The Carswell Times 29th April 2016

Transcription

1 The Carswell Times 29th April 2016 The Year 6 Red Admiral Class enjoyed an afternoon of fizzy grape juice, cultured chat and fun at the 35 Ock St Café last Friday as they proudly displayed their expressionist self-portraits to an adoring audience. At 2pm the doors of the café were opened for a private view of their portraits for their parents. They had studied the work of many artists such as Picasso, Rembrandt and Tamara de Lempicka - and developed their own style to produce their works. They used mixed media such as acrylic, charcoal and watercolour to give these pieces a vibrant and colourful look; a hall mark of expressionism. Parents and the public had many complimentary comments. One member of the public had this to say: You must have worked on these for a long time, they are very well painted! The paintings are for sale with the proceeds going to fund the end of term play so get yourself down to the café (35 Ock St) to have a look for yourself!

2 Drumming! This week our journalists, Tom and Sunip went to interview Adam of Monarch Class. For some time, Adam has been learning the drums. Adam told Tom and Sunip that learning the drums is fun but sometimes annoying to the neighbours. When he s older he wants to be a drummer. Adam explained that the drums are very delicate and that his dad is the one who is teaching him. He finished by saying that it is very entertaining. Yesterday I had the very great pleasure of accompanying Lily, Eden, Priyanka and Hannah (Freya was unable to come as she had another commitment) to the Cancer Research shop in Abingdon to present them with a cheque for ! Staff at the shop were hugely impressed by the group s determination and hard work, recognising the amount of their own free time they had given up for their cause. There are certainly a few future charity fundraisers and PTA members here! Well done!!

3 Our parent governors are a hugely valued part of our governing body. We currently have two vacancies for this important role. Governors meet on Monday evenings six times per year. Meetings are very efficient and usually last no longer than one hour. Our governors play a huge part in strategic planning for school improvement and overseeing finance and personnel. They represent our parent community as a very real voice in the type of school we are. You don t need any particular qualifications to be a governor, just a passion for our the work of our lovely school! Should we have more than two people interested (we hope we do!) we will hold an election. You can find out more about what being a school governor involves by: Visiting our website at Visiting the National Governors Association at Governor.aspx Making an appointment to see Ms Farr ing Byron Byrne, an existing parent governor, on Byron.byrne@eng.ox.ac.uk If you are interested, please let Ms Farr or the school office know and we will give you the necessary forms for you to express your interest. We are building a mud kitchen in the Nursery garden and would be very grateful for any donations of unbreakable pots and pans and large utensils.

4 Carswell School and Friends of Carswell School need more help with our Summer Fair! Our fair has always been a fun and rewarding event for the school, its pupils and those that come along and have a go on the coconut shy, the bouncy castle, win at the tombola and the raffle and eat their weight in cakes! All of this isn t possible however without volunteers who set up and run the event together with the school. The event runs smoothly and what we need is for people to help, even just 30 minutes on a stall, be it the refreshments, BBQ, face painting, manning the tombola or anything you fancy! It would be a HUGE help. Together we raise over 3000 at this event every year and this money goes towards much needed equipment: school playground equipment, new football kits, our lovely garden and educational items to name but a few. If you think that you can help on the day please the school, pop into the office, bex_priestley@hotmail.com, return this slip to your child s teacher or grab someone from the FOCs team - we d love to see some new faces. Bex and FOCS Name Class I am able to help at the Summer Fair.

5 Like lots of aspects of school life, school dinners have changed dramatically since the 1970s (1980s for you younger parents!). I have terrible memories of deserts such as semolina and rice pudding with the skin on top as I m sure do you! Many of you will have tried samples of freshly-baked bread, courgette chocolate cake and flapjacks at our recent Learning Reviews. We really can recommend them! If you are interested in your child having school dinners please take a look at our provider s website or ask at the office for more details.

