You may have noticed some building work going on in the playground during last few days. A new door has appeared, next to the stage in the playground, where the old P.E. sheds used to be…

You can’t see very much yet, but this will soon be our brand new, state-of-the-art, gym! Featuring computerised fitness equipment, we are sure the children will love using the new gym very soon. This is how it looks at the moment:

A little bit empty!

In June 2009, we asked all of our pupils and parents to complete a questionnaire about York Road School. Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete this.

Pupil Questionnaire Feedback

Positive areas identified:

·        specialist theme days eg. Viking Day, Greek Day, Tudor Day, Jamaican afternoon

·        school trips

·        extra duties eg. ICT monitors, mediators, school council

·        fun lessons

·        kind and Fair teachers

·        money week activities

·        learning to swim

·        reading “when I first came to this school I could hardly read – now its easy!”

·        sports day / district sports

·        assembly certificates / DHT’s award

Areas for Development identified:

·        more playground equipment (We have made several improvements to our playground including: fencing a quiet area with activities for pupils such as reading, colouring, board games; replacing the lily pads; updating and repairing playground equipment including new coloured safety matting; painting of the playground sheds; re drawing playground grids including a giant draughts board.  The climbing wall and stage area are our next priorities for improvement.  The children are enjoying their new improved environment.)

·        more science experiments and more drama in lessons (teachers will be using exciting new science resources with the children this year to make science more “hands on” and will be including more drama across the whole curriculum.)

·        drinking water in classrooms (all water in classrooms is now drinkable.) 

Parent Questionnaire Feedback

Positive areas identified:

·        ICT monitors

·        open afternoons

·        excellent transition procedures from Year 2 to Year 3

·        website / text  communications eg. Isle of Wight / France trip.

Areas for Development identified:

·        more notice of themed days / events (this website should help to play a role in achieving this!) 

·        variety of homework activities (teachers shall be giving a range of homework from across the curriculum.)

·        more open afternoons (there will be 2 open evenings during the academic year, which will run until 6PM in order to allow parents who work the chance to come into their child’s class to see their work.) 

First of all, I hope you all had a wonderful summer break.
Secondly, apologies for the lack of updates at the end of the last academic year. This was due to the infamous Dartford Power Cut leaving our computer server out of action when I had planned to update dates, photographs and other news items. Within a week or two, there should be much more content.
We really want to push our website during this academic year – it is our aim for this to be the first point of reference for parents, carers and other visitors who may need information or news about the school.
When possible, please try to check the site first for information rather than phoning the school office – often the office staff will check the website themselves when on the phone to parents! We hope to update the website at least once a week.