Newsletter December 2020

December 2020 Parkside Middle School Newsletter Dear parents/carers, Well, after another challenging term for all schools with the on-going situation with Covid-19, it’s a relief for all here to get to the Christmas break. Although there will be many logistical and operational challenges ahead in the New Year, it’s nice at this point to reflect on how well things have gone this term. Our control measures have stood up well to the challenge so far and cases have been kept to a minimum, leading to very little disruption to learning. The pupils have adapted to new routines extremely well and the staff have worked tirelessly and creatively, and our recovery curriculum is now certainly in full swing. Your children have, as always, been wonderfully resilient and we can see their hard work now paying off in the very real progress that they are making right across the school. After a much needed recharge over Christmas we will all be ready to push on further and we look forward to conducting our virtual parents evenings with you in the New Year where we can discuss how well the children are doing and where they need to focus their efforts moving forward. There’s no doubt, whilst we all crave a return to what we were used to in terms of our usual routines and traditions, we will need to keep our guard up and continue with our control measures for the foreseeable future so that the children can continue to learn in a safe and secure environment, with the priority being to continue to see them making progress. I’d like to thank you as always for your on-going support and wish you an extremely safe and happy Christmas. Best wishes, Mr N. Mills

We would like to wish you all a wonderful break and look forward to welcoming everybody back on Tuesday 5th January. HOUSE CAPTAINS Congratulations to this year’s house captains. Hereford Gloucester Malvern Worcester Captain—Alex Bieniek Captain—Harrison Carr Captain– Carla Cox Captain—Jack Hawkings Vice-captain—Paigen Essex Vice-captain—James Malpass Vice-captain—Onkarveer Samra Vice-captain—Scarlet Sanderson YOUTH CLIMATE SUMMIT This year's Youth Climate Summit was a huge success. All children learnt a great deal about what is going on with our earth and strategies to help with the fight of Climate Change. They produced some wonderful work both in and out of school. Well done to all! 8KN THRIVE LETTERS 8KN have written to a local care home during lockdown 2.0. We wanted to bring a smile to some of the residents faces and the response was overwhelming. Well done 8KN and thank you for all your efforts. LIBRARY NEWS Even though we have had to operate under restrictions it has been wonderful to see how the pupils have made an effort to carry on reading books through the library. Our ‘Design a Christmas Card’ competition has been well supported with some lovely and creative designs. Our winners are Jackson P (KS2) and Joshua B (KS3). Well done! Should you have a book clear-out over the Christmas break all donations are very welcome. OUTSTANDING KS2 HUMANITIES HOMEWORK PROJECTS As part of the Recovery Curriculum in Humanities, the KS2 pupils were asked to choose a project focus from either: History - The history of a digital device e.g. telephone, radio, computing, gaming equipment Geography - Create a Tropical Rainforest Biome RE - Research two different creation stories, compare and give their views. In all cases, the pupils were allowed to choose how to present their work. The finished results are amazing! Pupils brought in creative rainforest biomes, made David Attenborough style video recordings, planned and presented PowerPoints on the history of different digital devices, interviewed relatives to get their opinion on different creation stories and much more. Well done to all the pupils in KS2 for their fantastic homework and many thanks to all the parents that supported with these projects.

STEM Parkside pupils were challenged to create \"A School for Tomorrow\" this half term. Mrs Pap was overwhelmed by the response. In third place Bethany Camp 7SC, Isaac Hodgkinson 5HP and Isabel Hodgkinson 8KN. Second place were Isla McLundie 6KW and Imogen Spalding 5JP. The winning prizes for the best model, went to Eva Bray 5SN as her model included so many amazing, futuristic and well thought out features. I particularly liked the water storage unit that fed into the allotment plot. And the winning paper entry was Jessica Ball 7SC who created a whole folder of information about her futuristic school. She included maps, labelled design sketches and detailed explanations about how the school would look and run! I particularly liked the underground pathways and library bus. YEAR 5 AND 6—TTRS BATTLE OF THE BANDS NOVEMBER 2020 Well done to all the pupils that have taken part in the first ‘Battle of the Bands’ on TT Rock Stars of the 2020-21 academic year. An overwhelming response from the pupils with 247 pupils from KS2 taking part in the battles! The winning bands were Maths Potato, One Division, Rocktagons, Red Hot Chilli Numbers and Black Add Peas. With year 5 beating year 6. See below for the full results and highest earners in each band (Rock Star avatar names!) The next battles commence in the Spring Term. Battle 1 One Division 21 Pie Charts Maroon 5 Squared Battle 2 76,988 68,846 31,832 Highest Earners: Highest Earners: Highest Earners: Chris Turner J. Santos Adam Burns Axel One S J Bogert Alton Neumann Pump Up the Volume Maths Potato Sausage and Math 7,956 6,117 7,803 Highest Earners: Highest Earners: Highest Earners: Zoe Corabi Brandon Manning Calvin Barone Elvis Volt Ava Lau Peps Rockit Battle 3 Black Add Peas Panic! At the Division 14,257 12,842 Highest Earners: Highest Earners: Allen Redmouth Shondell Rocket Morgan Rockendorf Richie Waits Battle 4 Rocktagons Little Mixed Numbers Battle 5 9,599 6,649 Highest Earners: Highest Earners: Perry Reece Ro-bo Sargent J.J Richman Robin Richman Number Souls Red Hot Chilli Numbers 2,514 5,814 Highest Earners: Highest Earners: Al Grube Nina Chinnock Smokey Spinner Pip Rocket Year 5 Year 6 174,501 79,641

REMINDERS Virtual Parents Consultation Evenings A letter will be sent out at the beginning of next term regarding our virtual parents evenings which will take place across three evenings. These evenings will take place on: • Thursday 14th January 4pm-7pm • Tuesday 19th January 4pm-7pm • Thursday 21st January 4pm-7pm The Parents Evening Booking System will open for appointment bookings on Tuesday 5th January through the school website. There will be a maximum of two appointments per teacher. Attendance Please call school every day that your child is unable to attend. If parents/ carers do not let us know their child is away from school ill each day, you will receive a text message to notify you that your child is absent. It is vital that parent/carers respond to update us otherwise your daughter/son's absence will be recorded as unauthorised. Face Coverings Please can we remind parents/carers of year 7 and 8 pupils that face coverings should be bringing their own each day. Thank you School Lunch Orders School lunches should be ordered by pupils each Friday for the following week. Dates for your Diary • Monday 4th January—School closed TE Day • Tuesday 5th January—School reopens • Thursday 14th January—Parents Evening 4pm-7pm • Tuesday 19th January—Parents Evening 4pm-7pm • Thursday 21st January—Parents Evening 4pm-7pm • Friday 12th February—School closes for half term For further information and regular updates please visit our school website: https://www.parkside.worcs.sch.uk/