.png)
Hello All
Welcome back as we start Term 4 - lots of interesting opportunities to come again this term and the opportunity for you to meet the teachers to discuss your child's progress and current targets. We’re looking forward to seeing all your creative costumes for World Book Day this week then your red outfits and accessories for Red Nose Day next week! This newsblog also includes two items from groups that the children lead - School Council and our Eco-committee.In the blog this week:-
Term 4 dates
This Term’s Value and Approach to Lent
Reminders – World Book Day, Book Fayre and Sponsored Ready, Steady Read, Parent Consultation Meetings, Clubs, Year 1 and Year 2 Reading and Book Bags
Comic Relief/Red Nose Day
Driving on School Site
Football Match Report
Baby News
Eco-Committee Request
School Council Report
This Week's Book Recommendations
Things to Do in the Community
Term 4 - 2018/19 | ||
Date | Time | Event |
4/3/19 | Clubs start this week and will run in weeks beginning 4/3, 11/3, 18/3 & 25/3. No clubs on w/b 24/2 or 1/4 due to show me sessions. Clubs will be on this week even though we have parent consultation meetings | |
5/3/19 | 15.30-19.00 | Parent Consultation Meetings - note, clubs are on see above |
6/3/19 | Y2 Swimming begins | |
7/3/19 | All Day | World Book Day – see below |
7/3/19 | 15.30-19.00 | Parent Consultation Meetings - note, clubs are on see above |
11/3/19 | Science Week in school | |
12/3/19- 15/3/19 | 15.30-16.00 | Book Fayre – to be held near the school office & Y5/6 area - See request below |
14/3/19 | 18.00-19.00 | Parent Workshop - Health & Wellbeing - details and sign up will be issued by email on Tuesday |
15/3/19 | Red Nose Day – Red Noses will be available in school and can be purchased via Parent Pay – see below for details | |
20/3/19 | 19:00 | FOTF Quiz night – details to follow |
25/3/19 | 14.30-16.30 | Selected Y5 children to take part in Mini Police sessions |
1/4/19 | ‘Show me’ sessions – Monday 1/4 classrooms open 3:30 – 5:30; Tuesday 2/4 classrooms open 3:30 – 4:30 Children in YN times are: Tuesday & Thursday 8.40-9.10 for those in morning sessions and 12.20-12.50 for afternoon sessions. Parental access to Tapestry for YN and YR children and Seesaw for Y1/2/3/4/5 children until end of February holiday. | |
5/4/19 | Last day of term 4 – normal finish time | |
8/4/19-22/4/19 | School closed – Easter holiday Monday 22/4/19 is a Bank Holiday | |
16/4/19 | Offer Day for YR September starters | |
23/4/19 | Children return to school – Tuesday | |
This Term’s Value and Approach to Lent
We are focusing on service as our Christian Value this term. The story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples at the Last Supper is well known—this is where he takes on the role of the lowest servant rather than that of the master. Jesus tells us clearly what is the meaning of this action:‘ Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done.’ Christians believe that serving God means serving others (Galatians chapter 5 verses 13f). It challenges the idea that life is all about competition, or that freedom simply means doing what suits me, or my group, best. It also means that we cannot serve other masters as well (i.e. focus on these as the things of greatest importance) – such as money and possessions. This service is given freely without expectation of return—as in the parable of the Good Samaritan, or in ‘going the extra mile” (Matthew chapter 5 verse 41). However, Christians would say that service of Christ and imitation of Christ is not all about restrictions: “His service is perfect freedom.”
This term also sees us including our approach to Lent as part of our focus for collective worship. As we did last year, rather than giving something up we are, alongside the value of service, giving something to others. We are using the https://40acts.org.uk as a basis for what we are doing but each class has designed their own 40 Act challenge, which we began last week. If you would like to join in with a family version there is one available here - https://40acts.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/40-Family-Wallchart-2019.pdf 
Reminders – World Book Day, Book Fayre and Sponsored Ready, Steady Read, Parent Consultation Meetings, Clubs, Year 1 and Year 2 Reading and Book Bags
- World Book Day is on this Thursday – staff teams have plenty of exciting World Book Day activities lined up based on the themes for each year group and are looking forward to seeing all of your costumes – we've all been sorting out our Day the Crayons Quit costumes too🙂
Book Fayre - The Book Fair will be in school from Tuesday 12th March – Monday 18th March. It will take place near the main school office. It will be open from 12.12.30 and 3.15-4.00. Thank you to those of you who have already offered to help run the Book Fair this year – I know there are still a couple of slots where help would be appreciated. Please speak to the school office for more details if you think you could help. The Book Fair is always popular and is another fantastic way to enthuse our children in reading new books. It also helps provide additional funding for books in school that will be available to your children. Please support it by coming along if you can. - Ready, Steady Read/Listen - thank you to all those of you who have returned sponsorship forms from the February holiday reading challenge. The competition winners will be drawn on Thursday this week so please get your forms in by then to be in with a chance of winning. There will be a prize given to the child who read/listened to the most books over the February holiday for each age group - one prize for a child in YN/YR; one for a child in Y1/2; one for Y3/4 and one for Y5/6.
- Parent Consultation Meetings – a reminder that these are on this week (Tuesday and Thursday). They are 10 minute slots and we aim to stick to that time as closely as we can. These meetings work well if your child comes along too as they can be involved in the conversation about their progress and targets.
