General Announcements

Today the children and staff dressed up in spots and stripes in aid of the charity Children in Need.  Miss Bains challenged her class to a sponsored word game – they had to come up with as many different words as they could from CHILDREN IN NEED, each word would be worth 10p – they managed 42!  Also in the kitchen, Mrs Farmer continued her tradition and made a Pudsey cake too!   The lucky winner of the cake was Blake in our Learning Ladybirds class – Congratulations!

We are pleased to announce that we have raised a fantastic £116.20.

Thank you.

As most of our parents are aware, Mrs Christie is expecting her first child, and today, the children and teachers held a surprise Baby Shower for her.

The whole school got together this afternoon, greeting Mrs Christie with a big cheer, but Mrs Christie didn’t know what was in store!!!

The children were so enthusiastic to get involved in the games of this celebration, Mrs Christie was quite overwhelmed.  The games were as follows:

Is it a Boy or a Girl?
On each table of pupils, they had to coordinate a tally chart with the results of their predictions, Mrs Weston then pulled together the results – the winning prediction was ‘it’s going to be a boy’!

We also did a tally chart to predict what day of the week the baby would be born – it was a joint result between Wednesday or Friday being the predictions.

Changing a nappy…
Does Mrs Christie know how to change a nappy or not?  Well she was given the challenge….blindfolded!  She managed it, and even had a little cuddle afterwards.

Naming the baby
All the children got a chance to put down their suggested names to help Mrs Christie and her husband decide the name of their child – I wonder if she’ll choose one of the children’s suggestions, we’ll have to wait and see.

Baby food – yummy or disgusting?
First of all the children came up with their own list of ingredients to create homemade baby food……some of them possible contenders whilst others were a little more random!

Once again Mrs Christie was blindfolded to see if she could tell us what ingredients were in the shop-bought baby food; she nearly guessed correctly too.

Estimate and measure
Each table of children were given a piece of string and a pair of scissors.  The children had to work together to estimate the circumference of Mrs Christies tummy and cut the string to the correct length. Then we had to check which team of children were the closest – I believe it was Lilia’s table.

Good advice…?
To help Mrs Christie and her husband with their first born child, the children had to write down some top tips or draw a picture as guidance for the couple as they venture into this unknown territory!

      

When things get messy….EUGH!
The final activity of the afternoon, Mrs Christie was blindfolded once again.  This time she had to change the baby’s clothes following a messy explosion in the nappy area!!!  I think this is the one activity which the children found most hilarious!

Tomorrow will be Mrs Christie’s last day in school before commencing her maternity leave.  We want to wish both Mrs Christie and her husband all the very best for this exciting new chapter in their lives.

We will keep you updated with any baby news.

 

As part of our Anti-Bullying Week activities, the children have taken the time with their teachers and each other to discuss various scenarios and how they would deal with those situations should they arise.

Each class has been assigned a superhero to help guide all of our children if they do find themselves feeling bullied.  Each superhero focuses on different areas as follows:

Batman  guides you on what to do if someone says unkind things to you or uses unkind words;

Wonder Woman talks about how it’s important to share and what to do in a situation if other people aren’t sharing;

Spiderman explains what to do if you are being left out of games; and

Superman talks about when rough play becomes bullying.

The children’s superhero work and guidance will be displayed on the boards in our school library area, so the children can reflect and maybe get guidance from their superheroes if needed!

Don’t forget we do have our STOP button on the school website to report any instances of bullying – this goes straight through to the Headteacher.

Following on from our ‘Odd Socks Day’ yesterday and as part of the Anti-Bullying Week activities, the children have been creating their own sock designs, highlighting the fact that we are all different.  These are now on display on one of the boards in the library area.

This year we have had another fantastic turnout of Grandparents for our special lunch today, arriving in plenty of time.  At the last count we had 84 grandparents and family members join us.

The children were so pleased and excited to be able to share their school experience with their family.  Here’s just a few photos of the day:

 

This Friday, the children can support this year’s Children In Need campaign by coming to school dressed in either something spotty or stripy in return for a donation of £1.

This is a great cause and we hope you can join in the fun.

As part of Anti-Bullying Week, today we celebrated individuality and the fact that we are all unique and different.

Odd Socks Day is a nationwide Anti-Bullying campaign and to kickstart today off, our link Governor for Anti-Bullying, Mrs Scott, came in to talk to the children, and yes, she was wearing odd socks too, as were all the staff!

CBeebies presenter and Anti-Bullying Alliance Patron, Andy Day, has written a song especially for this week, called ‘Choose Respect’.  The children enjoyed listening and singing along to this, really taking in the message.  If you wish to listen to it again with your child, please click here.

There will be more activities throughout the week but here’s just a few of our ‘odd socks’ from today.

 

Tomorrow, Wednesday 14th November, is our annual Grandparents Day lunch.  For those of you who have booked a lunch, the timings of the event are as follows:

11:30am
Grandparents of children in Learning Ladybirds plus older siblings

11:45am
Grandparents of children in Dazzling Dragonflies plus older siblings

12:00pm
Grandparents of children in Curious Caterpillars and Busy Bees plus older siblings.

We look forward to seeing you there.

You may be aware that in previous years, our Year 6 children have taken part in Bikeability training, levels 1 and 2, previously known to some as Cycling Proficiency.

We are pleased to say that the Schools Sports Partnership have been working with our children again, but at the opposite end of the school.  Today, the Learning Ladybirds class have been taking part in a Bikeability session using balance bikes.  For those who are unfamiliar with balance bikes, these are a type of learner’s bicycle that has no pedals or stabilisers but is instead propelled by the rider pushing their feet along the ground and is designed to help young children learn to balance and steer.

The children had an amazing time, listened well to all the instructions given and put their learning into practice, weaving in and out of the cones with confidence.

You may have already read about the remembrance activity that happened earlier this week, where the children decorated poppies in memory of the those people who lost their lives during the war, as part of the exhibition at St. Mary’s Church in the village.

Throughout the day today, all our classes have been up to the church to place their poppies on the display.  It gave them all a chance to look around the exhibition they have contributed to and also ring the church bells in remembrance.

The children have been incredibly respectful throughout this week as we’ve been discussing Armistice Day and stood for the 2 minutes silence at 11am today.

They have really enjoyed being a part of this remembrance exhibition and goes to strengthen our ties further with the Church and the wider village community.

The children enjoyed hearing Mr Timmins, the church warden, talk about the exhibition.  This particular area symbolised the people who went to fight in WW1 from our village; the 6 poppies at the top represent the soldiers who didn’t return from war; the lower 25 poppies symbolise the soldiers that did come back home.

There is plenty more of the exhibition to see. Please visit the church this weekend – the exhibition is open 2-4pm Saturday and Sunday, where afternoon tea will be served both days.  There will also be a remembrance day service on Sunday at 10.45am.