6 BANK HOLIDAY! Monday 2 nd May 2016 KS2 (Y6) SATS WEEK Monday 9 th -Thurs 12 th May Carswell School FOCS Meeting Thursday 12 th May 7pm-8:30pm Brewery Tap Snug FOCS COFFEE MORNING Friday 20 th May :45am Dining Hall PRAYER SPACES KS2 Assembly Mr Harris Larkmead HT Monday 16 th May- Weds 18 th May Monday 23 rd May 2016 School Hall Y1 Peacock Parent Outcome Wednesday 25 th May Hall and sensory garden Y1 Gatekeeper Parent Outcome Thursday 26 th May Hall and sensory garden Y2 Parent Outcome Friday 27 th May Year 2 classrooms END OF TERM 5 Friday 27 th May :15pm START OF TERM 6 Monday 6 th June 2016 FARM DAY! Friday 10 th June 2016 Playground FOCS COFFEE MORNING Friday 10 th June :45am Dining Hall Queen s Birthday Lunch Monday 13th June 2016 Dining Hall Festival of Voices (25xKS2 children) Thursday 16 th June Dorchester Abbey Jonathan s Jungle Nursery/ Friday 17 th June 2016 Classrooms Reception/KS1 Summer FairSummer Fair Saturday 18 th June 11am-3pm Carswell Playground Camo Day Friday 24 th June 2016 Carswell School Year 3 Restaurant for parents July pm Dining Hall Transfer morning children to Thursday 7 th July am-11am Classrooms new classes Parents invited to meet new class Thursday 7 th July :05pm- Classrooms teachers for September 16 4:30pm FOCS Meeting Thursday 7 th July 7pm-8:30pm Brewery Tap Snug SPORTS DAY KS2 morning Friday 8 th July Abingdon School Field KS1 afternoon FOCS COFFEE MORNING Friday 8 th July :45am Dining Hall Hill End Reception Class Monday 11 th July 2016 (day only) Hill End OEC Hill End Year 1 Monday 11 th -Tuesday 12 th July Hill End OEC 2016 (overnight) Hill End Year 2 Tuesday 12 th -Weds 13 th July 2016 Hill End OEC (overnight) Hill end Year 3/4 Wednesday 13 th -Thursday 14 th Hill End OEC July 2016 (overnight) Year 5 Arts Festival Wednesday 13 th July 2016 Larkmead Hill end Year 5/6 Thursday 14 th -Friday 15 th 2016 (overnight) Leavers Service Monday 18 th Monday 18th July :30am July :30am Trinity Church END OF TERM 6 Tuesday 19 th July 2016 Year 6 - Transition Dates Larkmead - Miss Watkins to speak to pupils at Carswell - Wednesday 18 May 11am Induction days - Wednesday 22 and Thursday 23 June 8.30am pm Hill End OEC Trinity Church

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8 Dear Parents and Carers, I hope you ve all had as brilliant a week as we have here at Carswell. This morning I had the chance to visit some classrooms which, as always, was an absolute pleasure. I managed to eat my morning fruit with Chrysalis and Wood White Class. I asked Wood White whether it was possible for me to be Star of the Day but received a unanimous, No! Your name is not in the pot. Oh well I also saw some fantastic maths challenges across the school including witnessing children debating their solutions to problems, practising times tables facts up to x13 and working on their multiplication. We have recently received some inspiring maths training from the GLOW Maths Hub in Gloucestershire which staff have been busy putting into practise. Lots of this involves increased levels of challenge and thinking (I m not sure ALL the children appreciate this yet..!) which you will soon see reflected in changes to maths homework. My favourite part of this week was my trip to the Cancer Research shop, escorting our Year 5 fundraisers to hand over their cheque for We worked out that the children sold 785 Tombola tickets to achieve this amount! They couldn t have done this without your generous donations of tombola items or your willingness to buy tickets and potentially win them back! Thank you very much! Education remains a hot topic in the media at the moment. I have had conversations with several parents about the government s proposal to turn all schools into Academies regardless of their Ofsted grading. Whilst this is yet to become law, Carswell Governors are taking every step to ensure we are fully informed of what is happening across Oxfordshire so that should we have to make such a decision, we are aware of all possible options to ensure the continuation of the ethos we have built as a community. Parents may be interested to know that while 85% of secondary schools have converted to academy status, the figure for primary schools is 26%. Please be assured if or when we are at the point of parent consultation, we will be involving you as much as we possibly can. In the meantime, if this is a subject you feel strongly about and would like even closer involvement in the process, please do put yourself forward to become a school governor Details are in the newsletter. If you wish to discuss it with me, do catch me on the playground. The Year 6 SATs tests are almost upon us (Monday 9th to Thursday 12th May). Our school recognises that taking timed tests at this age could potentially be a stressful experience so we do all that we can to minimise this. During this week we will be putting extra staffing into Year 6 at the times of the tests to ensure all are able to remain calm and do their best. The children will also be coming to a FOCS-funded breakfast club as well as experiencing relaxing activities in between. It is important that parents know that the content of this year s tests is significantly harder than ever before in relation to the raised expectations of the 2014 National Curriculum. Schools across the UK have no idea where the thresholds will be set for these tests, a situation we haven t been in since the tests were introduced in This week we met with our families who have been affected by school admissions to Reception class for September Several of our families have not been allocated a place at Carswell. This is something we have no jurisdiction over as a school as places are allocated following strict criteria set by the Local Authority. We were able to discuss how we could support existing families with the potential need for early drop off or late pick ups should they have children in different schools. I would like to extend our thanks to these families for their patience and understanding at a difficult time. We have added a new date to our school diary today: the Queen s 90th birthday! On Monday 13th June, the children will be able to order a special Queen s birthday lunch menu details to follow. On this day they will also be learning about the Queen s life and her reign as the longest serving monarch. If they wish, children may wear red, white and blue on this day. May I wish you all a wonderful weekend. Warmest wishes, Tina Farr