We are very proud of our high attendance figures which we have now maintained for a number of years.  We are similarly proud of our good levels of punctuality.  These figures are the result of effective policies to promote good attendance and punctuality which are fully supported by the vast majority of our parents.

Whilst we understand that everyone can have the occasional ‘late’, there are currently a small number of children who are late on a regular basis.  To remind everyone, school starts at 8.55am every day.  Lessons begin promptly at 9am.  All children who arrive at school after 8.55am must enter school via the main entrance. Please do not disturb lessons by knocking on classroom doors or windows to gain entry to the building.

Pupils who continue to be late on a regular basis will be contacted by letter and asked to attend a meeting with the Headteacher and Education Welfare Officer (EWO).

No doubt parents are acutely aware that the current building work at the end of Kynder Street has compounded an already difficult car parking and congestion situation.  Clearly, this has had a negative impact on yourselves, the children, residents, school staff and the parish community.  I have spoken to the Council and the police about the matter.  They council have agreed to discuss the matter at the next PACT (Police and Community Together) meeting.  This meeting will be attended by local councillors and I urge you to express your individual concerns to the councillors in an attempt to seek a positive resolution to this potentially very dangerous situation.

For the safety of the children and adults walking to school, please do not park on the yellow zig zag lines outside school. Please be extra cautious when driving in the area around school.  We have had numerous reports of cars mounting the pavements which is extremely dangerous for all concerned.

400834 St Marys RC v7 Published Report

Congratulations to all our ‘Dragons’ Den Companies’  who made an overall profit of £212.93 at the Dragons’ Den market.

Each company has submitted their results sheet and the breakdown is as follows:

Following our inspection on 3rd and 4th July 2013, Ofsted have St. Mary’s to be ‘Outstanding’ across all four areas of inspection (Achievement of pupils, Quality of teaching, Behaviour and safety of pupils and Leadership and management).

Summary of key findings

This is an outstanding school.

• Achievement is outstanding. Pupils leave the school with well above average standards in English and mathematics.
• All groups of pupils make outstanding progress from broadly typical starting points on entry to the nursery class.
• Teaching is frequently outstanding and never less than good.
• The school provides very well for those children with additional or specialist learning needs.
• The range of learning opportunities is excellent.
• Behaviour is outstanding. Pupils are very involved in ensuring that behaviour remains outstanding across the school. Pupils feel safe in school.
• Teachers responsible for particular areas of the curriculum have very good specialist subject knowledge.
• The school is very good at helping teachers and other adult assistants to improve their practice, and has high expectations of them.
• Leaders and managers, and especially the headteacher and governors, have a very clear understanding of the school’s strengths and weaknesses and have driven significant improvement forward since the previous inspection.
• The school has a very positive atmosphere, in which learning, sharing and caring for each other are highly valued and demonstrated.

Congratulations to all our Young Entrepreneurs on a very successful Dragons’ Den event. Every team made a profit out of the Dragons’ initial investment. The combined profit was £200.50 which has delighted all the Dragons and they have decided that School Council may choose how to spend or invest the profit.  The winning team will be announced at the Presentation Assembly on Friday 19th July.

Many thanks also to the PTA for organising the barbecue, tombolas and games. The whole event was a great success.

The Department for Education (DfE) has announced important news to legislation surrounding holidays in term time.

From September 2013, the new law gives no entitlement to parents to take their child on holiday during term time.  Any application for leave must only be in exceptional circumstances. It is clear that Headteachers are not to be expected to class any term time holiday as exceptional.  The reason for this change in legislation is that in 2011-2012, 9.7% of all absences in England were due to parents taking their children out of school during term time.

As a school, we fully appreciate the financial difficulties that some parents face when booking holidays, particularly during the school holidays.  Nevertheless, there is a clear expectation from the DfE that all school have firm policies in this respect and that school policies will be subject to stringent checks.

At St. Mary’s, we are in a fortunate position – absence figures are low.  This is due to the excellent support we receive from our parents who do not take their children out of school during term time. Nevertheless, we will apply the new legislation to the very small number of parents who do take their children out of school.  In support of this, the Governing body has also taken the decision, from September to fine any parent who takes their children on holiday during term time.

On Friday 12th July, we held a Hinduism Day in school where children from F2 up to year six developed their understanding of the religion. The work links with our Catholic RE curriculum where all classes study other world religions in the summer term. Treebunganunda was the Hindu presenter who wowed us with a range of interesting stories, opportunities to dress as Hindu Gods and the chance to meet other Hindus from different countries. There was also a focus on Diwali, the children will continue working on the religions in their own classrooms!

These images sample a few of the amazing things we did during the day!

