This term we will also be talking about our own dreams and letting our imaginations take our learning to fun and magical places.

We have also really enjoyed practising and learning our songs for Norbury Fest and cannot wait for you to come and watch us perform.

Dream Jars

We are a little short on glass jars for our dream jar creations. If you use any glass jars over the half term, please do save them and send them in – thank you!
 
Imagine That!

Well, what a brilliant trip we had at Imagine That! We hope you have enjoyed looking at all the fun we had on Tapestry. We had such a brilliant time making snow and slime, watching a science show and exploring in the science and role-play areas (the adults had just as much fun as the children!). Thank you for all your contributions that allowed our trip to take place and also to our parent helpers who were invaluable in helping us on the day.
 
Play-club bags

This is a great resource that we have in Reception. We have been using them in school, but we wanted all the children in Reception to have the opportunity to explore them at home too.
​
The bags are aimed at developing children's phonics and language skills further. We will rotate the bags and who gets to take them home over the term. If your child receives a bag on the Tuesday, please send this back into school by the Monday the following week. We hope you enjoy exploring the Play Club bags together!
 
All Stars Cricket Rec-Year 2

All Stars Cricket is a fantastic entry-level cricket programme for 5-8 year
(Reception-Year2) old boys and girls and is back for another year! Join children nationwide for a summer of family fun at your local cricket club. Every child receives a free participant pack, including personalised t-shirt, bat and ball, as part of the programme. Visit www.allstarscricket.co.uk to find your nearest centre.
 
Thank for your continued support and have a lovely half term break,
The Reception Team

The phonics screening check has 40 words. 20 real word and 20 nonsense words. 
 
Nonsense words are words that are phonetically decodable but are not actual words with an associated meaning e.g. brip, snorb. Nonsense words (sometimes called pseudo words) are included in the check specifically to assess whether your child can decode a word using their phonics skills and not their memory.
 
It is important that children practise reading nonsense words and identify that they are a nonsense word. The pseudo words will be shown to your child with a picture of an alien and they will be asked to tell their teacher what sort of alien it is by reading the word. This not only makes the check a bit more fun, but provides the children with a context for the nonsense word which is independent from any existing vocabulary they may have. Crucially, it does not provide any clues, so your child just has to be able to decode it. Children generally find nonsense words amusing so they will probably enjoy reading these words.
As with all reading of words out of context (ie in a book) it is important to look for known digraphs (sh, th, ng etc) and trigraphs (igh, ure, air etc).

Your child will bring home a set of words and activities today along with this letter to practise.

Phonics Play, is a really useful and free online site which offers lots of interactive games which can be played on iphones, ipads and computers.

We will be administering the Phonics Screening the week beginning the 9th June, so please, is possible, use the Whit Holiday to continue to rehearse, read and complete the activities sent home. As a reminder, Monday 9th June is an INSET day.
 
Thank you for your continued support.
The Year One Team

Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope you had a lovely weekend and enjoyed the warm spell we are experiencing at the moment.  The children have come back to school after the Easter break refreshed and ready to learn.  Our Quest ‘Who do I aspire to be?’ continues with a focus on art, dance, music and narrative.  Initial work is focused around the theme of giants with a focus on the BFG.

Relationships and Values at Norbury Hall

I recently wrote to you to consult on our work to redefine the values in school and to share part of the revision of our behaviour policy.  This is a consultative process and I asked for any responses to be sent into school.  Please see the newsletters section of the website to view this and make any responses by the end of this half term.

Sun safety

Whilst we are enjoying this warm spell, I would like to remind you to send your child to school with a hat, a water bottle and with sun cream applied.  If you require your child to reapply sun cream during the school day, we are unable to do this for them.  However, they can do this for themselves.  Please however keep an eye on the weather.  If rain is forecast, please send them with a waterproof jacket or coat.  We endeavour to go outside even when wet so please make sure they have this back up.

Drop off and pick up times

Thank you for your continued support with both parking and safety whilst using scooters and bikes.  Could I please also request that dogs are not brought into the school grounds.  I have been made aware that a couple of dogs are being brought on to the playgrounds. This could be unsafe and we do have some children who are wary of dogs so I would ask you to consider alternative arrangements.

Appointments in the school day

We have an increased number of parents picking children up for appointments during the school day, particularly during the afternoon.  It is important your children are in school as much as possible so where it is feasible we would ask you to make appointments outside of the school day.  I understand that in some instances this isn’t possible and school will always support genuine appointments.

PA news

As ever, our PA are working hard to support our children in a variety of ways.  Thank to those of you who took part in the Easter egg challenge. We have school discos this Friday (16th May).  The EY and KS1 disco will be from 5:15 pm – 6:15 pm and the KS2 disco will be from 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm.  The disco at the end of Year 6’s SATs week is a Norbury tradition and we look forward to seeing all of our children but especially our Y6 children.  For further details please see the PA Facebook page or notices on the school gates.  The PA Summer Festival is on Friday 4th July starting at 4 pm.  We hope to see as many of you there as possible.  We are grateful to the PA for funding a whole school event for our children.  Over the course of a couple of days in July, all of the children will be going on a visit to the Savoy Cinema in Heaton Moor.  We will be going in four separate groups and will be needing some parent volunteers to support each group.  Further details to come from school shortly. 
This is a very short half term but a very busy one! 

​Thank you as ever for your support
Best wishes
Becky Wood

Dear Parents and Carers,
 
The Summer term is always particularly busy here in school, with lots of activities and dates for your diary, so please take additional time to note them.

This term, our whole school Quest is ‘Who Do I Aspire To Be?’ Our nursery learners really enjoyed discovering a big sack of oversized objects in the ‘meadow’ and deciding who they might belong to!   This Quest hook, inspired the children to think about familiar stories they knew about giants such as the traditional tale of Jack and the Beanstalk and joining in with rhyming words from The Smartest Giant in Town. We are now starting to share the story, You Choose Your Dreams in our ‘circles’ sessions. 

