April 2016

Issue 21

21.04.16

St John’s Primary School

Wallingford

Newsletter

Dear Parents,

Welcome back ! I hope you all had a relaxing and enjoyable Easter break. It has been lovely to be enjoying some sunshine this week and getting outside with the children.

As always, topics have got off to a flying start and we have had two very busy weeks. In Foundation Stage and Year 1 this term, children’s learning is focused on all things ‘Under the Sea’ featuring Nemo, the Octonauts and a yellow submarine; Year 2 are finding out about ‘Rainforests’ and visited the Living Rainforest to launch their topic; Year 3 and 4’s topic is ’El Dorado’ which includes learning about explorers and South America and in Years 5 and 6, children are learning about ‘Extremes’. They started the first day of term examining an earthquake scene and interviewing a victim of the earthquake. As you can see there are lots of geography based topics this term and we look forward to sharing the learning with you at our Open Afternoon later in the term.

Year 2 enjoyed a pirate themed week this week and all looked fabulous in their pirate costumes on Monday. They have done some super writing including pirate diaries and messages in a bottle! We have also welcomed Melanie Gravett to our staff team this term as our new Forest School leader; Year 4 and 6 have both enjoyed Forest School ses-sions on the field this week and are very happy to be back at Forest School!

On Monday a group of mixed age children performed at the Wallingford Dance Festival at Wallingford School. Thank you to Mrs Rudd for running the club and choreographing the dance. It was, as always, a lovely event. Our rugby team took part in a tournament this week also and were a credit to St John’s, playing lots of matches throughout the after-noon and coming 6th out of 15 teams. Thank you to Mr Earl, who has been coaching the team and who took them along to the tournament.

Mrs Colbourne and Year 5 have been given the important responsibility of carrying out the ‘Rocket Seeds’ experiment for the school, comparing the growth of seeds that have been to the International Space Station with those that have not. We are all excited to see the outcome of the experiment and look forward to their updates.

Staff begun the term with an INSET Day which included some rather difficult team chal-lenges, along with a focus on the priorities from our recent inspection. We have been writing the post-Ofsted action plan and will be sharing a summary of this plan with you very soon. We are already addressing the issues raised in the report, one of which was ensuring we maximise the time spent on learning. We would be really grateful if you could support us in this by ensuring children are in school on time with all they need for the day. To ensure prompt starts to lessons in the morning, we do ask parents to say goodbye and leave by 8.55am. This enables all staff to start teaching their classes and groups promptly, and is why we lock our gates at this time.

Tomorrow is our PTFA ‘Love your school’ day. We have a long list of jobs—indoor and outdoor—so if you can spare an hour or two in the morning from 9am onwards we would love to see you. There will be lunch provided for the volunteers.

Kind regards,

Nicky Hughes

Issue 21 Page 2

Important dates for your diaries…

Friday 22nd April - School Class Photos

Saturday 23rd April - Love Your School Day

Monday 2nd May - BANK HOLIDAY

Wc Mon 9th May - SATs week

Friday 13th May - PTFA School Discos

Tuesday 24th May - Open afternoon 2-3pm

Friday 27th May - FS Eats4Treats

Friday 27th May - End of term 5 - 3pm

Mon 30th May - Friday 3rd June - HALF TERM

Friday 10th June - Year 6 fundraiser @ Corn Exchange

Friday 17th June - Year 2 Eats4Treats 3pm

Friday 8th July - Year 1 Eats4Treats 3pm

Wednesday 20th July - End of term 6 - 1:30pm

2015/16 Remaining Term Dates: Term 5 11/04/16 to 27/05/16,

Term 6 06/06/16 to 20/07/16

2015/16 Remaining Inset Days Monday 11/04/16

Term Dates 2016-2017 Term 1 05/09/2016 to Friday 21/10/16, Term 2 01/11/16 to 16/12/16, Term 3 04/01/17 to 10/02/17, Term 4 21/02/17 to 07/04/17, Term 5 24/04/17 to 26/05/17, Term 6 05/06/17 to 21/07/17

Inset Days 2016-2017

Thursday 01/09/2016, Friday 02/09/2016, Monday 31/10/2016,

Tuesday 03/01/2017, Monday 20/02/2017

Polite request

We rely on parent contributions

to run trips so please do keep

on top of payments, especially

as we head towards overnight

trips for some classes later this

term.

