A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF A LONG LANER

What does the school year look like?

Our school year is packed full of exciting things for the children, staff and families to enjoy, celebrate and support. Our PTA helps and supports the school by planning their own community and fundraising events.

We try to spread the costs of charity events, PTA fundraising and trips and visitor costs (many of our trips and visits are subsidised) across the year to help families plan and budget. Parents receive a predicted costs letter outlining for each class the upcoming trips, visits and visitors.

Each term (attached to the newsletter and emailed separately), parents will receive a date list (examples found below) that shows all the upcoming events, who they are for and whether parents are invited to attend or not. These events can vary over the year and sometimes need to change or be cancelled. You will be notified about any changes through parentmail. We also make sure that we send reminders for all events nearer the time as we understand that everyone has busy lives.

AUTUMN TERM

Events to Remember

Our first priority in the Autumn term is to ensure that transition support is in place to ensure that children settle in well to their new classes. This will involve effective communication between parents and school.

The following key events will occur during this term:

PTA Family Quiz, Fish and Chips and AGM
Harvest Festival charity giving and celebration
Parent Progress and Achievement Evenings – across the school – last week before October half term
Remembrance Day – selling poppies
Children In Need day – non-uniform
Book fair/Reading Breakfast (with parents)
Coffee mornings
Prospective Parent Tours
Christmas events – KS1 play, Rainbows Nativity play, Xmas dinner and jumper day, KS2 Carol singing/church and Christmas Got Talent (KS2)
PTA – Elf-lympics event

SPRING TERM

Events to Remember

During Spring Term there are a number of events taking place for the whole school.

Key events as follows:

World Book Day – dress up day and events
Welcome Time CPD – parents invited
Parenting Network course – (sign up)
Comic Relief Day – dress in red
Parent Appreciation day – KS1
Valentines day activities
Easter events
Parent Progress and Achievement Evenings – last week before Easter Holiday (end of March)

SUMMER TERM

Events to Remember

This is a busy term with lots of events spread out. This is also a key term for transition in the run up to the end of the Summer term to ensure that children have lots of opportunities to be supported in getting to know their next steps.

The following key events take place in this term:

Y1 Phonics Screening (statutory test)
Y6 SATS – in May (statutory tests) – results follow in July
Y4 Swimming Lessons
Y1-6 Meet the Teacher evenings for next class (June)
Whole school Sports Day (KS1 AM, KS2 PM)
New Rainbows intake visits (nurseries, parents evening, school visits)
Y6 Residential trip to PGL (end of June)
Y5 non-residential 2 day trip to Waterside (July)
Written reports sent home (FS2 – Year 6) – last week of Summer term
Y6 Awards ceremony and picnic (last week)
PTA Summer events - community led (June)

Trips, Visits and Visitors

There are many exciting and relevant trips, visits/visitors and experiences planned in each classroom throughout the year. We link these to what the children are learning and this helps to deepen their knowledge and understanding of the world they live in and bring the curriculum to life. Parents will be given insight as to what is coming up in each year group and this is carefully planned to help parents budget throughout the year. Many of these trips and visits are subsidised by the school and the PTA to ensure that children get the richest school experiences.

In each year group there are theme days planned to support learning and give children meaningful experiences to hook their learning onto. You will be given plenty of notice of these coming up in the school year. You can find more about these events in the Pupil Opportunities and Trips document.

Welcome Times and Parent Events

We love to invite parents in to see the school live in action so that they feel part of our close community. It is really important to the children to collaborate and showcase what they have learnt and the fun they are having. Apart from the many events that we hold for parents such as Reading Breakfasts, collaborative learning, coffee mornings, parent appreciation mornings, sports day, each class will have a number of Welcome Time events in the school year.

From Parent voice, we have organised our Welcome Time Sessions into three types of events:

Collaborative – this is where parents are invited into their child's class to share a collaborative experience or activity with them
Showcase – this where pupils wish to share an exhibition or performance of something they have been working on (musical or dramatic performance, writing showcase or exhibition of art/D and T)
CPD – this is where the school will share some insight on an aspect of learning including some initial CPD in the hall followed by open classrooms to see this aspect of learning in action across the school

The school usually holds two or three CPD Welcome Time events per year and each class will host one collaborative and one showcase per year. These will be communicated through the dates list sent to parents each term.

PTA Events

Our PTA (Parent Teacher Association) are worth their weight in Gold. This group of parents plan and support community events for the school, their families and the wider community, all year round. They are community and school focused, supportive of the school's needs and always make sure that they plan a range of events (not just fundraising) that ensure that all children and families can be involved, making reasonable adjustments for inclusion.

The children love to take part in these events and support their school. They cannot do it alone though. When you join the school you are automatically made an honorary member of the PTA, as are your wider family. Whether you are able to get involved in the organising, helping at a one off event, or supporting with your presence or donating, you are invaluable to us as a school.

For more PTA information visit the PTA and Community page.

Sports and Clubs

We are really lucky at Long Lane to have our own Sports coach (who teaches aspects of PE once per week alongside each of our teachers). We also have Mr Hunt (Year 5 teacher) who, as Sports Leader, meticulously plans for a range of in-house and external sports events and clubs over the year. We are part of two network partnerships for sport which means we play with a wide range of schools across a few counties.

At Long Lane we believe that all children should have access to sport and know what it feels like to be able to participate in a sports event to represent their school. Therefore, access to sports includes everybody and lots of adjustments to ensure inclusion for all is possible.

Our Year 6 Sports leaders run 'Energy Club' at lunchtimes with the younger children and our Year 5 children prepare for this leadership by completing the Year 5 Playmaker Leadership Award. Please see here for more information on Sports and Clubs.

We have a wide variety of clubs internal and external, many of which are sporty. Please see Pupil Opportunities for more information.

Coffee Mornings & Parent Courses

As a school, we place a high emphasis on pupil and parent well being and want to support parents to understand how school works, the pressures of parenting and the development of children. As well as having a robust Pastoral system in place to support pupils and families, we also host a number of useful events for parents to discuss issues, share tips and get expert advice. We run the following over the year:

Coffee mornings (half termly) – just network, speak to the FSW or the HT or sometimes we have a guest professional speaker.
Time to Talk Parent Network Course – twice per year this course allows parents to work through issues with parenting with other parents and support each other (with our FSW).
CPD events to learn about phonics, reading and other areas of the curriculum – these are by invite and relevant to the year group of the child (sometimes online).
Parent Learning Tours – come and see the school live in action.
Reading Breakfasts – come and read with your child before school, have a cuppa and some breakfast.

Example Parent Date List Autumn Term

Example Parent Date List Spring Term

Example Parent Date List Summer Term