Newsletter for week ending 22 March 2013

Next week is a short week at school as we break up for the Easter Holiday at 1.30pm on Thursday 28 March, and therefore this will be the final newsletter of Term 4.

Message from the Governing Body to all parents/carers:

Governors’ response to the Ofsted Report
The 20th/21st February 2013 Ofsted report gave Stadhampton Primary School an overall rating of 'Good'. This inspection judgement means we are "a good school that is effective in delivering outcomes that provide well for its pupils' needs. Pupils are well prepared for the next stage of their education..."

By now hopefully you will have had a chance to read through this latest Ofsted report, you may even have had an opportunity to look at reports of other local schools to see how we compare.

As a process Ofsted is extremely rigorous and their visits are only announced the day before. It is therefore important to recognise the hard work of the entire school team and the pupils during this review process.


Receiving a rating of good for our school is something we should all be really proud of and celebrate, particularly when the improvements required are in areas that have already been identified within the school and activities are already in progress.


The benefits of 'Big Write' and 'Big Talk' have already made significant improvements in literacy and our results are outstanding. To complement the success in literacy and to ensure further success in maths, parents will be aware of the 'Active Maths' programme that pupils across the school will be engaged in during this, and future school years. Along with greater work with maths investigations, to place maths in real life contexts and a detailed maths action plan we are confident that our mathematics results will rise to match the literacy achievements.

We would like to thank the teaching team at Stadhampton Primary School for their continued hard work and dedication to the school . We encourage all parents to continue to support the school and pupils in their endeavours to help to ensure future successes and that outstanding judgement we are working toward.


We say goodbye and good luck to Miss Berrow and Miss Mansell who left us on Friday as their placement from Oxford Brookes University came to an end. We are pleased to welcome Miss Peet to Stadhampton School for two weeks for some work experience.


Planting Trees at Stadhampton School
Pupils in Reception and Class 1 planted trees this week as part of their second taster session of Forest Schools. This was in recognition of the first ever International Forest Day, a day proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in December last year to encourage all U.N. member countries to organize forest-related activities, including tree-planting campaigns. They also made amazing dens, built a pretend fire using a strike stick to make sparks, pretended to cook food, hunted for bugs, enjoyed group time on the hammock and explored more creative ways to climb.


Summer/Autumn Menu 2013
Copies of the new 4-week menu which will start after Easter have been sent home via book bags this week. The menu will be uploaded onto the school website once it is available electronically from Food with Thought.

Comic Relief
Thank you to all pupils and staff for joining in so enthuisatically with activities for the Comic Relief Day last Friday. We had a fantastic day and were very pleased to raise £204.14. Special thanks are due to Mrs Gonzalez, Mrs Wilkin, Miss Berrow and Miss Mansell for organising the day for us.

‘Jian-Zi’ Tournament
We held our annual ‘Jian-zi’ competition in school recently and congratulate Max Lansley who was our school champion with a score of 28 and whose name and score will be engraved on the trophy.Thank you to everyone for participating in this fun but nerve-wracking competition! We now have the results of the tournament held at Hazlach School in Poland and congratulate Wojciech Grygierek who had an amazing score of 118! If you would like to know what a ‘Jian-zi is, please ask your children!

PTA News

Friday Cake club
The lucky winner of the cake last week was Mr Short, kindly donated by Mrs Marianne Matthews. If you would like to pay for Friday Cake Club for next term before we finish for Easter, it is 20p per child per week, making it £1.20 up to May half term, or £2.60 to take us up to the end of the school year. Please see Rowena Dobson.

End of Term Chocolate Raffle
We would still be grateful for any donations of chocolate. Tickets will be on sale next week, 20p a ticket or £1 for a strip of 5, please catch Diana at the school gates to get yours.


LITTLE BEARS NEWS:
Next week at LB's we are preparing for Easter and also looking at the Hindu festival Holi. The children will be enjoying lots of messy painting fun this week and throwing paint in the garden to make a big Holi picture.

DIARY DATES:
Wednesday 27th March Easter Chocolate raffle
Thursday 28th March School finishes for Easter at 1.30pm
8th -12th April Holiday Course at Stadhampton School
Monday 15th April Pupils and staff return to school for the start of Term 5
Friday 19th April Junior Citizen – Class 3
Thursday 2nd May School closed to pupils for County Council Elections
Monday 13th – Friday 17th May SATs week
Tuesday 14th May Clothes Recycling Collection


Do you like having fun & enjoy being with children?

Chalgrove & Watlington Children’s Centre are looking for ‘bank staff’ for the Children’s Centre. The play workers will be working mainly school hours with young children & their families in the Centre at Chalgrove, Watlington & surrounding villages on an adhoc basis to cover staff holiday & training.

Their focus will be ‘stay & play’ sessions, holiday activities, occasional Saturday sessions & crèche work. They will need to have (or working towards) a recognised level 2 or 3 qualification relevant to early years.
Pay £7.64 - £8.89 per hour depending on experience

Please contact centre manager Helen Rints
07504 958334 or Helen.Rints@Oxfordshire.gov.uk for further details or an informal chat.
Application forms are available from the centre. 01865 400219

We would like to wish everyone a Happy Easter break and hope that Spring is just around the corner!