Friends of Saxmundham Primary School (Cont…) the fete. Any fresh produce should be brought in on the day of the fete from 10am. If you also have any old wellies in the shed, please bring them in as we need some for the Welly Throwing Competition! If you are able to help us set up for the fete or help in any way at the event, please let us know. Can you and your friends take on a stall and run it on a rota? Will your employer match-fund your stall’s takings at our summer fete? If so, please sign up for a stall rota! Feeling strong? We need groups of helpers to man the Zippy Dipper ride for short spells. Any help will be greatly appreciated. We are currently raising funds for new outdoor learning areas, as well as extending the sports and play provision for our growing school. Thank you for your continued support. We hope you all have fun at the fete! Breakfast Club Our breakfast club is now well embedded in the life of the school and has steadily grown in numbers. On some days we are full but do have the staffing capacity to accept occasional children if we have enough notice. It only costs £2 per child for breakfast of cereal, toast, fruit and a drink and childcare for 45 minutes - a bargain! If you would like to book a regular place at breakfast club for your child or are interested in occasional spaces, please speak to the front office. During the second half of the summer term we shall be reviewing the fee structure of breakfast club and all parents will be notified of this in due course. One plea - the children would benefit greatly from some Lego to play with in the morning. | Breakfast Club (Cont…) If you have any in your house which is unused, they would be very grateful!! Thank you. Year 5&6 Production Now that we are clear of SATs, rehearsals will begin in earnest for the year 5 & 6 production of ‘A Night at the Movies!’ A number of parts have already been cast and some rehearsal has begun already. There will be three performances this year: the afternoon of the 12th of July and the evenings of the 13th and 14th of July. Last year’s performances of Yee-Haa! Were excellent and I am sure that this year's extravaganza will be too. Sports News Whilst we have continued to be successful in our sports competitions this half-term, we equally have been frustrated by the regularity of cancellations! Our swimming team of Megan, Ellie, Charlotte, Sophie, Lucas, Charlie, Luke and Leo was in action on Tuesday, defending their title from last year. Unfortunately, a repeat was not on the cards with our team coming third this year. However, there were some excellent individual swims and we shall be back in the hunt next year. The Kwik-cricket competition was postponed due to lack of competing teams (we await a rescheduled date) but we won the netball convincingly thanks to Izzy, Taisy, Megan, Molly, Saskia, Bella, Oliver, Callum and Leo and are looking forward to the spot in the county finals! This half-term we should be fielding teams in rounders and quad-kids athletics. Don’t forget that this half-term coming up will also feature the school sports days on the afternoons of the 4th and 5th of July. We shall have to see if Earth house can hang on to the trophies! | Farming School of the Year Our team had a very successful day at the semi-finals at Trinity Park where they painted a pig iron, made up their own sausage recipes and listened very carefully during the sessions on pig husbandry and the journey from farm to fork. For the third year running we have made it through to the finals which will be at 11am on Thursday the 2nd of June at the Suffolk Show. The team of Saskia, Megan, Amy, Isla and Madison will be giving a 10 minute presentation on pigs and they have some very interesting information to share with the judges. We were just edged out by Bawdsey Primary last year so we wish our team all the best. If you are at the Suffolk Show on Thursday, do stop by the School's marquee and support our team. Attendance At the end of this term I intend to present certificates to all children who have achieved attendance of 100% over the school year. Currently there are 30 children with perfect attendance and I hope to be able to present certificates to all of these children on the 20th of July. Our attendance so far this term is 96.5% and 96.2 % for the year. The vast majority of our children have good attendance and we very much appreciate your support in this. You may have heard about the recent case in which a Jon Platt appealed against the decision of the Isle of Wight local authority to issue a penalty notice for non-attendance when he took his daughter on holiday. This case has now gone to the Court of Appeals who found he did not have a case to answer and the penalty notice has been withdrawn. Suffolk County Council has not changed its guidance to schools on this matter and so we shall continue to regard term-time holiday as unauthorised and a referral for a penalty notice will be made if the absence is for 10 sessions or more. | Key Dates Half-term Holiday: Monday 30th May - Friday 3rd June U11 Mixed Rounders: Wednesday 8th June Summer fete Dress down day: Wednesday 8th June Tunstall Forest Trip (Y2): Wednesday 8th and Friday 10th June Summer Fete: Saturday 11th June Year 1 Phonics Check: Wk Beg 13th June Jubilee Opera Visit (KS2): Wednesday 15th June Y5 Crystal Maze: Wednesday 22nd June U11 Quadkids Athletics: Monday 27th June Y6 Hilltop: Monday 27th June - Wednesday 29th June Transition Days: Friday 1st & Thursday 7th July KS2 Sports Day: Monday 4th July R/KS1 Sports Day: Tuesday 5th July Year 5&6 Performance: Tuesday 12th, Wednesday 13th & Thursday 14th July Leavers Assembly: Wednesday 20th July 1.30pm Summer Holiday: Thursday 21st July - Monday 5th September PD days: Thursday 1st and Friday 2nd September Individual Photos: Tuesday 6th September Clubs Our after school clubs are always keenly anticipated by children but we are sure that there is more we can do to provide a wide range of stimulating activities for children. We shall soon be carrying out a children’s survey to develop more ideas for clubs, some of which the children could run themselves. Whilst we have a very talented staff, I am sure there must be some parents with skills they could pass on to our children and if you are one of those and would be interested in running a club (either after school or at lunchtime), please do let me know. We do insist that all volunteers have a successful DBS check and complete their volunteering induction before they work with our children. |
