Queen's Park Primary School

Message from the Head

Happy Friday Queen's Park Families,

This week, I want to take a moment to celebrate some of the wonderful achievements and opportunities across our school community.
Firstly, a huge congratulations to our children who have been crowned the 'Brighton & Hove Times Table Rock Stars Champions!' This was not a close call - QP won this citywide tournament by a significant amount. Not only did we win the citywide competition as a school, Praying Mantis, Grasshoppers and Spiders were the top 3 classes in the city (out of almost 3000) children. This demonstrates the significant improvements made in maths across the school. We are thankful for Mr. Conboy's passion for maths which has definitely rubbed off on our community. We are incredibly proud of the determination, resilience and enthusiasm shown by all of the children involved. Their commitment to practising and improving has truly paid off. Trophies are on their way and we'll let you know what children decide on for their reward!

Our boys’ football team also deserve enormous praise for progressing through to the semi-finals of the Brighton Cup. They have represented Queen’s Park brilliantly with teamwork, sportsmanship and perseverance throughout the competition. We are all cheering them on for the next stage! We are grateful for Mr. Taylor and his dedication to ensuring our children have a multitude of sporting opportunities.

We were also delighted to welcome visitors from Durrington Research School to focus on spoken language and communication across the school. They were incredibly impressed by the richness of our children’s vocabulary, their confidence in speaking and the quality of discussion taking place in classrooms. One comment that particularly stayed with me was when the research school lead shared that he “would have his own son in any class at QP.” I could not be prouder of our children and staff for the culture of learning they create together every day and of Ms. Whitehead who is the driving force behind our schoolwide approach to spoken language and communication.

A special well done must also go to our Year 3 children, who represented the school so brilliantly in the Brighton Children's Parade. Their energy, creativity and enthusiasm were wonderful to see, and we are so grateful to the many families and friends who came along to support and cheer them on. A big thank you to Mrs. Keating who organaised this and also to Mrs. Buxton for leading our chants and samba band. I think we made ourselves heard across the crowds!

Next week, our Year 6 children begin their SATs. We want them to know how incredibly proud we already are of each and every one of them. SATs do not define who they are, nor do they capture all of the talents, kindness, creativity and character they bring to our school community. We simply want them to feel proud of themselves, believe in their abilities and do their very best. Good luck, Year 6 — we are all behind you.

Finally, our family coffee mornings have got off to a fantastic start this term thanks to Sandra's brilliant organisation. We have welcomed expert speakers including our Educational Psychologist and School Nurse to lead sessions on topics such as emotion coaching and nutrition. These sessions have been shaped directly from suggestions made by our families, and we are so pleased to see them being so well received. We would love to welcome even more families along in the coming weeks, so please do come in if you can. We are always open to further ideas and suggestions for future topics too.

This is just a snapshot of things to be proud of over the last two weeks!

Thank you for all of your support and have a lovely weekend.

Best wishes,

Emma Gale

Headteacher

Attendance of the Week

Stars of the Week

Hot Choc

DIRT

dedicated improvement & reflection time

Reviewing and editing is a key part of being an effective writer. At Queen’s Park we want to encourage pupils to review and improve their work for clarity, accuracy and effectiveness. This involves checking spelling, punctuation and grammar, as well as refining or improving vocabulary and sentence structure. However, reviewing and editing is widely recognised as a tricky skill for children to learn. This level of reflection can be challenging, particularly when developing confidence and independence in writing.

We have built dedicated DIRT (Dedicated Improvement and Reflection Time) into our writing lessons to support pupils in developing their editing skills. This structured time provides children with a valuable opportunity to revisit their work, reflect on feedback and make purposeful improvements.

By explicitly teaching and modelling how to review and edit successfully, DIRT helps pupils to engage more deeply with this skill. It reinforces the idea that writing is not a one-off task but something that can be refined and strengthened. Through this ongoing process, children begin to see themselves as authors, understanding that writing involves a continual cycle of drafting, reviewing and editing to improve and communicate their ideas effectively.

Department for Education - Food Consultation

The Department for Education (DfE), is looking for feedback on its plans to improve school food standards. Please go to this link for your chance to have your say:

https://www.theschoolfoodpeople.co.uk/news/dfe-starts-consultation-improving-school-food-standards-england

The purpose of this consultation is to ensure that all children are provided with nutritious food, and that the offer is inclusive of children with different needs, cultures, allergies and diets.

Some key points to note are -

To cease the practice (where it exists) any deep frying of foods.

To remove any sugary drinks from service.

To restrict any cheese recipes to a maximum of 2 per week.

To cease the supply of puddings for 4 days out of 5 and to be replaced with fruit.

To increase fibre in the diet by introducing more fruit, vegetables and wholegrain pasta etc.

These proposals will apply to all food provided at school including Breakfast and After school club provision.

Keyboard and piano lessons available!

Keyboard and piano lessons are currently available at Queens Park for children wanting to learn either in a small group or 1:2:1 during the school day.

Our keyboard teacher Jo Burke has worked at the school for many years and is a very experienced, inclusive, kind and patient teacher whose lessons are very popular with pupils. For more information and to apply online, go to Brighton and Hove’s Music Service here: Create Music | Create Music .

Jo would be more than happy to chat to parents and carers and to answer any questions you may have. You may get in touch with her at Joanna.burke@createmusic.org.uk . Here’s a fun little teaching video she has made to help her pupils learn the notes of the keyboard which will give you an idea of what Jo is like as a teacher Meet the keyboard people!