Reaching high for the best for your child

This year's Summer Reading Challenge is still going ahead and has been redesigned as a digital version.

Let's Get Silly launched on Friday 5th June and will run into September.

Join a host of mad cap animal characters in The Silly Squad and celebrate books that make us happy and laugh.

Register for free on the Silly Squad website, a safe and secure platform set up by The Reading Agency.

Children will be able to set their own reading goal, collect virtual rewards and unlock activities.

This year children may read anything - from library to school books, ebooks or e-audio. We have a great selection to choose from in our BorrowBox digital library.

So get set to get silly and have loads of fun this summer!

This year, Fairlands have been working with Stevenage Sporting Futures (SSF) to enable children to participate in competitions and events across the town and have access to a wider range of sports and instructors. At the end of each year, SSF hold an annual awards evening with guest presenters and representatives from both secondary and primary schools from Stevenage and the surrounding areas. Unfortunately, this will not be able to happen in the same way this year and will be a recorded event; however, they will still hold the same prestige!

We nominated Scarlett (Y6) for the Young Sports Achiever of the Year and yesterday we were informed with the fantastic news that she has been shortlisted out of all of the nominations from Stevenage primary schools! Scarlett was nominated for the wide range of sports she participates in. She regularly represents the school at sporting competitions, festivals and events in a variety of sports.

Outside of school, Scarlett has had great success in both rugby and cricket. She now plays for Welwyn Rugby Club, both the U11 Mixed and U11 Girls Squads. In her first season at her new club, she has scored a total of 36 tries, a new season record! Scarlett also plays cricket to an incredibly high standard, representing both Stevenage Cricket Club and Hertfordshire County U13 Girls. Her dedication towards cricket in particular, is extremely strong. She trains all year round and follows national teams with passion, trying to pick up tips for how to develop her own practice.

We are looking forward to seeing what she achieves in the future. Cricket or rugby, we will be watching with anticipation and pride! We are incredibly proud of her and no matter what the result is on the evening, she should be proud of herself for being shortlisted as it is a fantastic achievement. Well done Scarlett, the Fairlands community congratulate you!

We have also discovered that we have been shortlisted by SSF for the SSFT award. This is an award to celebrate the commitment and enthusiasm shown by a school for the events arranged throughout the year. Fairlands have had the opportunity to participate in a wide range of activities and the children have done so eagerly and showing great sportsmanship. Activities included ball skills for Year 1; UKS2 cross-country tournament; fitness sessions for Y3; multi sports for Y4; a Sports Relief activity morning for EYFS, staff gymnastics training and a 5-week healthy lives program for Year 2. Fairlands, you represented the school incredibly well – thank you and well done!

The winners of the awards will be announced on Wednesday July 15^th – keep your fingers crossed!

You might remember that at the beginning of the year, we consulted with you on our new Relationships, Sex and Health Education policy. This was agreed with governors back in March and we will therefore be continuing to implement the Jigsaw programme over the summer term. 

The mental health elements of the programme are more important than ever right now, so we will be making sure your child can access this learning, whether it is through learning on site or at home.

The summer term Jigsaw Puzzles are: 'Relationships', which includes understanding friendship, family and other relationships, conflict resolution and communication skills; and 'Changing Me', which includes looking at and managing change, and sex education elements in Years 4, 5 and 6.

Where sex education content is being delivered through home learning, we will will provide parents and carers with all the resources to talk this through at home, so please keep an eye out for these later this term.

For the whole of June, we will be thinking about kindess.

Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, said: “a single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees.”

What can you do at school and at home to be kind and to spread more kindness?

Please head over to Facebook and take a look at our new page HERE!

We are going to be changing the way we use our Facebook presence... there won't be any more automatic posts and we will be posting content more regularly, so please hit LIKE and FOLLOW to keep in touch!

Please find attached the results to the spot-check survey about our current home learning arrangements.

Thank you to everyone who responded!

It was good to see that most parents/carers feel we are sending out about the right amount of work. We will be starting to include an optional extension activity in each weekly blog for those parents who feel there could be a bit more for the children to do. We are also going to start sending out weekly phonics and spelling activities so keep an eye out for those. 

Nearly all parents/carers have access to the technology & wifi/data needed for the online activities. We will continue to provide offline activities for those who don't. 

11% of parents don’t feel confident in helping their child. That's fine! It's a while since you were in school! We will make sure our blogs include simple explanations and examples where needed, or definitions of technical words which parents/carers might not know.

96% of parents have had all the resources they need for the activities we have set so far. We will continue to be mindful that it is tricky to get hold of some resources during this period of lockdown.

VIEW THE RESULTS HERE