Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope this letter finds you well. I just wanted to write to you in regards to the Year 2 SATs assessments that normally take place in May.

You may have seen in the news recently that the Government have decided to make the Year 2 SATs optional from this year. This means they are no longer compulsory, and that schools can decide whether to take them or not. It also means that schools do not need to publish their data, and that there will be no national figures released.

Assessment is a key part of schools so that teachers are able to identify nest steps for learning and to be able to measure progress.  Assessments at Coleham are teacher assessments, meaning that your child’s teacher will use a bank of evidence to make informed judgements about your child’s attainment in any given subject.  The assessments are not test scores alone, but the scores play an important role in the overall teacher assessment process.  We then use the assessments generated in Year 2 as a benchmark to measure progress as they move through Year 3-6 (Key Stage 2), because Year 2 is the end of Key Stage 1.

The optional SATs in Year 2 mean that school will receive standardised test papers for the children to complete in maths, reading and grammar (writing assessment is a pure teacher assessment based on writing produced over the course of the year).  The Year 2 children will sit these tests in May, as they would do in any other term of the school year, and should not notice anything different.  It is important to note that at no point are the children put under any pressure to succeed: instead, they are encouraged to simply do their best as they are in everything they do.

A lot has been said in recent years about the undue stress and anxiety being generated by these tests and others in later years, but at Coleham, our approach minimises, or even prevents, that becoming an issue.  However, some children will always be nervous around tests, so we urge you to speak to your child’s teacher if this is the case.

If you have any further questions or queries then please do ask.

Yours sincerely

Mrs Young

KS1 Leader

Dear Parents/Carers,

You may have heard about our preparations for a Year 5 Eco Fashion Show.  This will now be happening after half term.

The children will learn about ‘Fast Fashion’ and the impact on the environment and the show will promote ethical fashion choices to the audience.  To help us Woody’s Mum is coming into school next week to tell us about her job as a Fashion Lecturer at Shrewsbury College.

We have been working at lunchtimes and some children have signed up as models for our Rock ‘n’ Roll, Western and Festival runways.  These children may have brought home some pre-loved clothes to help create their outfits. #recycle #re-use  Miss Cox will be helping us with music choices and chorography.

After half term we will be making outfits out of ‘rubbish’ using winning ideas from our House Competition.  We will be encouraging children to participate in narrator roles, greeting guests and selling clothes on the night, helping backstage, getting artistic in making posters, billboards and photography.  There are lots of ways that children can get involved.

Thank you to Mrs Renshaw (Nell’s Mum) who is helping a  group of children with a sewing project for the runway.  We are very excited to see their final show piece.

Please save the date of Wednesday 13th March!  Our Eco Fashion show will be open to family and friends at 3:30pm in the School Hall.  Afterwards we will be selling pre-loved clothes for £1 and will have a couple of fashion accessory stalls for shopping.

We hope that you are able to join us.

Kind regards,

Miss Othen