Newsletter for week ending 28 February 2014

Swimming at the Abbey Sports Centre
Thank you to the parents of pupils in Class 3 who have already made a ‘voluntary contribution’ of £12 towards the cost of the swimming transport to Berinsfield this term. Thank you also to the families who pay weekly. We would be delighted to accept any further donations towards transport costs for Term 4. Cheques for swimming contributions should be made payable to Stadhampton Primary School. Thank you.

Recorders and Recorder Books
A reminder that all pupils in Years 3-6 have a weekly recorder lesson on Mondays this term. Thank you to the many pupils who have their recorder and book in school ready for the lesson. For hygiene reasons we prefer each pupil to have their own recorder. Recorders are available from the school office, priced at £6.50 each. Recorder Books 1 and 2 are also available at £4.85 each. The school makes no profit from selling these items.

Jian-Zi – results from Poland
The Jian-zi results from Poland are now in and one of their pupils, Wojtek Grygierek won with 276 kicks – their second highest was 18, so this was a truly extraordinary score! Max Lansley with 38 kicks, is therefore our international runner-up! Congratulations to Wojtek and Max.

Sean Callery (author/musician) workshops and pupil experiences
On Wednesday 26th February, we welcomed writer, teacher and musician Sean Callery into school for the day. He ran exciting workshops for all four classes based around song-writing! Each class wrote a song about a topic they had been focusing on in class and they all enjoyed the process of coming up with the lyrics, with Sean guiding them, using catchy tunes. We had an assembly at the end of the day so that each class could perform their songs to the rest of the school. Reception’s song was based upon life on the farm, Class 1 sang a cheerful song about Mexico, Class 2’s song told us all about Roald Dahl and Class 3 (accompanied by Sean on the piano) gave everyone a history lesson on the ancient Greeks.
Staff and children alike felt like this was a valuable experience, which inspired all the children to come up with different ideas and edit them as a class to improve the content on their song. A lot was achieved by all in a short period of time. The songs will stick in all our heads for a while!

The Great Daffodil Appeal
We are taking part in the Marie Curie Cancer Care Great Daffodil Appeal 2014 and daffodils are on sale from the yellow box in the hall. Every five minutes someone with a terminal illness in the UK dies without the care they need in their final hours. Your support can help change this. Each donation made will help nurses care for more terminally ill people in their own homes. Every £20 they receive pays for a Marie Curie nurse to care for someone in our area for an hour.

Oxford Literacy Festival –Tickets available!
Helen Moss Black (mossblack@hotmail.com) has 7 tickets at £6 each for Korky Paul at the Oxford Literary Festival that she is unable to use. If you’re interested, let her know, as they can be reallocated. Details can be found at this link.
http://oxfordliteraryfestival.org/literature-events/2014/march-22/winnies-pirate-adventure

PTA News
Bingo Night - Friday 7th March - we are asking parents for any sweet or chocolate donations which could be used as prizes on the evening. Anything you have extra in the cupboards that you would like to donate would be hugely appreciated. Please put any donations into the PTA box in the school hall by Thursday next week. Thank you.

Quiz Night – Friday 21st March - we are now selling quiz night tickets individually, priced at £5 each. Tickets are limited so please see Georgina Wiggins for either individual or table-of-8 tickets. There will be nibbles on tables on the evening but as it is a "bring your own food" event, please feel free to bring your own snacks, nibbles or even meals. Please support the quiz night as it promises to be a fantastic evening.

Plant Orders - as we have done previously at this time of year, we will be taking orders for plants and bulbs in the next few weeks, so please keep a look out for order forms in book bags.

Thank you to everyone who attended the PTA meeting on Tuesday evening. Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 25th March at The Crown, 8pm.

Cake Club
Congratulations to Mrs Hopkins, who was the lucky winner of the Valentine Cake, kindly donated by Mrs Burnell. A reminder to Mrs Jones that she is on the rota for 7 March. Thank you to everyone who has offered to provide a cake – we just need 3 more volunteers to take us up to the end of the school year!

DIARY DATES:
3rd-14th March Story telling fortnight – please come in and read a story!
Monday 14 – Thursday 17 April Sports course at Stadhampton School led by Mr Hopkins. See posters in each cloakroom entrance for booking details or via Mrs Hopkins.

