Newsletter for week ending 20th July 2012

Farewells
We would like to say goodbye and good luck to our Year 6 leavers; Florence Amery, Rhiannon Amery, Megan Barber, Olivia Dallimore, Matthew Green, Chloe Hindmarch, Ewan Madry, Maisie Matthews, Joe Mercer, Chloe Scragg and Ella Mae White. We are proud of all of them and wish them every success in their secondary school and in the future.
We also say thank you, and goodbye and good luck to Mrs Hargrave as she begins her teaching career and to Reverend David Cleugh as he moves on in his career.

School Meals
School meals from 1st September will be offered at a slightly reduced cost of £2 per day. Cheques for school meals should be made payable to Oxfordshire County Council please with Stadhampton Primary School written on the back of the cheque. In order to reduce administration time spent on school meals we appreciate receiving orders and payments for school meals on the first morning of each school week. Thank you.

Swimming at the Abbey Sports Centre in Berinsfield
Class 2 will start their swimming sessions at the Abbey Sports Centre in Berinsfield on Monday 10th September. They will have 7 sessions between September and December.

For families new to swimming sessions at Berinsfield, pupils need to bring their own swimming trunks or costume, a swimming hat and a towel on Monday mornings.

As always, we appreciate a voluntary contribution towards the transportation costs and the costs associated with swimming at Berinsfield. Each weekly visit currently costs the school £75. For the last 5 years or so we have requested voluntary contributions of £1 towards the costs.
For the academic year which has just ended, our total expenses for taking pupils to swim at Berinsfield were 37 weeks @ £75 per week = £2775.
Our income from the £1 voluntary contributions for the year amounted to £633.

Thank you to the parents who make regular voluntary contributions towards the costs.

Due to pressures on the school budget and our strategic decision to provide additional support to all pupils through an increase in the level of teaching assistant provision we have therefore made the decision to increase the cost of the suggested voluntary contributions to £2, per child, per session from 1st September. This should increase our total income from the voluntary contributions to £1266 which is still less than half of the cost of providing swimming at Berinsfield.

We hope that parents understand that this decision was not taken lightly; we need to continue to manage our limited budget wisely in order to provide the best possible outcomes for the pupils. Swimming is a compulsory part of the national PE curriculum. The cost to parents for swimming at Berinsfield will still be significantly lower than other local schools who rely on coach transport to get there and back.
Cheques for swimming should be made payable to Stadhampton Primary School. Thank you.

Unnamed Uniform
We have some items of uniform which are unnamed on display outside Class 1. Please take away any items which you believe may be yours before they are disposed of at the end of school tomorrow.


Sports Evening
A big thank you to everyone – pupils, parents, staff, PTA, governors, Little Bears, former pupils and extended families for making this event the special occasion that it is.

PTA NEWS
Sports Night BBQ
What a relief that the rain held off for sports night. It was a good evening and we raised £586. Our thanks to Stephen Dawson, Nikki Howlett, Joy Hopkins & Alan Manzie for running the BBQ and bar.

End of Term Disco - Thursday 19th July
With almost the whole school coming the disco promises to be a great evening, and tickets are still available. In advance of the final count up - we anticipate that approximately £183 will be raised.

School Uniform
After many years of ordering and supplying the school uniform, Tracy Perring has decided it's time to hand it on - we'd like to say a heartfelt thanks to Tracy for all her time and effort doing this over the years.

Sue Bowerman is taking up the baton, and will now be dealing with the school uniform. You can order uniform items from Sue via email:stadhamptonpta@gmail.com

Thank you from all the PTA
Just to say a huge thank you from all the PTA to everyone who has helped and supported our fund raising efforts throughout the year. Our first meeting back is on Tuesday 18th September at 7.45pm in the school hall. Happy holidays to everyone.


Little Bears News
We are so proud of all our big children who enjoyed 3 days in "big school" and it sounds like they had a great time.
We are hoping for finer weather for our sports day to go ahead as planned at 11.15 on Friday followed by Forest Schools until 3pm.
We are saying a sad farewell to all our children moving on at the end of this term and wish them lots of luck.
Also a fond farewell to Tracy Perring who leaves us at the end of term, we wish her lots of luck.


DIARY DATES:
Friday 20th July 9.05am - Leavers assembly. Everyone welcome to attend.
1.30pm school ends
Monday 3rd & Tuesday 4th September Staff INSET Days
Wednesday 5th September Pupils return to school for the start of the new academic year.

Finally, thank you to everyone as we come to the end of this school year. We are always very grateful for the support of all parents. Special thanks are due to Mrs Duke for auditing the Special Purposes and Hall Accounts, to the parents who help regularly with hearing readers, help on school trips and bake cakes for a variety of purposes, to the parents who helped with cycle safety training, to those who run lunchtime and after-school clubs, to those who have helped with jobs around the school and, of course, to the PTA committee who work tirelessly to fundraise so that pupils can enjoy excellent facilities, learn French and provide additional resources and opportunities. Thank you to Mrs Hawley and Mrs Wells who still regularly return to school to help us. Finally, thank you also to the Governing Body who give their time freely to both support the school and challenge the staff!

We wish you all a very happy summer break and look forward to welcoming those who are coming back to school on Wednesday 5th September.