St. Mary’s was inspected by OfSTED on 3rd and 4th July. The team were led by Dr Nigel Cromey – Hawke.  The report should be available before the end of term.

We have been working hard this year to develop our music provision at St. Mary’s and our Music Showcase gave us a wonderful opportunity to show the results of our endeavours to our parents.  Each class performed a piece based on their curriculum music work.  We also had performances from our Y5 Guitar Ensemble, KS1 Dance/ Drama After School Club and School Choir.  Years 5 and 6 also provided a taster of more to come – with a selection of songs from ‘A Dickens of a Tale’.  Thank you to everyone who was able to come along to watch this event.

The children from Years 5 and 6 had a great time camping at Linnet Clough recently with Mr Hanson, Mr Whittle, Mrs Wilson and Miss Wilson.  The children had a go at numerous outdoor activities (hiking, archery, shooting, high ropes).  The highlight of the trip was the campfire barbecue.  After a very, very early start the next morning – the children arrived back at school tired but happy!

Congratulations to Jessica Bailey who won the Victoria Park Poster Competition held across three Denton schools.  Jessica has won an Ipod. The competition was organised by Greater Manchester Police to promote safe use of the park for all age groups.  Jessica’s poster is on display in the noticeboard in our playground as well as in Victoria Park.  Thank you to all the children who entered.  PCSO Chris Rogers said the competition standard was very high.

Congratulations to Mr Andrew Whittle on his appointment as Deputy Headteacher of St. Mary’s.  Mr Whittle will take up his post in September.  We wish him every success in his new position at St. Mary’s.

St. Mary’s was a sea of red today, as the entire school wore something red for Comic Relief. There were also some interesting outfits inspired by the 80s, as it is the 25th anniversary. The school raised a magnificent £145, which will be sent off to Comic Relief to help children less fortunate than ourselves. Well done and thank you to everyone.

After a long wait, it finally happened – The Young Voices Concert at the MEN Arena. Our School Choir had a fantastic time singing and dancing the night away.They sang perfectly having rehearsed in their weekly choir sessions with Miss Harrison.  Miss Harrison made her debut in the Teachers’ Choir and also really enjoyed the evening.

The School Choir had a fantastic time at the Young Vices Concert at the MEN Arena.  They thoroughly enjoyed singing and dancing and their behaviour was exemplary.  Thank you to Miss Harrison, Mrs Farrell and Miss Wilson who accompanied the children on the trip.

This term we launched our ‘Its Good to be Green’ whole school positive behaviour management scheme.  The aim of the scheme is to recognise and reward individual children’s consistent high standards of behaviour.  The scheme has proved popular with both children and staff.  Congratulations to the children who have ‘stayed on green’ for the past half term.  They have been rewarded with an ‘Its Good To Be Green’ certificate this week.  Certificates will continue to be awarded on a half termly basis with children who have ‘stayed on green’ throughout the year receiving a special prize at the Presentation Assembly in July.

In keeping with an old Easter tradition and Denton’s fame for hat making, we invite our EYFS and KS1 children to make an Easter Bonnet at home for our annual parade.  Weather permititng, the parade will be held outside.  The children who take part will be rewarded with an Easter Egg kindly donated by Rogerson Galvin Solicitors.  All welcome..

Our excellent KS2 SAT results have received recognition in both the national and local media.

• In December 2012, the BBC website reported that St. Mary’s was amongst the 100 most improved schools nationally, based on a 3 year trend.
• Also, on the BBC website, we are ranked 153 nationally in terms of pupil attainment.
• The Manchester Evening News reported that St. Mary’s was one of only 31 schools in Greater Manchester where 100% of pupils achieved Level 4 or above in both English and Maths at the end of Year 6.
• The Tameside Advertiser also ran an article in praise of our success.

Everyone associated with St. Mary’s can feel justifiably proud of our success and achievements. These results are indicative of the hard work, talent, creativity and commitment of everyone involved with our school, not least the children themselves – for this a sincere thank you.

As part of our new and exciting developments in the music curriculum at St Mary’s, Key Stage Two visited the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester to listen to the world famous Halle Orchestra!

Many of the children were inspired to learn how to play an instrument and have now booked a course with Tameside Music Service. Our curriculum showcase event in the summer will give everyone the chance to listen to their new skills in action!

Year five will perform alongside the Halle in July, playing in front of over 1000 people to present the work from their twenty week ensemble lessons.

We have been awarded £10,000 from ‘Awards for All’ to put towards the redevelopment of the site of the former mobile classrooms.  This money has been matched funded by school and the PTA.  We are now working with a landscape design team to redevelop the area into additional play space for the children.