LITTLE BEARS NEWS:
Welcome back everyone! We hope you had a relaxing half term break. In Term 4 the Little Bears will be learning about gardens and growth. The first week we will be looking at how our gardens grow and how we grow.
On Friday the 7th March at 3pm Little Bears will be having a cake sale. All donations will be greatly received or please pop along on Friday and buy some cake!

Newsletter for week ending 14 February 2014

UNICEF Day for Change 2014 – Thank You
Thank you to everyone for their donations of change and to Mrs Bowerman, Mrs Dobson and Mrs Madry for counting it for us. We collected £97.93 which has been sent to UNICEF.

After School Photography Club in Term 4
We need at least another 6 pupils to sign up for the After School Photography Club next term otherwise it will not be viable for the company to run it. The club is open to all pupils in Years 3 to 6 and costs £27 for the 6 sessions. If anyone would like to put their name down please could completed forms and payments be sent into school tomorrow so that we are able to ascertain whether it will be possible for the After School Photography Club to take place next term. Thank you.

Author Visit
On Wednesday 26th February, we shall be welcoming Sean Callery to our school for the day. Sean is an experienced teacher and fiction and non-fiction author who will be running literacy workshops, with a focus on song writing! He will support each class in writing their own song, based upon topics they have been studying in class. He will use contemporary song tunes that the children will know and they will change the lyrics together. These workshops will encourage creativity, show the children how to turn musical notes into written lyrics (and then edit!) and will also be a lot of fun!

We would like to invite you to a performance of the day’s work at 2.55pm. Each class will get the chance to showcase their song to everyone and Sean will explain the song writing process for each class. This will be held in the hall and should be finished by the usual end of the day time of 3.15pm.

Swimming at the Abbey Sports Centre
Swimming will begin for pupils in Class 3 on Monday 24th February. They will have 6 swimming sessions in total and we are, as always, most grateful to receive a ‘voluntary contribution’ of £2 per child per swim towards the cost of the transport. Cheques for swimming contributions should be made payable please to Stadhampton Primary School. Thank you.

After School Clubs in Term 4
The dates and times for the after school clubs in Term 4 have been uploaded onto the ‘Parents’ section of the school website so that parents/carers may refer to them if necessary.

Ink Cartridges
We have a few new ink cartridges for a printer that we no longer have in school. They are BC1-24 Black, BC1-3eM, 3eC and 3eY. If anyone would like them for a small donation to the school please let Mrs Hopkins know. If no-one wants them we will add them to our recycling collection which also raises money for school.

PTA News
Bingo night (children) - Friday 7th March - we have now sold out for the Bingo night. Thank you to everyone who has bought tickets.

Quiz night (adults) - Friday 21st March - tickets are now available for the quiz night. Tickets are £40 per team up to a maximum of 8 people.
The PTA will be running a bar on the evening but will not be providing food, so feel free to bring your own meals, snacks and/or nibbles!
Everyone is welcome - maybe you can put together a team of work colleagues or family and friends.
This promises to be a fun evening and a well deserved night out so please support this event. Tickets are available from Georgina Wiggins or ask any member of the PTA committee.

Our next PTA meeting is on Tuesday 25th February at 8pm at The Crown. New members are very welcome.

Cake Club
Congratulations to Mia Gravett, the lucky winner of the cake last week, kindly donated by Mrs Ellis. A reminder to Mrs Lansley that she is on the rota for 28 February and Mrs Jones is on for 7 March.

DIARY DATES:
Monday 24 February Start of Term 4
3rd-14th March Story telling fortnight – please come in and read a story!

LITTLE BEARS NEWS:
The Little Bears had a wonderfully wet welly walk this week to raise funds for the preschool - a huge thank you to everyone who took part in this.
Little Bears last day of term is Friday 14th February at 3pm and we return on Monday 24th February at 9am to the topic of ‘Gardens’. Enjoy a restful week off!


Easter Sports Course at Stadhampton School
Michael Hopkins will be leading a Sports Course for all children aged 4-11 at Stadhampton School for four days during the Easter Holiday from Monday 14th April to Thursday 17th April inclusive, (leading up to Good Friday). The cost is £10 per day or £35 for children attending on all four days. Jordan Piper, who recently spent two weeks at Stadhampton School on work experience from Henley College, will be assisting on the course as usual. Booking details are on the attached flyer or may be made directly with the school office.

