Head of School Blog

I hope that you have had a good weekend.

On Saturday night, I attended the Sage Gateshead to watch the Royal Northern Sinfonia perform The Queen Symphony, composed and conducted by Tolga Kashif.

Visiting the amazing Sage Gateshead brought back so many memories from our successful Morpeth Partnership ‘Night at the Movies’ event in November. On Saturday night there were about 150 performers on stage – how on earth did we fit 500 students in that space?

Tolga is a renowned composer and conductor and was responsible for the BBC Children in Need’s outstandingly successful single, Perfect Day. He also wrote the huge orchestral and choral piece based on the music of Queen, undertaken at the commission of EMI Classics and with the full blessing of the surviving members of the band. Since the world premiere, it has become a success worldwide. To me this was a truly inspirational evening.

In June 2015, the students of Chantry & Newminster will be performing We Will Rock You. Rehearsals have already started on a Monday evening and I am amazed by the level of performance already by the students. The sound coming from the various rehearsal rooms is fantastic and I am really excited for the show. Thank you to Ms Jones, Mrs Wilson and Mrs Woolley for co-ordinating the event. Ms Jones has also arranged for students from the Performing Arts department at Newcastle College to work with our students which is a wonderful opportunity, for all involved.

We should be very proud of the music opportunities offered at Chantry. Mrs Woolley in her role as Creative Arts Leader has engaged extremely well with the Music North Northumberland hub. Currently we offer ceilidh, brass, steel pans and strings ensembles as well as a range of peripatetic music teachers, who come into school every week to offer a range of lessons. We are also home to the Ellington Colliery Band. We will be presenting a celebration of our ensemble groups in a performance in Chantry school hall on Thursday 30th April – watch this space for more details.

If you wish to find out more about any music opportunities at Chantry please do not hesitate to contact Mrs Woolley or Mrs Wilson through the school office.

May I take this opportunity to thank you for your support this half term and wish you all a relaxing and peaceful half term holiday. Please remember that the half term holiday startsat 3.30pm on Thursday 12th February and school reopens on Monday 23rd February at 8.55am.

With best wishes for the coming week

Steven Johnson

I hope that you have had a good weekend.

You will have received your child’s first progress report through email last week and will have the opportunity to see your child’s subject teachers at parent’s evening either tomorrow evening or on Thursday 12th February.

It was great to see that the majority of students had made at least expected progress in the first half of the school year across the curriculum. I hope that you will enjoy talking to the staff about how you can support your child to meet their end of year targets.

Thank you for supporting us in aiming to be a paper free school and receiving reports through email but remember to keep us informed if you change your contact details. Please contact Mrs Pringle in the school office and we will update our records.

You may know that the Government have instructed all school to implement a new assessment model from September 2015, which does not include levels to report progress as we currently do. Our staff have been working really hard to research new assessment models and we will be writing to you after Easter with our new proposal. We have had numerous meetings including ones with the Morpeth Partnership of Schools to agree a common assessment model. Staff will be spending the Teacher Training Day on 13th February developing assessment activities and tasks to support the new curriculum and assessment model.

I will be hosting a Parents Forum on Monday 9th February at 1.30pm – please come along if you have any issues that you would like to discuss with me. Please contact Mrs Pringle in the school office if you intend to come along.

I do hope that you will take the time to read February’s newsletter which will be published on Friday.

With best wishes for the coming week

Steven Johnson

I hope that you have had a good weekend.

I cannot emphasise the importance of hearing your child read every day, as encouraged through our homework policy. Being able to read is so important to being able to access the whole of the curriculum. It is so frustrating and very sad that nearly one in five of the UK population are so poor at reading and writing that they cannot read a medicine label or use a chequebook.

I can’t remember how I learnt to read at school but remember being read to every day at school by one of my teachers, Mrs Hindson. She read a variety of books to us at the end of the day on the class carpet, from a variety of genres including Charlie & The Chocolate Factory and The Hobbit. She really encouraged us to have a love for literature and develop an enquiring mind by asking lots of questions about what we were reading. It has also been lovely to see my own niece (who is 6 years old) learn to read. She is developing every day and it has been amazing to see how the teaching of phonics and the sounding out of words in the early years, has allowed her to use these skills to access a number of texts with confidence.

At Chantry, we have a big emphasis on the importance of reading. This week is our annual Book Fair. All the children will have a time to visit the fair with their teacher during the next three days and will have the opportunity to buy a book. I do hope that they will take the opportunity to do this as Mrs Inverarity has promised me there will be a fantastic range of books on the shelves. I have to admit I do like to see a child with a book in their hands, rather than reading on a Kindle or from a computer screen. The school will receive commission on any books sold and in return we will purchase books for our own class libraries and to use in lessons.

Since January, the Three Rivers Learning Trust has introduced the Accelerated Reader scheme in Year 5 at Chantry and in Year 9 at The King Edward High School. This will be rolled out to all year groups at Chantry in September 2015. Please click here to find out more information on the Accelerated Reader scheme.

Next week, Mrs Inverarity will be taking a group of children to the North East Teenage Book Awards at the Centre for Life on Thursday evening. They will have the opportunity to meet a number of authors and ask them questions about their books. I do hope they have a good evening!

You should have received your child’s first progress report today through email. You have the opportunity to see your child’s subject teachers at Parent’s Evening on either Tuesday 3rd February or Thursday 12th February. Please read the letter sent out via your child for more information.

With best wishes for the coming week

Steven Johnson

I hope that you enjoyed reading my first blog last week.

Parents and carers play a very important part in realising our vision at Chantry to be an outstanding school. I am delighted with the results of our annual parental questionnaire. Please visit the school website for the collated results and a copy of our action plan. I was particularly pleased with the headline figures which included 96% of parents or carers who strongly agreed or agreed that they are happy with their experience at Chantry.

Please remember that there are a number of ways to become involved in the life of Chantry. I have two Parent Forums every term. This is the opportunity to come into school and discuss any issues you may have over a coffee. Last time we had a really good discussion about whether parents perceive Chantry is a healthy school ( interestingly they all did!) The dates for this term are Monday 9th February at 1.30pm and Tuesday 17th March at 10.15am. Please come along!

I am indebted to the work of the Chantry Parents Association who work very hard to raise money for the students at Chantry, in particular Mrs Alison Eltringham Davison and Mrs Gill Miller, Chair and Treasurer respectively. Over £2500 was raised in the run up to Christmas from a variety of activities. This will be used to buy resources for the students. Our next meeting will be held in school on Tuesday 27th January at 7pm to discuss the events for the Spring Term which will include a Valentine’s Disco, Easter Disco and Mothering Service and Coffee Morning. We urgently need parents to shadow the committee as both Alison and Gill will be resigning in the next 18 months, as their children will be transferring to KEVI. Again, please come along!

It may be that you have a few hours to spare and would like to come into school to hear children read or help in our library. If you are able to do this please contact me to discuss further.

Can I please remind all parents that Friday 23rd January is a non school uniform day for the Making Winter Warmer charity. Mrs Wright, a parent of Chantry and a volunteer for the charity came into school to talk to the students. They are asked to bring in a donation and a list of ideas can be found in the article below my blog

With best wishes for the coming week.

Steven Johnson