Newsletter for week ending 28 March 2014

Mr Montgomery
We are pleased to welcome Mr Montgomery, who joined our staff this week as a part-time Teaching Assistant.

Forest School
We are delighted that we will be providing Forest School sessions, for all pupils, during the summer term. A letter will be in book bags today with further details. Thank you to everyone who has helped make this happen.

Sports Relief
Thank you to everyone who paid a £1 for dressing up as a sports personality and walking or running a mile (or more!) for Sports Relief last week. We raised a total of £92. Thank you all.

Clothes Recycling
Thank you to everyone who donated bags for the last Bag2School clothes recycling collection. We are pleased to let you know that we collected 344kg and received a cheque for £172.00 this week.

Archery Club
This very popular club is, unfortunately, already full. We hope to offer it again in September. In the meantime, parents may like to know that Mr Chrisp runs an archery session on alternate Saturdays at the Abbey Sports Centre in Berinsfield.

Food with Thought – Easter Feast Lunch
We have been notified that on Wednesday 2nd April there will be a slight change to the regular school menu. This ‘Eggciting’ lunch will be Roast Chicken followed by Chocolate Easter Cake.

PTA News
Thank you to everyone who attended the PTA meeting at The Crown on Tuesday evening; we have lots of great events planned for the rest of the school year!

Quiz night - thank you to everyone who attended the quiz night last Friday. Whilst there was not a huge attendance, everyone had a great night with a healthy sum of just over £300 being raised.
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Easter Cake Competition - Wednesday 2nd April- we are very excited to be holding a cake competition and cake sale just before the Easter holidays. All the details will be in book bags on Friday, so please keep a look out for the details and happy baking!

Save The Date - Boogie Bingo is back! Scheduled for Friday 16th May. More details to follow.
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Thank you to all parents for your continued support of the PTA. Our next meeting is on Tuesday 29th April, The Crown, 8pm. Everyone welcome.


Cake Club
Congratulations to Owen Cove, the lucky winner of last week’s cake, kindly donated by Mrs Hindmarch. A reminder to Mrs Fulker that she is on the rota for 4 April.

Please see the Noticeboard outside Class 1 for the remainder of the year’s rota. We have just one space left – the last day of term – Friday 19th July. Please see Rowena Dobson if you can supply a cake that day. Thank you.

DIARY DATES:
Friday 4 April End of term assembly at 9.00am. All welcome. School finishes at 1.30pm when we break up for the Easter Holiday.
Monday 14 – Thursday 17 April Sports course at Stadhampton School led by Mr Hopkins. See posters in each cloakroom entrance or book via Mrs Hopkins.
Tuesday 22 April Pupils and staff return to school for the start of Term 5

LITTLE BEARS NEWS:
Next week we will be finishing our ‘growth and garden’ topic by looking at the life cycle of a butterfly. We will be watching our live caterpillars go through their cycle.
Little Bears will be completing a sponsored obstacle course followed by a Easter bonnet parade on Friday 4th April. All Little Bear parents are welcome from 10am for tea and coffee followed by the obstacle course at 10.30am. Our Easter bonnet parade will then take place at 11.15 with judging at 11.30am. We hope many Little Bears and parents will all come to watch, support and cheer on Friday.
Little Bears finishes at 3pm on Friday and we return on Tuesday 22nd April to the topic of ‘Weather’.
We hope everyone has a lovely Easter break.

Ladies Supper Night – Friday 25th April from 7.30pm – 11.30pm in the Village Hall at St John’s (Church)
A chance to meet, have dinner and socialise. Nibbles on arrival, hot buffet with a choice of desserts. Please bring your own drinks. Everyone welcome, tickets £10 each.
For tickets or further details, please contact Debbie Bradford: 07854508417 or Melanie Gravett: 07905921540.

