Dear Parents/Carers,

What an exciting and busy term we have had here at MeonJunior School! We have been on trips to the Planetariumand the Living Rainforest, enjoyed attending a ‘Friendship’disco and dressing up for world book day. Children and par-ents learnt about internet safety when Parent Zone deliveredworkshops. Our Junior Road safety officers and the trafficenforcement team spoke to pupils in assembly about roadsafety. Year groups welcomed parents to open afternoonsand parents participated with their children in art and designprojects. You will have also received your child’s annual re-ports; any feedback on the new format for this is most wel-come.

Next half term there will be formal parents’ evenings forYears 3, 4, and 5 as well as a short report at the end of theyear. Year 6 pupils will also receive a short report and anopportunity for parents to discuss their end of Key stage out-comes.

Thank you for your ongoing support of the school. I hopeyou have a lovely holiday and I look forward to what oursummer term has in store.Sara Paine

Sara Paine

Meon Junior SchoolNewsletter

March 2018OUR MONTHLY GUIDE TO THE SCHOOL NEWS, INFORMATION AND EVENTS.

Welcome to ourEaster newsletterwhich will keep youinformed of importantsuccess stories,school events andways in which we canwork together toensure the best forour children.

FOM’s

Tel: 02392 732844email: enquiries@meon-jun.portsmouth.sch.ukHeadteacher: Mrs Sara Paine MA NPQH

WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT!

Unfortunately, the future of FOM’s is in jeopardy. Without a few more members we will NOTbe able to continue these events. If you can spare an hour once a term to help at an event,it really does make a difference. I’m sure you agree that your children enjoy our discos,fayres and parties. We want that to continue. If you would like to join our team, please leaveyour details with the school reception and we will be in touch. Many thanks for your support.

Junior Literature Quiz

On Thursday 22nd February, pupils from fifteen schools com-peted to become the Junior Literature Quiz Winners for 2018.Teams of four pupils competed against each other and a teamof four authors, including Peter Bunzl, Amber Lee Dodd, AliSparkes and Jamie Thomson. The authors had a great timemeeting the pupils and signing books. The delighted winnerswere Meon Junior A team. Congratulations to them and all theteams that took part for making it such a great morning.

Dates for your diary

March29th March 2018 NON UNIFORM

Break up for Easter

APRIL

16th April 2018 Start of Summer term

17th April 2028 Y5 Animal Workshops

3.30pm Stubbington Parents’ Meeting

18th April 2018 Y5 Fire & Rescue Visit

MAY

2nd May FOMS – Spring Afternoon Tea and

Cake competition from 3.10pm

3rd May 2018 INSET

7th May 2018 BANK HOLIDAY

14th May 2018 Y6 SATs Week

21st–24th May 2018 Y6 Marwell Activity Centre (48)

Y6 Activities Week

22nd May 2018 Y3 Staunton Country Park

25th May 2018 NON UNIFORM

Break up for half term

JUNE

4th June 2018 INSET

5th June 2018 Return to school

12th June 2018 Class photographs

18th–22nd June 2018 Y5 Stubbington (52)

25th June 2018 Y5 Book Awards

JULY

2nd– 5th July 2018 PA transition week

18th July 2018 Y3,4,5 Disco 3.10 – 4pm

23rd July 2018 5.00pm – 6.30pm Y6 Leaver’s Disco

24th July 2018 NON UNIFORM

Break up for Summer

World Book DayOn Thursday 1st March, we we had a fantastic day celebrating WorldBook Day. During the day, the children participated in a range of ex-citing activities, sharing their own favourite books from home, sharingteacher’s favourite books, learning poems to perform and entering acompetition. Everyone looked fantastic in their wonderful costumesdepicting characters from a range of books.A big thank you to all the children who brought in a photograph ofthemselves reading in an unusual situation. It just goes to show youcan read anywhere and with anyone. Here are just a few of the fan-tastic photos.

On International Women’s Day , Miss Brown from our school office,visited the Houses of Parliament and met our MP Stephen Morgan fora tour. Miss Brown helped raise money towards the trip organised byPortsmouth Labour Party and the Girls Network. They took 40 pupilpremium girls from across Portsmouth who took part in activities aimedat inspiring young women from acrossour city. Whilst there, the group spentsome time in Westminster Hall whichwas built in 1097 and paid tribute to theSuffragettes whose protests helped se-cure the vote for some women in 1918.The best part of the day was hearingthe girls question Stephen Morgan onhis role as an MP and how his hardwork has allowed him to represent usall in Parliament.

Thank you very much to everyone who visited our re-cent Scholastic Book Fair. This very successful eventhas allowed us to choose over £300 worth of books forour school library.

Book Fair

First Lego League (FLL) Competition by The Water WarriorsLego Introduction by Luke and EllenWhen we were in year 5, we looked up to ‘Lego Ahoy’ our schools Lego team from the previous year. To be eligible for this year wehad several challenging things to achieve, including: giving presentations and answering questions, working well together in a team,building models from Lego and programming Lego runs using EV3 Lego Mindstorms technology. Our team of 10 this year, knownas the Water Warriors, included: Luke, Ellen, Harry, Cianna, Lewis, Louisa, Lois, Molly, Elizabeth and Joseph.

Building the Lego Robot by Harry and LewisFor the competition we had to design and build a robot to carry out certain tasks or missions. Itis called First Lego League because we used Lego to build all the different parts of the robot.When we started working on our Lego robot we decided to choose wheels because they werebetter at turning corners. After Christmas, we added more challenging parts to our robot. Wedecided to have a go at the Fountain Mission as it was on the way to the Pipe Removal mission.This was the mission that we were most proud of because it was so complicated to design andbuild our robot to complete the task correctly.