New Behaviour Schemes: ‘It’s Good To Be Green’ and ‘Class Compliments’

We have launched a new behaviour scheme in school called ‘It’s Good To Be Green’. The scheme is designed to recognise and reward consistent good behaviour.

How the scheme works: Each class has a ‘It’s Good To Be Green’ chart displayed in their classroom. Each child has their name with a green card displayed in a pocket on the chart. The green card says ‘It’s Good To Be Green!’ and the children will associate being ‘on green’ with a positive feeling of having done the right thing.

If, however, during the day, a child has to be ‘warned’ about inappropriate behaviour, then the green card is replaced with a yellow warning card. This warning gives the child an opportunity to reflect and consider their behaviour and make sure they don’t repeat the inappropriate behaviour. If a child receives a second warning, the yellow card is replaced with an orange warning card and he or she will miss their playtime. Should a further incident arise, the warning card is replaced with a red consequences card and the child will have to go and see the Headteacher or Deputy Headteacher (in her absence). Parents will also be informed. Serious misdemeanors are rare at St. Mary’s, but should one occur, a child would go straight to ‘red’ and his or her parents informed.

To reassure you, the vast majority of children are polite, well behaved children who are kind and generous to each other and this scheme will recognise and reward these pupils for their consistent excellent behaviour. Each child who stays ‘on green’ will be rewarded with an ‘It’s Good To Be Green’ certificate at the end of each half term. Children who stay ‘on green’ for the duration of the school year will receive a special prize at our end of year Presentation assembly.

Through this scheme we are encouraging the children to take responsibility for their own behaviour and to develop independence of thought in choosing their own correct behaviour. We are running this scheme alongside our new ‘Class Compliments’ system which rewards whole class excellence in behaviour. Each class has agreed a target number of compliments and a ‘treat’ with their class teacher. Compliments can be given by any any adult in school or any visitor to school when every member of the class is observed choosing to do ‘the right thing’. We have trialled the schemes successfully last term in some of our classes and are now rolling the system out to all our KS1 and KS2 classes.

We would appreciate your support in discussing these systems with your child at home and perhaps asking them the question ‘have you stayed ‘on green’ today?’ when you collect him or her from school.

Term ended with the School Choir singing Carols Around the Christmas Tree for the whole school.  The parents of the children in the Choir also joined us and enjoyed a mince pie or two.  The children sang beautifully and reminded us of the joy and hope the Christmas season brings.

With the publication of the league tables, we were delighted to find out that we were the top performing primary school in Tameside in 2012.  We amongst 31 schools in Greater Manchester whose pupils attained the expected standard of Level 4 in both English and Maths in their end of KS2 tests.  A significant proportion of our pupils exceeded this standard attained both Level 5 in English and Maths. Ten per cent of our children attained Level 6 in maths.

This fantastic achievement is testimony to the progress we have made as a school over the last three years.  As a result we are one of the top 100 most improved schools in the country.  My thanks to all our members of staff whose talent, dedication and hard work has secured these outcomes.  My thanks also to our parents who are so supportive of our work and not least to our enthusiastic children who come to school every day with a determination to work hard and succeed as well as have fun.

Thank you to all the parents who have returned their child’s School Asthma Card. Cards have been issued to children who have been diagnosed with asthma by a health professional.  The Asthma Card helps us to support your child more effectively in the management of his or her condition.  Please return your child’s Asthma Card to school, if you have not already done so.

Our pupil surveys and interviews with children tell us that the vast majority of children enjoy coming to school and feel safe.   November was anti bullying month and we held a series of events and special lessons to raise the children’s awareness of issues realed to bullying (including cyber bullying).  The children were taught to recognise the different forms of bullying and were advised of what to do if they were being bullied in school or outside of school.  We also dealt with the issue of the bystander and the role he or she could play in resolving bullying related issues.

As part of our work on ‘Internationalism’  we arranged two workshops for our KS2 children.  As so many of our pupils take part in martial arts after school, we offered them the opportunity to explore the different forms of ‘Martial Arts Around the World’ and to try out a new activity.  We were also delighted to welcome back the International Society who ran a series of workshops in the school hall which gave the children an insight into the lifestyle and culture of different countries from around the world.

Every year, Primary and Secondary Schools in Denton & Audenshaw, are invited to take part in the District Assembly’s Young Artist Project.

Participating schools are asked to submit ten pieces of children’s artwork from across the school.  From these ten pieces, two will be chosen by the District Assembly to be professionally framed and hung in Denton Town Hall for one year.  The successful artist and their parents will be invited to a short presentation evening.  Which will take place on Wednesday the 11th July 2012.

These are the ten pieces of artwork that have been selected this year.