart of decision making.

Red Oak Primary School, Lowestoft We came second place in Active Suffolk’s School of the Year, we have won four years in a row so we were pleased to see the success of another school.

At our school Safety Day, we welcomed Paramedics, Medical Mavericks, a Police Officer and Road Safety Officers. Our pupils learnt about basic first aid, safety around water, electricity within the community and staying visible in the dark.

On our Geography field day, our pupils found out about the locality and made comparisons with other localities. This included Y6 taking the train to Norwich and visiting the Cathedral, the Castle and many other areas.

We also held a community afternoon where each year group contributed to the community including litter picking, beach combing, visiting a local care home, singing for the community and much more.

We have also qualified for the Dodgeball County Final with our Y4 pupils.

Highfield Littleport Academy, Littleport We are delighted to have been recognised for our achievements in promoting sustainable travel and developing school travel plans in the Modeshift STARS Regional Awards. We won the Modeshift STARS SEN School of Cambridgeshire and School of the Region awards and will now go on to represent the local area in person at the National STARS School Travel Awards in London in March 2024!

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Cromwell Community College, Chatteris On Friday 10th November, pupils and staff at Cromwell Community College came together to host a Service of Remembrance for the local community. Guests were treated to refreshments in the Learning Hub prior to the service. Stories about local servicemen who sadly lost their lives during the conflicts were included in the service, as well as a stunning performance of ‘Enigma’ from our Secondary Phase Orchestra and a beautiful rendition of ‘Imagine’ performed by our Primary Phase Choir.

Other exciting events this term included Year 2 children meeting HRH The Princess Royal at a local event. Her helicopter even landed on the Cromwell school field!

Sidegate Primary School, Ipswich On our Wear A Uniform Day, children that are members of a club/organisation/team outside of school were able to wear the uniform/kit/etc of that club/organisation.

This was a great way for children to celebrate and share their experiences of belonging to a club/organisation/team with members of their class, to publicise the clubs/organisations/teams that are available to children locally and our staff got to know more about the interests of the children in their classes/year groups.

Highfield Ely Academy, Ely It’s been a very busy term at Highfield Ely - one of our Teachers, Michelle Davey, was runner up in the National SEND awards for her Let’s Talk Autism podcast. We were then delighted to receive a platinum award for Safeguarding from Incyte and our KS4 students recently put their entrepreneurial skills to the test at our Christmas fair (pictured left).

Reydon Primary School, Reydon nr Southwold We were delighted to raise money for The Alzheimer's Society with our Elf Day! The day was really well supported across the school and everywhere we looked we were surrounded by elves which was fantastic. 60 of our Year 5 and 6 elves even spent their day ice skating in their fancy dress! Thank you to everyone involved.

Gusford Primary School, Ipswich We are pleased to have a tree at the St Francis Christmas Tree Festival, an event which the Grandmother of one of our pupils helps organise. All the Gusford children who have visited our tree have tried to spot the Gusford Knight hidden in its branches to win a special Christmas badge!

Grove Primary School, Lowestoft This term we have been very busy on trips out. EYFS visited the pantomime at Seagull Theatre for the performance of Santa's Magic Key. Lower Key Stage 2 visited Norwich Castle where the children had a brilliant time learning all about the Ancient Egyptians. They found out about the importance of the River Nile, who built the pyramids, mummification and the hierarchy in Egyptian society. They also linked their DT to history and the children designed, made and evaluated a sarcophagus. In Upper Key Stage 2 they visited West Stow to enhance their learning about Anglo-Saxons. From their learning on the day they have then come back into school inspired to create their own Anglo-Saxon village in their DT learning.

We also had the opportunity to sing carols in our community for Kingsley Home Care in Lowestoft High Street a great way to kick start the festive season.

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Meet a Trainee Teacher!

Jonny, Red Oak Primary School “There has been a beautiful balance of learning and support which has meant for me that I never feel too far out of my depth.

Yes, the learning curve I am on is steep but, I am enjoying every day in the structure laid out by the course. My favourite achievement so far honestly, has been the building of relationships and foundations with pupils which in turn has helped me find the value in teaching. I come home and say to myself, I felt influential when teaching today and left an impression on young minds”.

Could this be you next year? Click here to find out more today!

Train to Teach Roadshow Our Train to Teach Roadshow will be heading out to Ipswich and Cambridgeshire in January!

Confirmed dates so far are: 4th January, 2pm: Gusford Primary School, Ipswich 5th January, 2pm: Hillside Primary School, Ipswich 8th January, 2pm: Sidegate Primary School, Ipswich If you are interested in starting your journey into teaching in 2024 please come along and chat to our friendly staff! You can also find out more online here.

Active Learning Trust c/o Cromwell Community College Wenny Road, Chatteris Cambridgeshire, PE16 6UU Info@activelearningtrust.org 01354 697485

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