In our music and dance sessions, we are learning to listen and respond to music and how musical instruments are played.  The children are also now beginning to learn songs for our ‘Norbury Fest’ later in the Summer, so I’m sure it won’t be long before you’re hearing your child singing at home!

Later in the term, we will be finding out about what animals live on a farm, learning the names of baby animals and which food is grown in/under the ground or on trees/bushes.  Our visit to Tatton Farm should be a lovely day and an opportunity for a first-hand experience around a farm!
​
As the sunny weather continues, please can you ensure that your child wears sun cream, has a labelled sun hat in nursery and a water bottle.  We always make use of our amazing outdoor areas and, over the lunch time particularly, it can get warm even when keeping the children in the shade as much as possible. Thank you!

The Early Years Nursery Team

This term's overviews are now ready to download. Head over to the Parent's Hub to check them out.

We hope you’ve had a lovely Easter break and that you are enjoying the sunshine as we race along into the Summer Term! 

In art across the school, we are exploring the work of famous artist Quentin Blake, to create our own work inspired by his unique and recognisable illustrations. Later on in the term, as sculptors, we will then dive into the world of pop art through the eyes of Claes Oldenberg and Peter Anton who both produce fun 3D forms of giant food items and as musicians we will be creating our own compositions inspired by the soundtrack from The BFG. Each year group will also have a different dance focus for the term. This year, both Year 3 and 4 will have the opportunity to work with our dance specialist Laura Kendall.
​
At the end of the year, we hope to share our learning with you, to perform and to celebrate our successes at Norbury Fest.

Here Comes The Sun!

As the sun is finally shining again, please can you ensure that your child is prepared and safe to enjoy the warmer weather. The children will need a hat to protect them from the sun – please ensure that this is labelled. They may also want to have a pair of sunglasses and their own sun lotion. This can be reapplied by the children at break or lunchtime.

Teacher Led Clubs
​
Due to it being such a short term, clubs will continue on from last term. They will commence this week and run till Friday 16th May (the penultimate week of the half term). 

We hope you’ve had a lovely Easter break and that you are enjoying the sunshine
​as we start the summer term! 

In art across the school, we are exploring the work of famous artist Quentin Blake, to create our own work inspired by his unique and recognisable illustrations. Later on in the term, as sculptors, we will then dive into the world of pop art through the eyes of Claes Oldenberg and Peter Anton who both produce fun 3D forms of giant food items and as musicians we will be creating our own compositions inspired by the soundtrack from The BFG. Each year group will also have a different dance focus for the term. This year, both Year 1 and 2 will have the opportunity to work with our dance specialist Laura Kendall.
​
At the end of the year, we hope to share our learning with you, to perform and to celebrate our successes at Norbury Fest.

Here Comes The Sun!
As the sun is finally shining again, please can you ensure that your child is prepared and safe to enjoy the warmer weather. The children will need a hat to protect them from the sun – please ensure that this is labelled. They may also want to have a pair of sunglasses and their own sun lotion. This can be reapplied by the children at break or lunchtime.

Teacher Led Clubs

Due to it being such a short term, clubs will continue on from last term. They will commence this week and run till Friday 16th May (the penultimate week of the half term). 

All Stars Cricket Rec-Year 2

All Stars Cricket is a fantastic entry-level cricket programme for 5-8 year
(Reception-Year2) old boys and girls and is back for another year! Join children nationwide for a summerof family fun at your local cricket club. Every child receives a free
participant pack, including personalised t-shirt, bat and ball, as part of the programme. Visit www.allstarscricket.co.uk to find your nearest centre.
 
Dynamos Cricket provides a fantastic next step for all those graduating from All Stars Cricket as well as the perfect introduction for all 8-11 year-olds new to the sport! Complementing junior cricket, Dynamos provides children with a more social offer focused on developing fundamental movement skills and applying them in an exciting game of countdown cricket. Several local clubs have a girls only Dynamos offer too! Every child who registers will receive their very own Dynamos Cricket New Balance t-shirt, personalised with their name and number. To find out more and where your nearest centre is visit 
​www.dynamoscricket.co.uk or contact AJ at [email protected] .

​Our new values are prominent in our school entrance, on our school website and we are familiarising our children with these.  Our values are:

• Curiosity
• Responsibility
• Bravery
• Kindness
• Understanding

We think this summarises what it means to be a learner and part of the Norbury Hall community.

To further our work on a new approach to rewards and consequences, we wanted to ask for parent and carer viewpoint on our thoughts.  We have formulated the attached documents as a full staff team alongside our local governing board and a small council representing the children have also considered them.  If you have any views on our proposals, we would like you to get in touch with us and share your thoughts.

We have used the language within our work of ‘rewards for actions’ and ‘solutions for mistakes’.  We haven’t used the language of sanctions or consequences as we want the children to understand that with the right set of actions we can move forward.

We obviously plan to make sure the children understand these guidelines once they are formalised.

I would like to make it very clear that these guidelines are not for instances of bullying or racist behaviours – these will still be considered under the relevant policies which can be found on the school website.  Similarly, for some children we sometimes have more bespoke plans in place.

We will be rewriting the behaviour policy in light of this work and the attached documents will be a part of this.  This has to be reviewed by staff and governors and will be published for September 2026. 

We look forward to your comments and thoughts.  Please put these in writing and email them to your child’s class teacher or to the [email protected] address.

We just wanted to remind you that teacher-led extra curricular clubs will carry on after the Easter holidays. 
​
There is no need to sign up again, they will just continue.
 
Teacher-led clubs will finish on Friday 16th May.