Young  children are increasingly digitally literate and as adults, we need to know what they are up to and teach them how to keep safe online. In school this week your child will receive specific advice in lessons about staying safe whilst using the internet, tablets, phones and when accessing social media. I hope the following information will also help you to help them…

Social Media:

Technically children under the age of 13 should not be building profiles on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat etc. This is a difficult area as many of their friends will have profiles. Twitter’s terms and conditions allow children under 13 to have accounts with their parent’s consent. When your child is old enough to access social media, take time to sit with them and go through privacy settings, explaining who can see what they publish. Make sure they understand that anything published exists forever.

Passwords:

Advise your child how to develop a ‘perfect password’ and make sure they know how important it is not to give that password to anyone else. You should know your child’s passwords so that you can monitor their on-line behaviour. Make sure that your child understands that any action taken using their password will be their responsibility.

Messaging and Group Chat:

This is a tricky area to police as it is by its very nature hidden from public view. Make sure that you check in with your child regularly about their group chats, who is taking part in them and make sure they are only talking to people they know in real life. Encouraging trust between you and your child will hopefully ensure that they will come and tell you if anything inappropriate occurs.

Gaming:

Lots of children enjoy gaming and it is very easy for open and closed groups to be set up by children. You need to know what is going on in their online play in the same way as you would for their face to face relationships. Find out what your child is playing, who with, what are they discussing etc. Building up an interest in their game playing will help you keep an open dialogue if they are worried about anything.

The most important thing you can do is to talk to your child. Engage in their interests and find out what they are up to. The internet is an amazing invention but brings with it some dangers that we need to protect our children from. Further advice and links can be found by visiting our e-safety page.

Kid: “Hey, mum, guess what we learned at school today?”

Me: “Uh, what, honey?…can you please take off your muddy boots?”

Kid: “Sustainability… Environmental sustainability! We did all these fun activities today to learn about it!”

Me: “Wow? Really?…Sounds complicated.”

Kid: “No, not really, it just means that we need to take care of our planet. We can reduce our energy use by turning off the lights and electronics, we can save water by turning off the tap when we brush our teeth and by having shorter showers, we can reduce our waste by recycling plastics and tins and composting our vegetable peelings, we can plant wildflowers for bees!…We can do all these things and more, mum. Can we try to be more sustainable, mum?”

Me: “Uh…of course…where should we start?”

This is the conversation I had last Friday after school, and it made me think. Living sustainably starts at home and depends on families making small changes in their own routines and choices. There is no question that changing how we do things is really difficult but one day our kids will inherit this planet. What kind of world will it be? Surely, I can turn off the tap when I brush my teeth or turn off some lights or plant a few flowers to make a more sustainable future for my kids…I am in…are you?

Here are a couple of websites with ideas for becoming more sustainable:

Green Schools Revolution

North Pennines AONB Partnership: Nectarworks Project

On Saturday 16^th January 2016, 30 of our children went to Ewood Park, home of Blackburn Rovers Football Club for an experience they will never forget. The drive down to Lancashire took us over 3 hours but it was well worth it as the children got the opportunity to train in one of Rovers indoor arenas, coached by professionals who work with footballers every day. The training session lasted an hour and a half with the focus being ball control, passing and moving into space. The children were absolutely brilliant and thoroughly enjoyed this experience.

We then made our way into the stadium area where all of the children were presented with medals on stage at the Fan Zone by Rovers officials, a gesture the children were not expecting but was very well deserved for performing exceptional football skills during the session.

Following this, we spent some time looking around the club shop before taking our seats in the stadium. The children were so excited and then, twenty minutes before kick-off, all 30 of our children were escorted onto the pitch to wave flags and welcome the players of Blackburn Rovers and Brighton & Hove Albion. This was amazing for children from our school being involved in a championship match in front of 25,000 supporters.

To complete the package and a wonderful day, at half time the children were once again invited onto the pitch to be involved in a penalty shootout. The club were lovely and I was delighted they allowed the TV cameras to film the event and put it on the massive screen in the ground and the 1000 tv’s in the clubs and cafes under the terraces for the supporters to see all of the action.

