Newsletter for week ending 23 January 2015

Autism Talk for Parents
A reminder that Margaret King, Autism Advisory Teacher, will be giving a talk for parents on Thursday 29th January at 9.00am. It is hoped that as many people as possible will attend this information opportunity. Children in Years 1-6 will receive talks by Margaret King on Thursday 12th February.

World Book Day – Thursday 5th March
Every year we support World Book Day and this year we are going to celebrate the event by inviting all pupils to come to school dressed as their favourite book character and bring a copy of the book with them. We have done this in the past but, having been inspired by our visit to the 26 Characters Exhibition at The Story Museum in Oxford, we would like to raise the profile of this event. The exhibition, which is on until 22nd February, is the outcome of what happened when The Story Museum asked some of Britain’s most exciting children’s authors to name their favourite story character from their own childhoods. The authors have been photographed dressed as these characters, galleries created as settings for the stories and the authors recorded reading extracts from their chosen story. The authors and characters include; Terry Pratchett as ‘Just William’, Julia and Malcolm Donaldson as ‘The Owl and the Pussy-cat’, Cressida Cowell as ‘Peter Pan’, Terry Jones as ‘Rupert Bear’, Michael Rosen as ‘Till Eulenspiegel’, Katherine Rundell as ‘a Wild Thing’, Benjamin Zephaniah as ‘Anansi the Spider’ and Holly Smale as ‘the White Witch’.
We cannot replicate all this but we would like to photograph each child in costume and create a photographic display of our own. The display will then be available for all to see at our Work Viewing Evening on Monday 23rd March and at our end of term assembly on Friday 27th March. Children will also be asked to share an extract from their book with other children in their class and be able to explain their choice of character. Should anyone be interested in further details of the 26 Characters at The Story Museum, they can be found on www.storymuseum.org.uk/whats-on/26characters

Message from Food with Thought
If you haven’t already done so, please complete the reply slip on the form sent home last week to let us know whether your child will be taking up the offer of a free meal or not (Year 3 & 4 on Monday 26 January and Year 5 & 6 on Tuesday 27 January). Thank you.

Warm clothing for Forest School Sessions
Please could pupils have plenty of layers of warm clothing and spare socks, as well as gloves and a hat when they take part in Forest School sessions. Several children this week were feeling cold!

Sports Hall Athletics for Year 5 and Year 6 Pupils
The Sports Hall athletics event which was scheduled to take place last Friday (16th January) and which had to be postponed, due to the equipment for the event being stored at the SODC office when the fires were started, has now been rescheduled. The event will now take place on Friday 6th February and pupils will need to be aware that the coach will leave at 8.50am due to the roadworks in Watlington and everyone will need a packed lunch on that day. Thank you.

Sainsburys Active Kids Vouchers
We are once again collecting the Active Kids vouchers which Sainsburys will be issuing between Wednesday 28th January and Tuesday 5th May. Please encourage your friends and family to collect vouchers for us and post them into the box in the Hall. We are able to exchange vouchers for an exciting range of active and cooking equipment, and experiences, so that we can support and encourage children to eat well, move well and live well. Thank you.

PTA NEWS:
Please note the date of our next meeting, which is Tuesday 24th February 8 pm at The Crown. Hope to see you there!

Friday Cake Club
Congratulations to Zac Holmes, the lucky winner of last week’s cake, kindly donated by Mrs Day. A reminder to Jason Hursey that he is on the rota for Friday 30 January.

DIARY DATES:
Thursday 29 January Year 3 Forest School session
Monday 2 February Governing Body meeting at 7pm
Wednesday 4 February Reception and Year 6 pupils see the school nurse for weighing and measuring
Friday 6 February Unicef Day for Change – please bring in some spare change to participate in today’s fundraising activities

Massive cardboard boxes!
Miss Mould would like to create a pirate ship in her classroom, so if anyone has access to any very large cardboard boxes, we would appreciate them being donated to school. Thank you.

LITTLE BEARS NEWS:
Next week we will be enjoying the book ‘Elmer on Stilts’ and practicing our balancing skills on our own stilts. We will also be celebrating Australia Day and Burns Night.

Community Information:
• Flyer attached detailing a Cover Supervisor vacancy at Icknield Community College
• 4 flyers attached detailing events at the Chalgrove and Watlington Children’s Centre
• INVITATION to RAF Benson Community Primary School Annual Cross Country Event
John William Stacey Memorial Races – please see below:

The School will be hosting its 11th Annual Cross Country event on Saturday, 7th February 2015.

The event is held on the fields adjacent to the School and the races are open to all pupils in Years 1 to 6. The first race will start at 10am and registration will be from 9.30am. In previous years we have welcomed over 200 runners participating from 16 local schools.

All runners from your school are warmly invited to this event and are eligible to run in one race appropriate to their age. To qualify for points in the team event (ALL Years) you will need at least 3 pupils per race.

There is NO entry fee and the children just need to wear their PE kit and training shoes and bring a bottle of water. Other refreshments will be available for spectators and racers. The presentations will commence as soon as the results have been verified at the end of the last race.

Visitors are kindly requested not to bring dogs to the races.

We very much look forward to seeing you there.
Year Distance (M) Approximate Start Time
Approximate
1G 640 1000am
1B 640
2G 640 1015am
2B 640
3G 1100 1030am
3B 1100
4G 1100 1045am
4B 1100
5G 1300 1100am
5B 1300
6G 1700 1130am
6B 1700

All visitors will need to check-in at the RAF Guardroom before joining the event so please allow extra time for these formalities. All adults will require photo ID to enter RAF Benson, a photo card driving licence or passport is ideal. To ease traffic onto the Station we ask parents to car share where possible and also stagger their arrival times for the later age groups. Cars are to be moved from the entrance car park to one of the designated event car parks.

The normal entrance to the School Site will be closed. After collecting a vehicle pass drivers will need to enter and exit via the sign posted Temporary Gate.