Newsletter No 5 / 1st October 2010

Happy OCTOBER Birthday to: Benjamin Duke, Sophie Hector, Oliver Lowman, Rishon Marshall, Marcin Skwarek and Ellie Walker.

During OCTOBER we are focusing on the core value of APPRECIATION

Harvest Gifts
Thank you to everyone who brought Harvest Gifts for our Harvest Service on Friday 1st October. After the village Harvest Service on Sunday, they will be taken to The Porch, a centre in Oxford for homeless people.

PTA Message
A reminder that orders for plants and bulbs need to be given to a PTA committee member or returned to the school office by Friday 8th October. If you haven’t had an opportunity yet to read about what is on offer, it is well worth taking a look!

Polish Visit
During the last week we have welcomed a group of 13 visitors from our partner primary school in Hazlach, Poland. The group consisted of 7 pupils, accompanied by Pani Agnieszka Pilch the headteacher, along with other members of staff and parents. They participated in a number of activities with our pupils, including lessons and playtimes in school, pizza making with Year 6 at Pizza Express, kite making in school and kite flying at Wittenham Clumps. They also had a day trip to Oxford and visited other local places of interest with host families.
I would like to express my enormous thanks to all pupils, staff, host families, parents, governors and other members of the local community who supported this visit so generously. Our guests had a wonderful time and were genuinely sad to leave. For most of them it was their first experience of England and they came away with a very positive impression of Stadhampton School, the village community and England. Your children, our pupils, were fine ambassadors and a tribute to our school. Although our current Comenius Project has come to an end, I hope the valuable links between the schools will continue. Here are some pupil reports of the shared experiences:

Pizza Express Visit – Report written by Ben and Chloe B:
“Year 6’s and the Polish children went to Pizza Express on Tuesday 28th September. The Year 5’s went on Thursday 30th September. At Pizza Express we made pizzas with lots of yummy toppings. First they gave us some dough and we pressed the dough into a circle. Secondly we put it in a pan and then we spread some tomato puree all over the pizza dough. Then we put the toppings on and then they cooked it in the oven at 371○C for 2 to 3 minutes. We are our pizzas when we got back to school – they were scrumptious!”

Kite Flying – Report written by Florence and Rhiannon:
“On Saturday we made some kites with the Polish children, using some coloured markers and plastic triangles. We had over an hour to do this and we all had good designs and found it great fun. We all went to Wittenham Clumps and flew our kites,(luckily it was a nice windy day). Some kites got stuck or snapped but we all brought our kites home in one piece. The kites flew really high and very well. The whole day was fun and exciting. We enjoyed it very much and so did the others.”

Hosting Polish Visitors – Report written by Alice Madry
“It was a great experience to have the Polish people stay. They were fun to play with but tricky to communicate with! We had a fun experience going to London. It was good to see what they thought of the City. We had lunch in a traditional English pub, most of us had roast dinner. They really liked it!”

Little Bears News
We have welcomed most of our new children to Little Bears over the last 3 weeks, no new starters this week.
We do however welcome a new addition to the staff this week. Louisa, a 17 year old student, began work placement on Wednesday, she will be with us every Wednesday and Thursday from 9am-3pm until February 2011.
Sheep are the focus this week, there are ‘Baa Baa multi coloured sheep’ everywhere!

DIARY DATES:
Wednesday 6th October
Mobile Library
Thursday 7th October
Open Evening at Icknield Community College 6-8pm
Wednesday 13th October
Open Morning at school and at Little Bears
Friday 15th October
PTA Quiz Night
Thursday 21st October
Term 1 finishes at 3.15pm
Monday 1st November
Term 2 starts for all pupils
Mon 15th Nov & Weds 17th November
Parents’ Evenings