Parents’ Forum Our most recent Parents’ Forum was held only yesterday at the start of the day. A small group met in the hall and discussed issues such as attendance (especially absence for holidays), increasing our extra-curricular provision and items to consider in the parents survey. We also discussed the general state of the school and issues raised were school capacity and how much space we have to accommodate new children; hiring of school facilities; general behaviour (which attendees thought was very good) and how easy it was to speak to staff to sort out issues in school. The feeling was that a 9am start is better than at the end of the day and our last forum of the year will be held at 9am on Tuesday 14th July. Attendance at the forum does not tie you into anything and you don’t have to ask any questions if you don’t want to. I would be really glad to see more parents at the next meeting. To give opportunities for working parents to come to a forum, I intend to hold an evening Forum in September. School Developments Well the building work has started at last. Good progress was made in the first week, the foundations are now complete and the first layer of blocks has been laid. Over the half-term break a number of steels will be erected to provide the overall frame and a new fire door will be installed in Hawthorn class on the opposite side of the existing door. Meanwhile, the Log House is now home to all of our musical instruments and as well as hosting our brass lessons on Thursday afternoons, it will become the school music room with all of our instruments on hand for lessons. Thanks to Mr Cartwright-Jones and Miss Nicholas for moving and arranging the instruments. | School Developments (Cont…) You may have noticed the piles of slabs that currently sit on the grass area opposite the KS1 classrooms. These were uplifted by the builders and over the summer will be used by Mr Cartwright-Jones to lay a new section of path that will arc round behind where the story-teller's chair now sits. This area will then be enclosed and be used by KS1 as their outdoor area. In time we shall also be installing a safety surface and some overhead shelter. We are also advancing our plans to install a multi-use games area on the field. Mr Cartwright-Jones took plans along to the annual Town Council meeting recently where they were met with a lot of positive feedback. The aim is to install an area that would bring a number of benefits:
The intention is to seek grant funding for this project and so community support is essential to its success. If you represent a sports or community club that may have an interest in hiring such a facility in Saxmundham, please speak to Mr Cartwright-Jones. Paid Lunches As a school we operate a policy that school lunches should be paid for on the day they are ordered. Where this does not happen, we will phone or write to parents to remind them of the amount owing and to request payment. Please do not put your child in a position of ordering a lunch without sending payment.
| Saxmundham Primary News | ||
Issue 4 - May, 2016 | ||||
Summer has arrived! And at long last! As ever, it has been a busy half-term with KS1 and KS2 SATs tests; trips to Easton Farm Park for reception and Colchester for years 3 and 4; and the St George’s Day afternoon tea on the 22nd April. The activity continues into the last half-term with the summer fete, a visit to KS2 by Jubilee Opera and the year 6 trip to Hilltop. Amidst all of this, the new build is progressing well and we are making preparations for the inevitable movements of people, furniture and equipment that such work entails. We shall also say goodbye to Mrs Liggett at the end of the summer term. She has been an outstanding contributor to our school over her many years and we are truly sad to see her go. We may be ‘winding down’ towards the end of the year but I can assure you that this half-term will be just as busy as ever. A list of key dates can be found inside this newsletter and all of these dates are on the school calendar which can be accessed at: | Friends of Saxmundham Primary School The Friends held an end of SATs Chill Out night for our Year 6 pupils which included a BBQ and disco. It was a lovely evening and lots of fun was had by all! Our Summer Fete takes place on Saturday 11th June, 1-4pm. To make this year’s fete as successful as we can we will be holding our dress down day on Wednesday 8th June in return for donations towards our themed hampers (Mum’s, Dad’s, Camping & BBQ) raffle prizes and tombolas. Pupils are invited to dress in their own clothes and also wear a silly hat if they’d like to! Grand Draw tickets will be on sale from Monday 6th June at 50p each. We have some fantastic prizes on offer, generously donated by local businesses, including a cash prize of £75. Our fete programme will also be on sale at 50p. The winning cover was designed by Taisy Wiseman (Year 5) – well done! We had a huge number of entries, each earning well-deserved house points, and we were impressed by the quality of artwork. We plan to display all of the designs at the fete for families to see. Don’t forget – the programme includes an entry to the ‘Lucky Programme Prize Draw’ to win £50. Any other donations for the fete in the form of good quality second-hand school uniform, handbags, jewellery, books or toys can be brought into school in the week leading up to | |||
