Newsletter October 2016

Transcription

1 Newsletter October 2016 Dear Parents and Carers, Welcome to our first newsletter of the new school year. The time, as always, just seems to have whizzed by and I hope you are all looking forward to the half term break and (fingers crossed), some Autumn sunshine. Our school is full of busy, enthusiastic children, working hard to improve their learning at every opportunity. The newest members of our Stonebow family, in Foundation Stage, are all settled in and it is a real delight to see their happy, smiling faces around the school. We now have 325 children on our school roll so Stonebow is the biggest it has ever been! We do really value the support of Parents and Carers and we are keen to hear your views about what you feel we do well and what we could improve in order to make our school even better. A big thank you to those of you who have already completed the Parent/Carer questionnaire given out at Parents Evening. (There is a copy on the website under Parents/ Letters home if you missed it!) If you haven t filled yours in yet, please make sure you do so over half term and let us have it back after the holiday. There are 2 house points on offer for every child in Yrs 1 to 6 who brings back a completed form! Have a great half term everyone! Kind regards, Jane Fines Congratulations to the ninety children who completed 'The Big Friendly Read' a national reading challenge organised by libraries across the country. Each year Loughborough Library awards a cup to the primary school with the highest number of participants. We are proud to announce that this year Stonebow was the winner! We hope that these children, and more, will continue to visit the library regularly or make use of the library van which visits school. Photo on back page. Macmillan success! A huge thank you to everyone who supported the Macmillan coffee/tea and cake afternoon on 30 th September. Whether you made cakes, donated cakes or just came along to eat cakes, the afternoon was a great success and gave Parents and Carers the opportunity to meet up for a chat as well as raising money for this very worthy cause. A grand total of 267 was collected on the day which is fantastic. Thank you to our Parents, particularly Mrs Webster, for organising and running the event on the day. Brilliant! Miss Devlin is starting a chess club for children in Key Stage 2. Open to beginners and those that already play. Come to Foundation classroom on Wednesdays at to take part. Stonebow Newsletter 1

2 French It has been a fantastic first half-term of French for children in Year One who are now able to say hello and goodbye, ask how someone is feeling, tell others how they are feeling and say their name in French. It has been so lovely to see the amazing progress that they have all made in such a short time. You can watch them in action singing a French song by going to the French section of our school website (accessed via the E Learning tab) and clicking on Photos and Videos. French Club is back in full swing this year for children in KS2. In Upper KS2 the children have decided that they would like to work on some flags. We are currently working on a display showing the flags of all of the French speaking countries across the world. Five children from Year 5 have been chosen to attend three Language Taster Days at the Loughborough Grammar School this year. These sessions will run on a Saturday morning and the children involved will be given the opportunity to try six different languages and sample dishes popular in those countries. I m sure that they will have a great time! Stonebow Newsletter 2

3 Free School Meals Stonebow Newsletter 3

4 Food For Life Awards Day On Thursday 6 th October Charlotte Kemble, Deb Houlton and Andy Travis, along with five pupils had a fantastic day out at Thorpe Farm, Barkby, to receive, and celebrate our Bronze award for Food for Life. After the presentations and photos, we enjoyed pumpkin soup for break, sowing peas, and then had a farm tour on a tractor and trailer. This was followed by a bit of pumpkin carving (good practice for Halloween!), a delicious barbecue lunch, and having a go at the Japanese garden art called kokedamas very messy but good fun! It was a brilliant day all round, but the icing on the cake had to be coming third in the pumpkin carving competition, and returning to school with an insect hotel to put up in the school grounds! Well done Freya, Katie, Lara, Leo and Isla you are now officially master pumpkin carvers! Please see the website for a slideshow of photos from our day out, which will be appearing soon. Stonebow Newsletter 4

5 School Notes Our Foundation Stage children investigating the crime scene left by 3 naughty bears. Stonebow Newsletter 5

6 Upper KS2 Upper KS2 Burglar Alarms Class 10, 11 and 12 have all been having a super time creating burglar alarm systems linked to our Stormbreaker theme for Topic and our Electricity theme for Science. The process we went through was to first design them, thinking about what resources we would need and how it would all go together. We applied our scientific knowledge on conductors and insulators before we created the alarm system. Here are a few pictures of our creations: Stonebow Newsletter 6

7 Harvest Festival Harvest celebrations We all thoroughly enjoyed our harvest celebrations last week it was great to see the hall full to the brim with parents, carers and families enjoying the singing, poems and prayers. The class hampers were a great success (especially those filled with wine!) and the lucky winners struggled home weighed down with goodies. The children performed with enthusiasm and enjoyment, appreciating the importance of a fruitful harvest and recognising how they can help the farmers and their families in Africa to achieve just that. We raised a fantastic 463 for Christian Aid s Harvest Appeal so a huge thank you to everyone for changing people s lives and transforming communities across the world. Stonebow Newsletter 7

8 And Finally Goodbye to Mrs York! It is with much sadness that we will be saying goodbye to Mrs York on Friday as she leaves us to take up a Learning Mentor post at Cobden Primary School. She will be greatly missed by us all, but especially the children in Year 1 and certainly by Mrs Pitchers! A huge thank you to her for her hard work, commitment and support over the last 2 years. We wish her every happiness and success in her new role. Sum Dog and Bug Club New 3D Games are now available if you play on an ipad or Android. Download the new Sumdog 3D app fro m the Apple or Android store. You must login to your school account to play these games.. They are not available in the normal site. Please make use of these sites during the half term and encourage your children to take part in the challenges. Remember it is better to login via the school website. If you have any problems please admin@stonebowps.net and I will try to sort them out. Ian Payne Busy boys building a home for Baby Bear. Time to make the porridge. Yum! Stonebow Newsletter 8