Community News
Flyers attached to this newsletter from the Chalgrove and Watlington Children’s Centre:
• Newsletter; April/May timetable; HENRY flyer; Easter Activities

Newsletter for week ending 21 March 2014

Goodbye and Good Luck!
We say ‘thank you’ and ‘goodbye’ to Miss Chivers and Miss Evans, the two student teachers who have been working in Class 1 for the last eight weeks. We wish them both the best of luck in their future teaching careers.

Reporting Absence by E-Mail
We have set up a new e-mail account for parents/carers to use if they prefer to send an e-mail to report a child’s absence from school rather than telephoning. The new e-mail address for reporting absence is absence@stadhampton.oxon.sch.uk and this can be accessed by all members of staff. On the home page of the school website we have added a “Report an absence” link which parents/carers can use to let us know that their child will be absent and the reason for the absence.
Please endeavour to report an absence from school by e-mail or by telephone by 8.30am.

Outdoor Play Equipment
We have recently noticed a number of young children playing on the outdoor equipment and at times this appears to be unsupervised. The outdoor equipment is understandably attractive to small children but, at the expense of appearing to be killjoys, parents should be aware that our insurance policy only covers pupils of Stadhampton School during school hours. Use of the equipment by non- school children during school hours or any children outside of school hours is not covered by our insurance and therefore we would politely request that it is not used.

Commonwealth Games Event
Carl McNight from Kidzfit came to school yesterday to help us learn more about being active and healthy. The children (and some adults!) danced, jumped, jigged and exercised to music and competed with each other by hoola hooping, skipping and doing speed bounces. We also learnt about the Queen’s Baton and some of the different countries of the Commonwealth. Pupils really enjoyed the day and when asked what they thought of it said “I loved it”, “it was awesome”, “epic”, “brilliant” and “the most fun ever!”

Sports Relief
Today pupils generously brought in £1 to take part in running or walking a mile around the school grounds. Some pupils dressed up as a famous sports personality and many did more than a mile!
So far, we have collected £87 and would be pleased to receive any final contributions before we send the money raised to Sports Relief early next week. Thank you for your support.

Mrs Turner and her husband are planning to cycle from John O'Groats in northern Scotland as far south as they can towards Lands End in Cornwall during the Easter holidays. This will definitely be a challenge and they would like their ride to help raise money for Sport Relief. They have set up a Sport Relief Giving Page http://my.sportrelief.com/sponsor/johnandkathryncycleJohnOGroatstoBristol if anyone would like to sponsor them and raise funds for this worthwhile cause.

Headlice
We are grateful to a parent for letting us know that headlice have been detected and treated in their child’s hair. Please could all parents check their children’s hair this weekend and treat if necessary. Thank you.

PTA News

Quiz night- there are still tickets available for tomorrow’s quiz night, priced at £5 each including nibbles. If you would like to buy tickets, please see Georgina Wiggins or speak to any member of the PTA.

Cake Competition - we will be having an Easter cake decorating competition in the run up to Easter. More details to follow very soon.

A reminder that our next PTA meeting is on Tuesday 25th March at 8pm in The Crown. New members are very welcome. If you are unable to make the meeting but have suggestions for fundraising events, please speak to any member of the PTA. A list of PTA members is on the notice board by the Class 1 outdoor area.


Cake Club
Congratulations to Katende Amery, the lucky winner of the cake kindly donated by Mrs Eaton. A reminder to Mrs Watkins that she is on the rota for 28th March.


DIARY DATES:
Monday 24 March Work viewing evening – teachers available for informal chat if required whilst you look at your child’s work - no appointments necessary - 3.15 to 6pm.
Friday 4 April Break up for Easter Holiday. End of term assembly at 9.00am. All welcome. School finishes at 1.30pm
Monday 14 – Thursday 17 April Sports course at Stadhampton School led by Mr Hopkins. See posters in each cloakroom entrance or book via Mrs Hopkins.
Tuesday 22 April Pupils and staff return to school for the start of Term 5

LITTLE BEARS NEWS:
Next week we will be continuing with our ‘growth and garden theme’ and learning about garden birds and birds that migrate and who will be making their way to Britain soon. We shall also be making bird feeders.
We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone for supporting our cake sale. Donations are still coming in.

