Newsletter for week ending 13th December 2013

Message from the Governing Body about Home to School Transport
As you are no doubt aware the Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) has to make significant cost savings in the forthcoming budgets. One of their proposals is to change the Home to School Transport arrangement, which would mean free travel would only be provided to the nearest school. There is an ongoing consultation and as you know, there was a consultation meeting held at Icknield Community College on Monday 2nd December with many Stadhampton parents in attendance.

We wanted to take this opportunity to recap on the potential impact for Stadhampton, Chiselhampton, Newington and other local villages.

The current proposal is that pupils will only be entitled to free transport to their nearest school, which for the majority of Stadhampton unfortunately is not our catchment school. Of concern to many parents who attended the consultation meetings is that depending on where you live in the village your nearest school could be any one of four schools: The Oxford Academy, Wallingford, Wheatley Park and Icknield – which has obvious implications for our community. There are provisions in the consultation (under A2) to prevent villages being ‘split’, however given that Icknield is technically one of the furthest schools from the village (by a matter of 0.25 to 0.5 miles) whether this will apply to Stadhampton and enable all of the village to enjoy free transport to Icknield is by no means guaranteed.

It should be noted that this is a consultation, and therefore nothing has been formally agreed as yet. We wanted to take this opportunity to provide you with all the information that is available in this regard, and encourage you to take a few minutes to respond to the consultation online before the deadline of 20 December 2013.

Where can I learn more?
There is a significant amount of detail about the consultation online:

https://myconsultations.oxfordshire.gov.uk/consult.ti/transport2015/consultationHome

There is a very active group (Oxon Schools Bus Action Group) who are challenging the proposals and their Facebook page has lots of information regarding the protests that have been occurring across the county:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Oxon-School-Bus-Action-Group/146863815505334

What can I do?
We would encourage all parents to complete the questionnaire as part of the consultation at the following link to ensure that your feelings are known:

https://myconsultations.oxfordshire.gov.uk/consult.ti/transport2015/view?objectId=521987
You will see from some of the correspondence on the Facebook site that there is strong feeling that making changes that misalign the catchment school and the school to which free transport is provided is not in anyone’s, but particularly the pupil’s best interest. The Council’s view is that savings will be achieved because parents will continue to send their children to the catchment school, however because this will be a parental choice, then in some cases free transport will not be provided.

What has the school and the Governing Body done?
In addition to responding to the consultation individually and as a Governing Body, we have been thinking what else we can do to try to raise the awareness of the issues to those on the council that may be able to influence the end result.

The Governing Body have been corresponding with the other Watlington Partnership schools in an effort to respond to the consultation as a Partnership, as this will demonstrate the broader impact that these proposals will have on Icknield and other rural communities.

A letter has been prepared to represent our views and this will be submitted to our local Councillor with a request to make sure these views are represented to OCC. We also intend to send a copy of this letter to John Howell, MP.

In addition we have been in dialogue with our local Councillor, Lorraine Lindsey-Gale, to request a meeting with her to discuss alternative strategies that would assist Stadhampton. We are hopeful to get a meeting scheduled very soon.

Next steps
Once the consultation is over a decision will be made in the New Year and this is expected to be implemented from Summer 2014. We will be closely monitoring the situation and will continue to provide feedback as more is learned through the end of the consultation.

Adopted pupils will now qualify for the Pupil Premium Grant - urgent action needed
Please see book bags for a letter about this.

Christmas Productions
Congratulations to all pupils on their splendid performances in the KS1 and KS2 Christmas productions this week. We received many compliments about each performance and pupils should be very proud of themselves. Thank you to school staff for preparing pupils for the performances, making and selling tickets, creating the scenery and making props, thank you to parents for helping with costumes, learning of lines and buying tickets to come along and watch. Special thanks to Sue Cyprien for helping with the face painting and to the PTA for serving refreshments on Tuesday evening. The total raised from ticket sales was £433 and this will go towards the purchase of I-pads and a storage unit. Each class will have two I-pads which will be used from the start of Term 3.

