Newsletter for week ending 17th January 2014

School Term and Holiday dates for 2014/15
The term and holiday dates for the new academic year beginning in September 2014 are currently being finalised and will be attached to next week’s newsletter. Parents are reminded that as a result of changes since September 2013 to the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006, Headteachers are unable to authorise any leave of absence during term time unless there are exceptional circumstances, such as bereavement. It will be impossible, therefore, to support any requests for holidays during term time. Please support us and your child by making all holiday bookings during school holidays. Thank you.

New Faces for this term
From 20th January, we look forward to welcoming Ms Cicely Evans and Ms Lucy Chivers, two PGCE students from Oxford Brookes University, who will be working with pupils in Class 1 for an 8-week school experience placement. We will also be welcoming Mr Jordan Piper, a PE student from The Henley College for a two-week work experience. Mr Piper will be based in Class 2 but will have opportunities to work with all pupils during his time at Stadhampton Primary School. Some pupils will recognise Mr Piper from working as an assistant at the Holiday Sports Courses run by Michael Hopkins at Stadhampton School.

UNICEF Day for Change, Friday 7th February 2014
Once again, we will be supporting UNICEF Day for Change and this year their annual campaign is all about education. About 68 million children around the world still don’t have access to education, something we all take for granted. UNICEF is working hard to change this – every child should have the opportunity to go to school. UNICEF Day for Change enables us to use our ‘small change’ to help make a bigger change for children elsewhere in the world. On the day we will use UNICEF’s specially designed education material to help develop our pupils’ awareness of the issues some children in other parts of the world face and each class will be involved. Please help us support this cause by bringing in any loose change you can spare on Friday 7th February. Thank you.

PTA News
Thank you to everyone who attended the PTA meeting on Tuesday night. The PTA committee are really excited about the year ahead and have some new, and not so new, events planned for both the children and parents to get involved in. We believe that it is important to share how much money we raise from every PTA event as it is parents’ support and donations which help us raise funds for the school : Here are the confirmed amounts from recent events:

Winter Fair- £1121.62
Christmas Cards- £89
Stall at Church Xmas fair- £76.50
Wreath making evening £220

This adds up to a fantastic total raised over the Christmas period which will be used to support the school and the children in many ways.
We are pleased to announce that Georgina Wiggins was elected as the new Chair at the meeting on Tuesday evening.

Thank you all for your continued support of the PTA.

Cake Club
Congratulations to Charlie Ball, who was the lucky winner of last week’s cake, kindly donated by Mrs Bourne. A reminder to Mrs Freeman that she is on the rota for 24 January. More cake donators needed please! You can now pay for your child to enter Cake Club up to the end of the school year. The remaining cost would be 20p per week, or £1.00 until February Half Term, £2.20 until Easter, £3.40 until May Half Term or £4.60 until the end of the year. Please see Rowena Dobson.


DIARY DATES:
Friday 17 January Sports Hall Athletics for Class 3 at Icknield Community College
Monday 27 January Full GB meeting at 7pm
Wednesday 29 January Mobile Library visit
Tuesday 4 February Class 2 visit to Roald Dahl Museum – letter to follow shortly
Friday 7 February UNICEF Day for Change – please start saving your loose change!
Friday 14 February Break up for the February Holiday at 3.15pm
Monday 24 February Start of Term 4


LITTLE BEARS NEWS:
Next week at Little Bears we will be continuing with our ‘Opposites’ theme and talking about ‘big and small’ variations in size. We will also be reading the story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk.’

Community News:

Children's Centre
We have recently learned that the threatened closure of the Chalgrove and Watlngton Children's Centre is not going to happen, at least for the short term, and, thankfully, the centre seems to be secure until at least 2017. The centre provides a range of services to support families and we attach several flyers for upcoming events and further information which we hope you will find helpful.

• Speech and Language Drop –In
• Webster Stratton Two Day Workshop
• Relationships and Caring for a disabled child
• First Aid Workshop
• Additional support available