Programming the robot by Lois and LouisaWe began learning how to program Lego mindstorms (the program used to control the robot). Wefound that programming the robot was fairly simple and was similar to the coding we would nor-mally do in Computing. In year 5, we started from the basics: learning how to move the robot for-ward and backwards, how to turn and how to create faces on the pixelated screen. Gradually, wewere educated about more complex codes for example, the light sensor. We were then asked toput these skills into practise by coding the robot to complete a certain task or mission. This washarder than expected as we often had to reprogram a mission that had previously worked.

Core Values, Robot games and Presentation by Molly and ElizabethIn the First Lego League we have three parts to work on: Core Values, Project and Robot. In thiscompetition these three elements are equally balanced out.Our Lego Project this year was water and how we can save it. Core values (if you were wondering)is about being part of a team and lifting each other up and not putting people and their ideas down.Our robot has a very particular but simple design. Unlike some of the robots at the competitions,ours was small but effective.

Chiefs and Lieutenants by CiannaLuckily,this year, the Lego team have had a big help from the Royal Navy. They sent four of their StemAmbassadors. They were called Chief Pritchard, Chief Owen, Lieutenant Blackburn and LieutenantEmptage. Two of the engineers came every Monday afternoon and taught us so much about STEM (Sci-ence, technology, engineering and maths) while helping us to design and build our robot.

Regional Competition by JosephAfter the long and tough elimination process and the endless months of practising it came to Wednesday 20th December, the day ofthe regionals at the Portsmouth University. As well as doing the Lego challenge games at the competition we had to do two presen-tations, one on the years topic (this year it was water) and one on your team. We flew through these presentations and enjoyed it. Allthe teams were invited into a room together ready for the award ceremony where it was announced that we had won the cup for thebest robot score as well as being awarded the overall Champions Award which meant that we were through to the National Finals.

First Lego League UK and Ireland National FinalThe National Final was held at the University of the West of England in Bristol on Saturday 24th February. On the day we were allvery excited and had a very early start. We met at school at 6.15am in order to make it to Bristol for the opening ceremony at8.30am. 54 schools were taking part in the final from all over the UK and Ireland. Most of the children were from secondaryschools but we didn’t let that put us off. We had a good practice before our first robot runand managed to adjust the light sensors correctly for the light in the auditorium. Ellen andLouisa did the first run and scored a very impressive 120 points. When we looked at thescoreboard this put us in 10th place. We were very busy throughout the day; giving presen-tations, answering questions, talking about our robot design and programming choices, tech-nical interviews and team building activities. We all thoroughly enjoyed the day. It was agreat experience and at the end of the competition we were in 19th place overall. We werevery pleased to be in the top twenty as this is the highest position Meon Junior School hasever achieved in the Nationals.

Punctuality – Why does it matter?Arriving to school on time is very important for your child. This creates a good start to their day and establishes positive routines.Children who are late to school are often anxious about arriving late and will sometimes refuse to go altogether. If a child arriveson time it ensures that the other children in class who have already settled down to work are not disrupted.Quite often when a child is late, the teacher will have to repeat instructions for the day, or the child may miss important lessonswhich are the basis of their learning. Morning registration begins at 8.50am and registers close at 9.05am. Whilst arriving duringthis period may not affect your child’s overall attendance percentage, it will affect their learning and how they feel about coming toschool. We have all arrived late to a meeting or gathering and understand the awkward and difficult feelings that this can resultin. Being on time sets your child’s day off to a good start and puts them in a positive frame of mind. It also sets good patternsand habits for the future when an employer pays you to be on time. Punctuality ultimately, and most importantly, leads to betterattainment.

Attendance News

Children, can you find the eight Easterbunnies hidden inthis newsletter?Good luck!

A South Western trains driver and a Railway Community Officer came intoschool to talk to Year 6 about the dangers of railways and show videoshighlighting what can happen when these dangersare ignored. The session was interesting, interac-tive but most importantly informative. The childrentook part in role play and were even able to dressup in uniforms belonging to the rail company. Theyear 6's all left the session feeling very enthusedand knowledgeable.

Rail Safety

Please note that a ver-sion of the newsletter isalways available on theschool website in gloriouscolour.

Newsletter

Attendance ChampionDaisy-Mae Blay has really improved herattendance this half term andwill be awarded the attend-ance mascot.Well done Daisy-Mae, keepup the good work!

Attendance ChampionThis half term 5S had the highest attend-ance percentage. Very welldone to all the children in5S who will have the trophyin their class for next halfterm.

Current Year AttendanceGroup % Attendance

Year 3 95.84

Year 4 95.43

Year 5 96.2

Year 6 95.5

2017-2018 95.74

2016-2017 96.11

Spring Term 2018

Children will receive an attendance certifi-cate if they have attained 100% attend-ance for the spring term. A very big welldone to all these children.Children will also go into a draw for 100%Attendance and 100% Punctuality for thisterm. Four lucky children will win a £5voucher for W H Smith.

Please note that absences will NOT beauthorised if they are due to:

· Another member of the familybeing ill

· The family oversleeping or hav-ing a late night

· Problems with uniform

· Forgetting school dates

· Birthdays

· Bad weather

· Vague reasonsJan Atrill

Office Manager/

Attendance OfficerYear 5 enjoying their fascinating trip to theChichester Planetarium.

Do you have any itemsabout your out of schoolactivities or achievementsyou would like included inour next school newsletter?If so, please give them toMr Bayliss who will do hisbest to include as many ashe can.