Newsletter No 5 / 6th February 2009

Happy FEBRUARY Birthday to: Florence Amery, Rhiannon Amery, Chloe Brown, Joshua Drake, Matthew Green, Tom Leighfield, Evelyn Mannering, Jessica Tombling, Cameron Vale and Ella Mae White.

During FEBRUARY we are focusing on the core value of SIMPLICITY

Parking in the School Car Park
Thank you to all drivers who have responded to our request to avoid blocking the entrance to Little Bears Pre-School. The school car park is currently available to parents/carers to park in to help prevent traffic congestion in Cratlands Close but children and traffic are not an ideal mix.
In the interest of the safety of all children, we would like to remind parents/carers that children should be collected in person from the school gate and be closely supervised at all times. Additionally, drivers are reminded to be extra vigilant and to observe the 5mph speed limit both within the car park and the approaches to/from it. Thank you.

Pupil Progress Information for Parents
Please find attached to this newsletter a letter outlining our new mid-year procedure to update parents on key aspects of their child/ren’s progress.

UNICEF Day for Change
As we were unable to hold this event on Friday 6th February we have re-scheduled this for Wednesday 11th February. All change gratefully received!

Laptop Trolley
Our new laptop trolley is now up and running! Our laptops are currently being used by Class 3 on a daily basis and are proving to be an indispensable addition to our ICT teaching and learning resources. Each laptop is linked to the Internet and to the class printer; this enables pupils to create presentations in many applications using downloaded images. These presentations can be printed out for displays and for workbooks. As an example of use, this week, Class 3 have been using the laptops for subjects across the curriculum including “Word” documents about Cheltenham for geography and “The Water Cycle” for science topic work. Pupils in Classes 1 and 2 will have opportunities to access the laptop trolley in the near future.

Annual “Jian-Zi” Competition
Every year for the last few years our Chinese New Year celebrations have included a “jian-zi” competition. This is a type of colourful shuttlecock which children in China often play with, usually to practice football “keepy – uppy” skills. Our school champion is, again, Joshua Drake who scored a magnificent 61! Robbie Scragg with 17 and Benedict Diment with 7 are also showing potential for the future! We hold this competition as an international event with our partner school in Hazlach, Poland, but we are still waiting for their result as they are currently closed for their winter holiday.

Annual Chess Tournament
Our annual chess tournament for pupils in Classes 2 and 3 started this week. This was an introductory round before the chess matches start “for real” next week. All contenders have a weekly match and gain points which vary depending on whether the match was won, lost or a draw. There are various incentives along the way for all participants but the individual with the most points at the end of the tournament is, of course, our chess champion for the year!

Little Bears News
This week Little Bears have had great fun playing in the snow and building a snowman. We have also been making binoculars so that we can look at the birds on our bird table, and then we record which birds we have seen in our garden. We enjoyed icing biscuits and making some bird cake for our birds. We have also this week begun our “ Footsteps” training” which is part of OCC’s Road Safety training programme for Early Years pupils. This week we have been reading “Teddy Takes a Tumble” stories which help us to understand why it is so important to wear a seat-belt when we travel in a car. If anyone has any shoe boxes that are no longer required, we would appreciate them being given to us for our treasure hunt, which will take place in March.

DIARY DATES:

Tuesday 10th February Year 3 Dance Festival at Icknield Community College
Friday 13th February School Council “Monarch Dressing-Up Day” - £1 to particpate
School finishes at 3.15pm at the end of Term 3
Monday 23rd February Return to school for the start of Term 4
Swimming sessions begin for Class 3 pupils
Wednesday 25th February Mobile Library visit
Tuesday 17th March Maths Evening for Parents 6.30-8pm
Thursday 4th June School closed for Parliamentary and County Council Elections