COMMUNITY NEWS:

Mothering Sunday Service
Everyone is welcome to attend the special Family Service for Mothering Sunday on 30th March at 9.30am at St John the Baptist Church (flyers in book bags tomorrow).


We are delighted to let you know that the Ffennell Skills and Culture Festival is confirmed again for 2014! After a fantastic inaugural event last year we are planning to run the event, which is free for all Oxfordshire Primary Schools, on Friday 13th June 2014.

The event will run similar to last year:
• Friday is Free for all Oxfordshire Schools
• Saturday 14th is open to the public and includes the Ffennell Soap Box Derby
• Hands on activities throughout
• Specialist STEM Zone (Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths)
Activities are being added all the time and are offered on a first come first served basis. We will send an email confirmation when booking opens.
In the meantime if you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact us:
rob@engineeringyourfuture.com or visit the website for latest information: http://ffennellfestival.org/

FUN CHILD ATTENTION AND MEMORY STUDY – LEARN ABOUT YOUR BRAIN!
Researchers from Oxford’s Experimental Psychology Department are carrying out a study on the development of attention and memory during childhood. Parents can bring their child (aged 6-7 or 10-11) to play fun Pokemon-themed memory games on a computer while we record brain activity. In addition to afternoons after school during school term, we can also book times during the Easter break and school half term. During the visit, we tell the children more about how our brain works and at the end of the visit children can take a picture of their brain waves! The whole activity will last approximately 1 hour. To express your interest in participating with your child, please email us at andria.shimi@psy.ox.ac.uk with your name, your child’s name, age, and birth date, and a phone number to contact you to arrange a visit. Alternatively you can fill in this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Dj4NA2mOsmcLcbuG-AuRVMKlpOWfRiX7TaqVDsRQ3LM/viewform
By expressing an interest now you are not bound to participate in the study. Attached you can find more information about the study and the researchers involved.
For more information please email (andria.shimi@psy.ox.ac.uk) or call (01865 271375).

Newsletter for week ending 14 March 2014

Gardening Club – Friday Lunchtimes
There are still spaces available for pupils in Classes 2 and 3 to join the Gardening Club. Please let Mrs Hopkins know if you would like to be involved.

Storytelling Fortnight
Many, many thanks to all the adults (parents, carers and governors) who came in and read stories in each of the classes over the last two weeks. We have been entertained by a wide range of stories and poems, including Rudyard Kipling’s ‘The Jungle Book’, Shirley Hughes ‘Dogger’, Roald Dahl’s ‘Revolting Rhymes’ and ‘Dirty Beasts’, Julia Donaldson’s ‘Room on the Broom’ and ‘What the Ladybird Heard’ John Burningham’s ‘Would You Rather’and George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ as well as several stories by Dr Seuss, traditional tales such as ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’, ‘The Dragon of Krakow’, ‘Le Petit Chaperon Rouge’ and poetry by Kit Wright. We were treated to stories read to us not only in English but also French, Spanish, German, Hungarian, Swedish, Bulgarian and Yorkshire! These stories have all contributed to enabling our pupils to experience the rich variety of stories and the culture of storytelling in English and other languages. Thank you all for your involvement and support (and bravery!), it is greatly appreciated.

Youth Club in Stadhampton – Message from Debbie Bradford
“We have recently had discussions with an organisation called OAYP, (Oxfordshire Association for Young People) regarding the possibility of joining their community link up project, which will assist us in setting up a Youth Club in Stadhampton. This would be a great opportunity for the young people in the village to experience and get involved in. However, before we are able to move the project forward we need to gauge the level of interest and available support.

We have invited Adam French, a project worker from OAYP, to come and talk about his organisation and what services they can offer us.