Our children’s behaviour was impeccable and I was proud to be with them and so privileged to be their headteacher on this special day. I have had many phone calls and emails from the club and supporters who were in the ground to say how well our children performed and how much of a credit they were to Stanhope Barrington and Weardale in general.

Opportunities like this are champagne moments, experiences that will live long in the memories of all those who were involved and another reason why Stanhope Barrington Primary school continue to be a leading educator as we are able to offer activities and occasions that others can only dream of.

Well done to everyone and many thanks to those parents who supported on the day.

Mr S Myers

For Spring term we are using the four elements as our Creative Curriculum theme. The four elements are earth, air, water and fire. This is an exciting topic as it allows teachers and children to follow completely different directions in terms of their teaching and learning. In class 1 they are using the concept of a hot air balloon to travel around England and learn more about the four different countries which make up the British Isles. The children are very excited as they have an enormous hot air balloon in their classroom. Class 1A are travelling further afield and are exploring locations across Europe. They have some great lessons about the Great Fire of London to look forward to. In class 2, Mrs Howes and the children have decided to follow the theme of water and are looking at rivers and the rainforest. They have already learnt lots about the different layers of a rainforest and which animals live in the various eco systems. Class 3 are focussing on the more technical aspects of water, learning all about the water cycle, the features of rivers and the current topical issue of flooding and climate change.

As well as our creative curriculum we are also looking forward to our whole school Sustainability Day. OASES are coming in to offer a carousel of activities which each class will rotate through during the day. The activities are all related to Carbon Reduction and Climate Change. Also coming up soon is our Italian week! I am expecting to see lots of pizzas that week.

Don’t forget that on Monday 8^th February we have our annual Music Celebration in church led by Miss Hughes. The children are practising hard at the moment and we are looking forward to a spectacular afternoon. We have lots of other activities such as pancake day and internet safety day and our half term ends with our Valentines disco.

So, there is a lot to look forward to and a lot to learn. It is shaping up to be a busy but fantastic Spring half term.

We hope that everyone has had a wonderful holiday season. Now that the Christmas trees and decorations are tucked back in the attic, the old toys have met the new toys, the chocolate boxes and cracker crowns are in the recycle bin, Christmas is well and truly over. Or is it? We all know the song ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ but did you know that the 12^th day of Christmas is on the 6^th of January, which is the day of the Feast of Epiphany? The term epiphany means “to show” or “to make known”. In Western Churches, it remembers the coming of the wise men bringing gifts to give to the baby Jesus, and by doing so they “reveal” Jesus to the world. The season of joyful celebration that begins at Christmas now continues through the successive Sundays of Epiphany and ends with the Feast of the Presentation on 2^nd February.   Then in February, attentions move towards  Easter and the beginning of the Lenten season.

We welcome everyone back to school and to the routine of the new term during this time of Epiphany. There are a lot of exciting activities planned for this term including Italian theme week and topics planned around the elements Earth, Air, Fire and Water.

We wish you all the very best for a happy and healthy 2016.

We can’t believe it’s the end of term already! We have had an amazing first term, a very busy one and a one full of fun and excellent learning opportunities.

We have had a number of inspections, all of which have highlighted why we are such an ‘Outstanding school.’

Our children and staff have worked very hard and as always we are extremely proud of them and their achievements. There have been many wonderful lessons, projects, educational visits and visitors who have contributed to our children’s learning. Some highlights include; our educational visit to Kingswood, the school Remembrance Service in the top field, Class 3 in Play in a Day with Lisa, the visit by Bishop Paul linked with Child Line, football coaches from Blackburn Rovers, the Class 2 maths lesson at Stanhope Coop, the Key Stage 1 visit to Stanhope Fire Station, our Early Years Polar Bear Day thanks to the QE 2 College in Darlington, the excellent Christmas performances and the visit of Santa Clause at the little ones Christmas party to name but a few.

The children have thoroughly enjoyed our theme of ‘Heroes’ and we look forward to next term when our theme will be ‘The Four Elements’ (Air, Water, Fire & Earth).

We would like to wish all of our children, staff, parents, Governors and the community very happy Christmas and New Year.

Mr Myers & Mrs Cross