Newsletter for week ending 12th February 2016

Happy FEBRUARY Birthday to: Charlie Ball, Casey Bromell, Tilly Moss-Black, Jemima O’Brien, Will Parkes, Alexandra Robinson and Daniel Robinson.

During FEBRUARY we are focusing on the core value of QUALITY

After School Clubs
We recently circulated information about the After School Clubs for Term 4. We endeavour to provide a variety of opportunities over the year and are always on the look-out for fresh opportunities!

We compile a register of pupils attending each after school club, to which class teachers and the after school club leaders refer, to ensure the right children are in the right place.

We know when a child is absent due to illness or when parents inform class teachers that their child is not attending due to other reasons. However, there are occasions when a child does not attend for reasons that we are unaware of. To ensure the safety of all pupils attending after school clubs, from Term 4, all pupils on the register for that activity will be sent to the hall for registration unless class teachers have received information directly from parents advising us of other arrangements.

Parents or carers will be able to collect their child from the hall and liaise directly with the after school club leader. Hopefully this will avoid any misunderstandings and ensure the safety of your children. Thank you.

Swimming for Class 3 Pupils
Swimming at the Abbey Sports Centre will begin for Class 3 pupils on Monday 22nd February (first day back). They will have a total of five sessions in Term 4. As always, we are very appreciative to receive a ‘voluntary contribution’ of £2 per session per pupil towards the transport costs. Cash or cheque welcomed, with cheques made payable to Stadhampton Primary School please (£10 for the 5 sessions).
Thank you.

New School Meals Menu
Food & More (previously Food with Thought) have provided us with a copy of the new lunch menu which will start on Monday 22nd February. Please find an electronic copy of it attached to this newsletter. Parents should also receive a paper copy via book bags. The new menu will also be uploaded to the school website after half-term.

Robotscool and the Computing Curriculum
A huge thank you to the PTA, who have very generously donated funds to help provide the school with new laptops for the laptop trolley. The laptops in the trolley were 7 years old and struggling to work sufficiently well to allow all children access to the new Computing Curriculum. The new laptops are a great resource for the school and will benefit childrens’ learning.

The PTA have also contributed to funding a fantastic and exciting opportunity for KS2 pupils which will begin next term. ROBOTSCOOL will start in Class 2 and then Class 3 after Easter. The children will learn a wide range of skills such as engineering, reporting, managing and programming, all involving robots, and led by Mr Barry Grehan from Robotscool.

Chinese New Year Celebrations
We have celebrated Chinese New Year (the year of the monkey!) in various ways in each class this week (see below for details.) The celebrations will be concluded on Friday afternoon with our annual Jian-Zi tournament. As we send this newsletter to parents before the tournament, we will share details of the winners with you in our next newsletter.

Reception
Made lanterns; traced and painted ‘monkey’ word; made Chinese opera masks; cut out pictures of monkeys; wrote Chinese numbers to 10; learnt about dragon dances and Chinese music.

Class 1
Made paper lanterns; learnt ordinal numbers through the New Year story and painted Chinese numbers.

Class 2
We listened to a traditional story – Lin Yi’s Lantern – A Moon Festival Tale; made lanterns and Tangrams, "seven pieces of cleverness" - an ancient Chinese puzzle which is still mind-bending and intriguing today!

Class 3
Class 3 pupils created their own horoscopes and identified what Chinese animal they were. They made fortune cookies and even wrote fortunes of our own to put in the cookies. Some examples of the fortunes we wrote are:
“warmth will come when you give”
“be somebody who makes you feel like a somebody”
“a simple smile will make your troubles float away”
“expect the unexpected”
We look forward to eating our fortune cookies!

Highclere Castle Visit
Report by Jemima and Phoebe: “Class Two went on an amazing trip to Highclere Castle! Year 3 and Year 4 split into two different groups. We all saw the same things but in a different order. We saw Tutankhamun’s tomb. There was a brown rusty old door with black bars and when you look through them there was a light that turned on and off showing Egyptian Pharaohs. It made most of us jump! We found out that there was a mummy’s curse after the tomb was opened. A very interesting day!”

Sainsbury's Vouchers
We are collecting Sainsburys’s Active Kids vouchers again this year. The scheme launched on 27th January and we hope that everyone will ask their families and friends to also collect vouchers for us. There is a box in the Hall to put them in. We are able to exchange our vouchers for new sports equipment which is always very exciting!

Sport Relief
GET FUNNY and dress up as a funny character or clown and pay £1 to help raise money for Sport Relief on Friday 18th March 2016. Pupils will wear their funny costumes to run or walk for one mile around the school grounds. Pupils will also need their plimsolls or trainers in school for this event.


PTA NEWS
Harry Potter night: Thank you to everyone who entered our Harry Potter competition. The winners will be announced shortly.

Fundraising Disco Saturday, 730pm at The Crown: Thank you to everyone who has donated raffle prizes for this event. We would love to see you all there for what promises to be a fun filled evening. Whether you come with friends, partner or by yourself a warm welcome awaits you!
There is free entry, DJ, cocktail bar, photo booth and a raffle.

All money raised from the raffle goes to helping the school. Thank you for your support.

Friday Cake Club
Congratulations to Jack Fulker, the lucky winner of last week’s cake, kindly donated by Mrs Cove. A reminder to Mrs Kenny that she is on the rota for 26 February, the first Friday after half term.


DIARY DATES:
Monday 22 February Start of Term 4 for pupils and staff
Class 3 Swimming at the Abbey Sports Centre, Berinsfield
Thursday 25 February Year 2 Forest School
Wednesday 2 March Mobile Library visit
Thursday 3 March World Book Day
Year 2 Forest School session
Monday 7 March Class 3 pupils attend French Theatre performance at ICC – coaches leave Stadhampton School at 9am. No costs involved for parents.
Wednesday 9 March Whole –School Science Day (more details to follow)
Thursday 10 March Year 5 Forest School session

Easter Holiday Sports Course at Stadhampton School
Michael Hopkins, a qualified PE teacher, will be leading an Easter Sports Course on Wednesday 30th March, Thursday 31st March and Friday 1st April at Stadhampton Primary School. The course runs from 9-3pm each day and is open to all pupils (not necessarily just Stadhampton School) aged 4-11. The cost is £10 for the day and bookings can be made directly by e-mailing m.hopkins07@hotmail.com or via Mrs Hopkins in the school office. Early booking is
advised as the Christmas Sports Course was very popular!