School Email – Coton-in-the-Elms CofE Primary School

Three cheers for our volunteers!

thank you Since we finished for the summer holidays, a team of parent volunteers have been coming into school to help refresh our Early Years / Key Stage 1 play area.

As you can see from these first photo’s, by the end of the school year, the area was in need of a little TLC!

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Outdoor learning spaces are so important, which is why we can’t thank our volunteers enough for helping get this ready for our new intake of children in September and of course our current infants.

IPIU3568 (1) They have worked tirelessly through the hot weather, managing to obtain donations and great discounts from local gardening suppliers to make our Early Years area into a wonderful space to be.

I’m sure you’ll agree from the pictures below that it looks amazing – THANK YOU!

The big break is here!

What a year! I can’t believe another year is at its end and we are at the start of the 6 week holiday period. We’ve had such a prolonged period of good weather, we’ve been in holiday mode for the last month or so. Let’s hope it continues now we have finally broken up, although an occasional shower would be welcome I’m sure, if only to cool us down and to help the grass recover!

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Gotta have Faith!

Hold your nerve; It’s almost the end of term! It is that time of year where feelings inevitably run high for everybody and our school is no different to any other. The final weeks of a school year always evoke a series of emotions in the best of us. Whether you are excited for the summer break and that family holiday in the sun, anxious about moving to a new class in September or, in the case of Year 6, feeling genuine sadness that your time at our school is coming to an end. There is always plenty of emotion in the month of July! However, the events of the last fortnight should serve as a timely reminder to all that; where there is faith and belief – positive things are always around the corner.

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Summer Fayre Countdown – 1 day to go!

1 day to go and our blind auction items are revealed as follows:

£50 gift voucher for the Swan, Walton-on-Trent…
Owl House Spa Day, worth £50
Day pass to Hoar Cross Hall, worth £79
2 tickets to Gullivers Theme Park, worth £40
Sea Life Centre tickets for 2 adults and 2 children, worth £80
4 tickets to Twin Lakes, worth £80
2 cinema tickets, worth £23
£25 Conkers voucher
Family climb on Apex Climbing Wall, Greenbank Leisure Centre, worth £32
Tobogganing for two at the Snowdome, worth £34
Pet Photo Voucher, worth £25

To bid for any of the above items, you will need to complete a slip at the Summer Fayre, Mrs Mack will be wandering amongst you with a clipboard/slips. Remember, the highest bidder wins, so bid to win!

Summer Fayre Countdown

We saw several parents come into school this morning to continue the preparations towards this Friday’s summer fayre. With just 2 days to go, there is an incredible amount of activity taking place.

As part of the many games and activities at our summer fayre this year, we will be holding our usual raffle and also a blind auction. We ran the blind auction for the first time last summer and this proved very successful.

Raffle prizes on offer, amongst other prizes, will be:

See the source image Tobogganing for 2 at The Snowdome
‘Paint a Pot’ gift voucher
2 passes for Wild Ones in Burton
Family swim at Hood Park
Play pass for Coral Reef at Meadowside
Family Swim at Greenbank
Tobogganing for 2 at Swadlincote Ski Centre
1 gents and 1 boys hair cut at Raffles barber Shop
1 shellac manicure at Elegance Boutique
Tea and Cake for 2 at The Honey pot
2 vouchers for Clip & Climb in Derby
Family pass for Twin Lakes

Look out for tomorrow’s post when we will reveal the auction prizes which you can bid for.

Dancing the night away

Last night we held our last disco for this school year.

School disco image With disco outfits adorned, the infants and the juniors queued excitedly to get in, with the first stop being the sweets stall!

All the children had a great night, if not a little warm, dancing the night away. The year 6 children had their ‘last dance’ at the end of the juniors disco, this being their final school disco before moving on to secondary education.

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A huge THANK YOU to all of the parent helpers and staff who gave up their time to support this event – we couldn’t run these events without you.

We are pleased to say that we raised just over £300 for school funds – which is amazing.

Thank you

Cuppa and Cake

Come and join Mr Smith for the last Cuppa & Cake session of the school year, this Monday (9th July) between 9 am and 10 am.

This is a chance for all stakeholders to get to know our plans for the new academic year, including all the interesting things that we have planned to further improve our school.

We hope to see you there.

Non-Uniform Day this Friday

We have our summer fayre coming up on 13^th July and as usual, we will be holding a non-uniform day in return for donations in support of the fayre. This will take place this Friday, 6^th July.

In previous years, feedback from some parents is that they are not sure what to send in as a donation; therefore, in order to manage the items we need and to ensure a successful fayre, we have broken the requirements into classes below, we hope this helps:

Happy Hedgehogs
Please could we have cake donations, shop bought or homemade. (Please note the best before dates if shop bought)

Super Squirrels
Please could we have donations of party bag fillers

Brilliant Badgers
Please could we have donations for our adult tombola

Funky Foxes
Please could we have donations for our children’s tombola

Wise Owls
Please could we have bottle donations

You are not restricted to just your category if you wish to send items for other areas also. If you do not have a donation for Friday, your child can still come in non-uniform on the day and send the donation in on Monday next week.

Our FPTA have already been working incredibly hard obtaining lots of raffle prizes to win and creating new stalls and games for everyone to enjoy.

We appreciate all the help you can give us in preparing for our Summer Fayre, not forgetting that the funds raised all go to benefit the children in keeping the cost of school trips down, purchasing new laptops, new experiences and lots more.

Thank you for your support.

A foot in both camps!

It is the time of year where, as Headteacher, I have 1 foot in each camp. It is important that we finish the existing year on a high and make sure that we tie up any loose ends before the summer break but, at the same time, it is important that we look towards the new academic year, so that we can hit the ground running come September.

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Best Year 1 Phonics Screening Check Results since 2014!

As you will all be aware, this year we have been focusing on developing our teaching of phonics in school. This has involved lots of work with all parents through Fly on the Wall Sessions and parent-pupil workshops. Our staff team have received additional training in conjunction with Derby University and we have been working really hard to ensure that our phonic sessions contain pace, praise, progress, and active participation every day whilst making sure that they are fun.

In each of the last 4 years, our attainment in Y1 phonics has dipped year on year and last year we achieved a poor 63% of pupils achieving the expected standard. This was significantly below the National figure.

We are really pleased to announce that this year – 94% of our Year 1 cohort met the expected standard in phonics. These are our best results in Year 1 phonics for since 2014!

Thank you to everybody for their dedication and support, it is really encouraging to see that the hard work has had an impact. Our school is improving all the time and the Year 1 children have done an amazing job – well done Year 1! Long may the improvements continue!