This meeting will take place on Thursday 27th March at 7.45pm in the church hall. Please come along to show your support, and share your views on the subject.”

Cycle Safety Training
We are very grateful to Mrs Cove, Mrs Green, Mrs Ellis, Miss Moss-Black (Helen) and Mr Matthews (Dave) for offering to provide cycle safety training in the summer term for any Year 6 pupils who have not already passed the test and would like to have a go. Please could those pupils confirm with Mrs Hopkins whether they would like to do this, by Monday next week. In order for pupils to put their names forward it is essential that they have an appropriately sized roadworthy cycle and a cycle helmet which conforms to British Standards and fits correctly. We hope to be able to extend this opportunity to the present Year 5 pupils during the next academic year.

PTA News
Thank you to everyone who supported the Bingo night last Friday. It was a great success and all the children seemed to have a good time. Thank you to all the PTA members and parents who stayed to help and to all those who stayed to clear up at the end of the evening. Thanks also to Miss Mould for coming and to Guy Holmes for being our bingo caller.

Tickets are still available for the quiz night on Friday 21st March, priced at £5 each or £40 for a team of up to 8 people. Georgina Wiggins will be selling tickets outside Class 1 each morning, so please see her if you would like to buy any. It promises to be a great evening so please support this event if you can.

The next PTA meeting will be on Tuesday 25th March in The Crown at 8pm.
All welcome!


Cake Club
Congratulations to Daniel Ellis, the lucky winner of the cake kindly donated by Mrs Jones. A reminder to Mrs Hindmarch that she is on the rota for 21 March.

DIARY DATES:
Wednesday 19 March Sports Activities Day – please bring PE kit!
Monday 24 March Work viewing evening – teachers available for informal chat if required whilst you look at your child’s work - no appointments necessary - 3.15 to 6pm.
Friday 4 April Break up for Easter Holiday. School finishes at 1.30pm
Monday 14 – Thursday 17 April Sports course at Stadhampton School led by Mr Hopkins. See posters in each cloakroom entrance or book via Mrs Hopkins.
Tuesday 22 April Pupils and staff return to school for the start of Term 5


LITTLE BEARS NEWS:
Next week Little Bears will be talking about growing food and where our food comes from. We will be looking at healthy foods and what's good for us.
A huge thank you to Anna Harris and Carol Holmes for their toy donations.

Community News:
Attachments to this newsletter:
• Brookes Science Bazaar – Free fun for the family on Saturday 22nd March from 11am to 4pm at Headington Campus, Gipsy Lane. No booking required but please note that no parking is available for this event.
• Two flyers about RAF Benson Holiday course from 7th -11th April and Making Connections Day on 15th April.
• Lambing Weekends at Earth Trust, Little Wittenham
• Food technician job vacancy at Icknield Community College

Newsletter for week ending 7 March 2014

Happy MARCH Birthday to: Maggie Almeida, Jem Burnell, Darcy Crook, Emily Drake, Daniel Ellis, Hannah Lansley, Greg Madry, Benjamin Walker and Naomi Woodwards.

During MARCH we are focusing on the core value of TRUST

World Book Day
Thursday 6th March was World Book Day and we decided to do something a bit different this year! Instead of dressing up as a book character, all classes made their own hats or masks to represent their chosen book character. Some children also made masks and hats at home. We used a variety of materials and they all looked fantastic! Characters ranged from Willy Wonka to the Lorax to the tiger (from ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’). The classes also enjoyed sharing books with children in different year groups and lots of interesting ‘book talk’ was overheard by the staff.
Well done to all the children for making such a good effort today and making it a very enjoyable morning of book celebration!

Gardening Club – Friday lunchtimes
We are grateful to Mr and Mrs Burnell for offering to resurrect the gardening club on Friday lunchtimes. Please could any pupils from Classes 2 and 3 who would like to attend the club put their names down with Mrs Hopkins. The club will start on Friday 14th March. If any other parents would like to also offer their help at this club, please let us know.