Reverend Caroline, who is also a school governor, watched both productions and sent this note which we thought we would share with you:

“It was a privilege to see both school Christmas productions, both played to a packed and enthusiastic audience. The KS2 children performed ‘Hoodwinked’, based on the story of Robin Hood; it was obvious that a large cast had worked very hard and performed with humour, skill and great comic timing, the musical parts were performed well. I especially enjoyed the confident way the cast led the audience in some good old fashioned pantomime humour, they also combined some topical and local references.


The younger children performed a traditional nativity through the narrative of a star that wouldn’t shine, again it was wonderful to see all of KS1 involved in a well rehearsed, energetic play with wonderfully sung contributions. Their enthusiasm was infectious again including some old fashioned panto humour and willing audience participation. The costumes were magnificent!


Huge thanks to all staff and pupils for such wonderful end of term productions; they can all feel justly proud for the undoubted hard work and effort; a triumph for all involved!”

Visit to Church on Monday 16th December
We would like to make families aware that all classes are planning to visit the church next Monday as part of our preparations for the Nativity Service next Wednesday.


Letters about the National Childhood Measuring Programme
The School Health Team have written to advise us that they will be in school on 10th February 2014 to measure the height and weight of children in Reception and Year 6. Letters about this have been put in book bags this week.

Mr Ansell
We say goodbye today to Mr Ansell, a PGCE student from Oxford Brookes University, who has been working with pupils in Class 3 over the last eight weeks. Mr Ansell has been a great asset to the school and we thank him for his contribution.

Reminder about next week’s events:

Monday 16 Archery ASC Final Archery session
Tuesday 17 Christmas Party afternoon Lunch as normal. Pupils may bring party clothes to change into after lunch. Optional donation of £1 towards Forest Schools fundraising. Food supplied by PTA.
No clarinets.
ASC Dance Club on as usual. The dance club are putting on a show for parents at 4pm, so please do come along to see it.
PTA wreath making evening – forms available from school office
Wednesday 18 Nativity Service Everyone welcome to join us for this event in Church which starts at 2.15pm. No art club.
Thursday 19 School Christmas lunch We hope all pupils will have school lunch today with crackers, music, etc. Staff serve pupils with their lunch. Same price as a normal school meal - £2.
Christmas Disco at 6pm to raise funds for Forest Schools. Tickets on sale priced at £3. A raffle will be held during the evening (50p a ticket).
Multisports ASC on as usual.
Friday 20 End of term assembly
Early finish Everyone welcome to attend end of term assembly at 9.05am. Lunch as normal.
School closes at 1.30pm

PTA News
Wreath making evening-Tuesday 17th, we still have a few spaces available so please fill in a form in the office to guarantee your place.

Winter Fair- we made a massive £1100 this year, which is fantastic. Thank you again to everyone for all your support.


Cake Club
Congratulations to Phoebe Watkins who was the lucky winner of last week’s cake, kindly donated by Mrs Perring. A reminder to Mrs Bowerman that she is on the rota for 20th December.

If anyone would like to donate a cake who has not already done so, we need cakes from 14 February onwards. Please see Rowena to get your name down on the rota. Don’t forget, it doesn’t have to be homemade. Bought cakes are just as well received!


DIARY DATES:
Monday 23 December One-day Sports Course at Stadhampton School for participating pupils. See notices in each classroom entrance area for more information and details of how to book.
Monday 6 January Staff Inset Day
Tuesday 7 January Pupils return to school for the start of Term 3

LITTLE BEARS NEWS:
Next week the Little Bears book is 'Twas the night before Christmas' and we will be talking about how we get ready for Christmas with our families and also making stockings.
Little Bears hope to go to the Nativity Service at Stadhampton Church on the 18th December and the last day of term is 20th December. Our Little Bears party is on Friday 20th December from 11.30 - 1pm. All Llittle Bears are welcome. We also have a very special visitor too. We return on 7th January 2014 to the topic ‘Opposites’.