Community Information
• Booklet about Pneumococcal Carriage and Disease study

Newsletter for week ending 7 February 2014

During February we are focusing on the core value of QUALITY

Happy FEBRUARY Birthday to: Charlie Ball, Tillie Moss-Black, Jemima O’Brien, William Parkes, Alexandra Robinson and Daniel Robinson.

UNICEF Day for Change 2014 – TOMORROW!
A reminder that we hope all pupils will be able to bring in some small change to take part in the activities tomorrow to raise funds for UNICEF’s Day for Change 2014. We shall let you know how much the school raised in next week’s newsletter.

‘Jian-Zi’ Competition
Congratulations to Max Lansley who was the overall winner of the school Jian-Zi competition with a score of 38! Year 5 winner was Greg Madry who scored 7; Year 4 winner was Max Jones who scored 5; Year 3 winner was Lawrence Wright who scored 3; Year 2 winner was Lorenzo Elliott who scored 7; Year 1 winner was Joshua Hursey who scored 2 and the Reception winner was Nathaniel Watkins who also scored 2.

Report by Greg and Max: “It was a challenging experience! We all had a wonderful time practising and taking part in the competition. The hall was so quiet when we did the competition as no-one wanted to put anyone off their concentration. It was very tense! We are waiting now to find out whether any of the pupils in Poland beat us! We have our fingers crossed!”

Roald Dahl Museum
On Tuesday 4th February Class 2 went on a school trip to the Roald Dahl Museum to link in with our project. Some people got to sit in Roald Dahl’s special chair! We had a lovely time finding out about the dead mouse trick that Roald Dahl played on Mrs Pratchett, and dressing up as Roald Dahl’s characters. We would love to go again.

Headlice
We would respectfully request that all families please check their children’s hair for headlice this weekend and treat if necessary. The family who kindly informed us last week that their children had headlice have now been reinfected despite constant treatments and combing through with conditioner every evening. This suggests that there may well be other pupils in school who have headlice and families may not be aware of it. Headlice can be very small and difficult to detect. For more information visit www.nhs.uk/conditions/head-lice/Pages/Treatment.aspx


PTA News
Below are details of some upcoming events organised by the PTA. Please support these events if you can.

Children's Bingo night on Friday 7th March - tickets are now on sale for this event from the school office priced at £3 each. Please also return your consent form when purchasing the tickets.

Quiz night on Friday 21st March - a very exciting event. Further details will be in book bags shortly.

Our next PTA meeting is Tuesday 25th February at the Crown at 8pm. New members are very welcome!


Cake Club
Congratulations to Hannah Bradford, the lucky winner of last week’s cake, kindly donated by Mrs Khan. A reminder to Mrs Burnell that she is on the rota for 14 February. Thanks to all those who have offered to donate cakes after 7th March, but we are still quite a few short, so please see Rowena Dobson if you would be willing to help.


DIARY DATES:
Monday 10 February Reception and Year 6 pupils see School Nurse (letters sent home to families from School Nurse in December 2013).
Friday 14 February Break up for the February Holiday at 3.15pm
Monday 24 February Start of Term 4
3rd-14th March Story telling fortnight – please come in and read a story!

LITTLE BEARS NEWS:
Next weeks at Little Bears we will be finishing our topic of ‘Opposites’ with heavy and light. We will be weighing objects to look at the difference in weights and experimenting with sinking and floating. We will also be completing our ‘Welly walk’ on Tuesday and Friday so please remember to wrap up warm and bring your wellingtons!

Little Bears is 10 years old…
As you may know, Little Bears was 10 years old in January. A big thank you to Shirley Bateman for making some birthday cupcakes for all the Little Bears to celebrate. We will be holding an event to mark the occasion later in the summer so watch this space for further details!

Easter Sports Course at Stadhampton School
Michael Hopkins will be leading a Sports Course for all children aged 4-11 at Stadhampton School for four days during the Easter Holiday from Monday 14th April to Thursday 17th April inclusive, (leading up to Good Friday). The cost is £10 per day or £35 for children attending on all four days. Jordan Piper, who recently spent two weeks at Stadhampton School on work experience from Henley College, will be assisting on the course as usual. Booking details are on the attached flyer or may be made directly with the school office.

Footsteps “A Parent’s Guide”
Please find below the link for Oxfordshire’s guide leaflet which provides some information and ideas on teaching road safety to your child so they know what to do, whether you are with them or not:
http://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/cms/sites/default/files/folders/documents/roadsandtransport/safety/Footsteps-Parents-Guide.pdf