School Council Flag and Language Competition!
The School Council is running a competition, with an international theme, as a part of our continuing focus on maintaining international links as a school. All pupils at school are invited to take part and families at home too! The task is to identify twelve different flags on the competition sheet. Having done that you will also have a greeting, written in one of the main languages spoken in each country - however some of the letters will be missing! You will need to try and work out what the greeting should be in that language.
Once the competition sheet is completed, you will need to write your name and class on the back of the sheets. Finished entries can then be put in a labelled box outside Class 1. There is no charge for taking part in this competition. The competition sheets will be given to classes on Friday 7th March and need to be in by Friday 21st March. Entries with all the answers correct will be then entered into a prize draw and then one winner will be picked out at random and will receive an international-themed prize!

Advance Warning of Sporting Events
To link in with Commonwealth Day (on Monday 10th March), we have planned an exciting sports day on Wednesday 19th March when we look forward to welcoming a sports leader from Kidz Fit into school. Pupils will take part in interactive sessions to help them to learn the importance of a healthy lifestyle, physical fitness and personal wellbeing. Please ensure that ALL pupils have their PE kit in school!

We will also be taking part in activities for Sports Relief around 21st March. Further details to follow nearer the time.

Cycle Safety Training
We are hoping to be able to run cycle training sessions before the end of the summer term for Year 6 pupils who have not as yet, taken a cycle safety training test and would like to do so. Mrs Cove, Mrs Ellis and Mrs Green were involved in this last year and in order for this training to be available to pupils we really need additional volunteers to help with this activity. We all know how busy the road is through Stadhampton and therefore need a good number of adults to ensure that pupils are closely supervised in this activity. Please let Mrs Hopkins know if you would be willing to help.

Out-grown school shoes
Helen Moss-Black has asked us to circulate to parents details of the UK based charity, Osiligi (www.osiligi.org) which helps to relieve poverty in the Maasai area of Kenya. Helen collects out grown school shoes (particularly sizes 10-3 in both boys and girls) and passes them on to the charity who take them out to Kenya every three months or so. Next time you buy new school shoes, please think about whether the old ones might be suitable for a second life in Africa. Thank you.

PTA News
Tomorrow is Bingo Night! Please could parents be prompt in dropping/collecting their children. If any parent can stay and help clear up at the end of the evening, it would be greatly appreciated. Please let a PTA member know if you can help. It should be a great night for the children!


Individual and table tickets for the Quiz Night on Friday 21st March are available priced at £5 each or £40 for a table of up to 8. It promises to be a great evening, so please get involved and buy your tickets from Georgina Wiggins as soon as possible. This will allow us to make sure there is plenty of wine stocked up at the bar!


Once again, thank you for your continued support of the PTA.


Cake Club
Congratulations to Ella Perring, the lucky winner of the cake kindly donated by Mrs Lansley. A reminder to Mrs Eaton that she is on the rota for 14 March.

DIARY DATES:
3rd-14th March Story telling fortnight – please come in and read a story!
Monday 10 March Governing Body meeting at 7pm
Monday 24 March Work viewing evening – teachers available for informal chat if required whilst you look at your child’s work no appointments necessary - 3.15 to 6pm.
Friday 4 April Break up for Easter Holiday. School finishes at 1.30pm
Monday 14 – Thursday 17 April Sports course at Stadhampton School led by Mr Hopkins. See posters in each cloakroom entrance or book via Mrs Hopkins.
Tuesday 22 April Pupils and staff return to school for the start of Term 5


LITTLE BEARS NEWS:
Next week at Little Bears we will continue to explore the topic of ‘mini beasts’ and ‘the life cycle of a frog’. The Little Bears have worked hard making frog spawn, tadpoles and frogs and learning songs about frogs.

If anyone would like donate some paper plates to Little Bears, this would be very much appreciated.

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