- Clubs start this week – clubs are on this week, even though it’s parents evening. Thanks to our wonderful teaching teams the clubs are being covered by other adults within school so that the children don’t miss this week.
- Year 1 and Year 2 Reading and Book Bags – Year 1 and Year 2 should have book bags rather than rucksacks for school please, as we keep their book bags in class to enable ease of access for reading. The book bag boxes in class are not suitable for rucksacks.
Comic Relief/Red Nose Day
In order to raise funds for Comic Relief, we will be marking Red Nose Day on Friday 15th March by holding a ‘Wear Something Red’ day. Children are invited to wear some (or all!) red clothes or accessories. Donations can be made via Parent Pay and all money raised will go directly to Comic Relief.
Any Red Noses that were ordered before Friday have gone home with children. There are still a limited number available which can be purchased via Parent Pay.
Driving on School Site
A number of staff and parents have recently made us aware that there have been some ‘near misses’ when people are leaving school after dropping off. We understand that this is a busy time of day, but we would ask again that we make safety our first concern, especially when driving over the zebra crossing.
Football Match Report
Another week, another game and this time Tadpole hosted their first ever football match at our school against a strong Peatmoor side, who ended up winning the game. The boys worked hard all through the match, on a hot day, and it paid off when Gabriel found the back of the net late on in the game. Tadpole were unlucky not to get a second as Owain hit the post but all in all a good team performance - we are eagerly awaiting our first league win.
Miss Wood
Baby News
We are very excited to announce that Emma Smith, Acting Early Years Lead and YN Teacher, is expecting a baby later this year. She is likely to be going on maternity leave at the end of Term 5 and we will let you know the arrangements for covering her teaching commitment nearer that time.
Eco-Committee Request
Tadpole Farm are collecting crisp packets to raise money for Wiltshire Air Ambulance and we need your help!
Please bring all of your used crisp packets into school and drop them off at our collection point in the school entrance foyer. The crisp packets do not need to be rinsed, cleaned or folded, simply flattened and dropped off in our recycling bin. Please see the guidance below about what we can accept to be recycled. All crisp packets will be taken to be recycled in order to raise money for Wiltshire Air Ambulance. Thank you in advance for your kind donations and support! School Council Report
School Council minutes - 28.2.19
Quiet Area:
It’s being used and enjoyed but not very well by some. Resources are not always looked after. School council have decided we should have monitors who help the class tidy up the boxes. Children also decided it would be a good idea to have an outdoor clock in the quiet area so monitors will know when to start tidying up.
The school council members are going to ask their class and staff on the playground for feedback on how they think the area is going and what improvements we could make. We will add magnetic boards and reading books to a box. School Council members will speak to their class about showing respect to the resources and looking after everything otherwise they will be taken away for a while. Murewa and Emily will come and work with Mrs Longhurst on Friday 1st March to devise an application for children to fill in to apply for monitor jobs
Class Council:
Classes are going to make sure that they have their class council times fortnightly and school council meetings will happen every other Thursday. Mrs Longhurst will make sure all of the classrooms have Class Council boards and new books given to members
Post Box:
School Council have decided it should be moved to the UKS2 library. Jasmine and Poppy have volunteered to make sure there is always paper and pencil available near the post box.
Collaboration with another School Council:
We discussed how it would be good to talk with children from a local School Council and perhaps work together on some projects. Mrs Longhurst and Mrs Knott will look into this.
A new position has become available within the School Council. Rabbits will elect a new member.
This Week's Book Recommendations
Things to Do in the Community
Support for parents with finding out about online issues and gaming can be found here https://nationalonlinesafety.com/resources/platform-guides/
Swindon Town Football in the Community <admin@stfc-fitc.co.uk> wrote:
The weather outside is sunny,
We've thoughts of the Easter bunny,
It's not very long to go,
Book your place, please don't be slow.
In the absence of our cold weather songs, we thought we'd entertain you with a more seasonal approach!
Our February holiday courses were sold out and historically it is a quiet course compared to some of the others we run during the warmer months.
We're already taking bookings on our Easter courses and predict a good uptake on these too.
The courses run on the 9th, 10th, 11th April and 16th, 17th,18th April.
Our girls only course will be during week one, goalkeepers during week two, with mainstream courses across both weeks. All courses can be booked online following the link below:
https://officialsoccerschools.co.uk/stfitc/swindon-town-courses/holiday.html
If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us on 01793 421303.
Kind Regards,
The STFITC Team.
We've thoughts of the Easter bunny,
It's not very long to go,
Book your place, please don't be slow.
In the absence of our cold weather songs, we thought we'd entertain you with a more seasonal approach!
Our February holiday courses were sold out and historically it is a quiet course compared to some of the others we run during the warmer months.
We're already taking bookings on our Easter courses and predict a good uptake on these too.
The courses run on the 9th, 10th, 11th April and 16th, 17th,18th April.
Our girls only course will be during week one, goalkeepers during week two, with mainstream courses across both weeks. All courses can be booked online following the link below:
https://officialsoccerschools.co.uk/stfitc/swindon-town-courses/holiday.html
If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us on 01793 421303.
Kind Regards,
The STFITC Team.
