Newsletter No 1 - 10th June 2011

Welcome back!

Happy June Birthday to: Megan Barber, Olivia Dallimore, Betsy Elliott, Ella Gravett, Chloe Hindmarch, Zara Hopkins, James Lowman, Josh Matthews and Georgia Valentine.

During JUNE we are focusing on the core value of HONESTY

Transition Days
In order for pupils to experience, and become more familiar with, classroom arrangements for September, we have planned a series of ‘moving up’ days in July. These will take place on Wednesday 6th, Thursday 7th and Friday 8th July. During these three days Year 6 pupils will be visiting Icknield Community College for their transition days and the Foundation Stage pupils due to start Stadhampton School in September will be in our Reception class with Miss Mould. Therefore, for all three days, current Foundation Stage pupils and Year 1 pupils will be in Class 1 with Mrs Manzie, current Year 2 and Year 3 will be in Class 2 with Mrs Garrard and Mrs Turner and current Year 4 and Year 5 pupils with be in Class 3 with Miss Shah. During these three days pupils in each class will carry out a mini project, details of which will be announced nearer the time.

Swimming in the School Pool
We have received a clean bill of health for the school pool and it is now ready for use. We shall begin using it when the weather warms up a bit! Please send your child into school with swimming kit from next week.

Swimming at Berinsfield Pool
A reminder that Class 2 pupils will have their final swimming session at Berinsfield on 13th June. We would be pleased to receive any outstanding “voluntary donations” towards the transport costs from those families who have not contributed as yet. Swimming will then begin for Class 3 pupils on Monday 20th June – they will have 5 sessions finishing on 18th July.

Premier Sports Holiday Course

Michael Hopkins, will be leading another holiday course at Stadhampton School on behalf of the Premier Sports Group, for 5 days beginning Monday 25th July. Booking forms are not available as yet, but we thought parents would find it helpful to know in advance, that this course will be running again for that one week.

Tesco Vouchers
Many thanks for collecting these for us – we have now posted our order off. We have chosen to exchange our vouchers for literacy, numeracy and music resources. We are still collecting Sainsbury vouchers and we intend to exchange those vouchers for sports equipment, so please keep sending them in!

P.T.A. News
Many thanks to everyone who donated clothes for the clothes recycling collection. The bags weighed a whopping 582 kilos and resulted in us receiving a total of £291.00 from Bags2School towards P.T.A. funds. We will be organising another clothes collection for the autumn, so start bagging and saving any clean, good quality children’s and adults clothing, shoes, bags, bedding, towels, curtains and soft toys. We will let you know the collection date in the new school year.

Come and join us on Saturday June 25th for The Great Stadhampton Bake Off!

We are running two baking competitions on the day; one for adults and one for children, entrants can enter as many cakes as they like and if you simply wish to sample and enjoy the entries we will be offering tea, coffee and other delicacies too.
There will be prizes for the best entries and entry is £3 per person or £5 per family. Doors open from 2.30pm but cakes for the competition will need to be with us by 1.30pm.

Charity Spring Concert in the Hall on Friday 17th June
At 6.30pm pupils in Classes 2 and 3 are presenting a Spring Concert to raise funds for a charity providing short-term and long-term support for children affected by the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan. There is much musical talent at Stadhampton School which we would like to celebrate and pupils will be playing clarinets, guitars, piano and recorders. Parents and families of pupils in Classes 2 and 3 have had priority seating but we would like to extend the invitation to all interested families. We are not selling tickets as we will be making a collection during the event, however, to ensure we provide enough seating please inform the school if you would like to attend. We expect the concert to last about an hour and light refreshments will be available afterwards.

Working with the University of Oxford
Once again we are pleased to be working with a doctoral student at the University of Oxford who is undertaking research into how children process words when reading. Only pupils in Class 3 are involved in this current study but, hopefully, eventually we will all benefit from the findings of this research!

International links with Tomas Guido School, Buenos Aires
Along with other primary schools in the Watlington Partnership of Schools, we are developing a link with a group of primary schools in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Our partner school is called Tomas Guido School which is in central Buenos Aires. The link is part of a “connecting classrooms” programme administered by the British Council. The main purpose of the link is for us to develop an understanding of each other’s cultures by exchanging information about national and local festivals and customs. At this stage Class 3 have been closely involved by sending information about April Fools Day and the Royal Wedding and receiving letters from pupils at Tomas Guido School outlining their hobbies and favourite food – it’s amazing how popular football is! Two representatives of our School Council, along with their counterparts from the other schools in the Watlington Partnership recently attended an “Argentina” meeting held in Watlington Town Hall and some members of Class 3 have taken part in a skype link which was very exciting.

Little Bears News
Little Bears Pre-school will be holding their hugely popular Strawberry Fair once again on THURSDAY 7 JULY from 3pm onwards. There will be lots to do - tombola, lucky dip, craft stalls and more, plus lots to eat and drink as well as goodies to win.
Please join us and support Little Bears in the process - we're fundraising towards improvements for our garden area too!

Chalgrove & Watlington Children’s Centre
Chalgrove & Watlington Children’s Centre are looking for ‘bank staff’ for the Childrens Centre. Please contact centre manager Helen Rints 07504 958334 or Helen.Rints@Oxfordshire.gov.uk for further details.

DIARY DATES:
Friday 17th June Spring Concert (in aid of Japan Appeal)
Wednesday 22nd June Y5 Students visiting ICC – Creative Arts lesson
Mobile library visit
Tuesday 28th June Cycling Safety Test – Year 6 pupils
Wednesday6th July, Thursday 7th July, Friday 8th July Transition days for all pupils
Friday 15th July Sports evening (weather permitting)
Wednesday 20th July Mobile Library
Friday 22nd July End of school year assembly at 9.05am in hall. All welcome.
Term 6 ends at 1.30pm

Monday 5th & Tuesday 6th September Teacher INSET Days
Wednesday 7th September Pupils return to school
Wednesday 21st September School photographs