Value of the fortnight

We have just finished

thinking about …

Resilience

Our next value of the

fortnight is….

Reflection

St John’s Eco council are excited to announce that the school are having a Global Goals Week. This will take place in the week beginning June 6th.

The Global Goals are a set of targets that the United Nations have made linked to the Earth’s environment and poverty which need to be achieved by 2030. During the week, we will be running different activities in school to raise awareness.

If you work in an area linked to the environment or reducing poverty or would be interested in helping please speak to either Miss Miles, Mr Chandler or one of your class’s eco-councillor.

Page 3 Issue 21

Year 2 visit to the Living Rainforest

Year 5 planting the Rocket Seeds

Year 6 on ‘Wear a Hat’ day

Year 6 planting their herb garden

Page 4 Issue 21

News from the PTFA

Welcome back! As the sun starts to shine the PTFA are working to ensure we can all support the school

and the children as much as possible. We are pleased to let you know that the quiz night last term was a

huge success raising almost £800, and the feedback has been really positive so we hope to make this an

annual event.

This term we are organising a number of events for you so please put them in your diary:

23rd April - Love Your School Day

The school will be open from 9am and we hope that you will join us to tidy up the school grounds. As

always the PTFA will provide a hearty lunch at the end of the morning for all volunteers. There is a long

wish list from the staff so we hope as many of you as possible will be able to help out. It has always been

a great community event so we hope the sun will shine and we look forward to seeing you there.

13th May - Spring Disco

As usual the infant and junior discos will be held in the evening. Letters with reply slips will be sent out

nearer the time.

17th June - Summer Picnic

We hope this year to see a little more sunshine than last year. This is a social event and we hope you can

take the opportunity to get to know a few more parents in your year group or across the school. We will

serve tea and cakes and hope to provide some entertainment for you too.

Weekend of 25th June - Camping

We thought we would try a camping night on the field as this term’s fundraiser. We will confirm which

night (Friday or Saturday) it will be and exactly how it will work in a couple of weeks, but we hope to offer

something for everyone.

Now let’s just hope the sun shines at the right moments!

Best wishes

The PTFA

Page 5 Issue 21

Footsteps Footsteps is Oxfordshire County Council’s child pedestrian road safety scheme. We need your help to send this information leaflet out to parents and families as they are the best people to teach their children the skills needed for road safety. The aim of Footsteps is for children to learn to take responsibility and make decisions under the supervision of an adult. . Footsteps enables parents and carers to gradually teach their child ac-cording to age and ability until each child is able to become independent. Parents are encour-aged to ask lots of open questions and discuss road safety skills which they may not have thought about. Here is a link to the leaflet. https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/cms/sites/default/files/folders/documents/roadsandtransport/safety/Footsteps-Parents-Guide.pdf

Open Day (and offers/prizes) at Local Wallingford Tennis Club on

Sunday 8 May 2016

The doors of one of Oxfordshire’s best tennis clubs will be thrown

open to the public on Sunday 8 May 2016 from 2.00pm-5.00pm. Port-

cullis Tennis Club (at Wallingford Sports Park, Hithercroft Road, Wall-

ingford) is inviting everyone to come along for free fun at its annual

Open Day and the chance for adults and juniors to receive prizes and

special offers.

Club Chairman Mark Goodman said: “Our open day is not only about

encouraging people to consider becoming members. We want every-

one to try out tennis, see our facilities and have a fun day. We are a

very sociable club with five floodlit, year round courts, four well-

attended club sessions each week, a full competition programme,

professional coaching for adults and juniors alike and an array of so-

cial events.”

To encourage children to attend and try out tennis, we are running a

coaching offer and free membership prize draw. For any junior play-

ers (aged 3 to 18) who sign up as club members on the Open day,

they will receive four coaching sessions for just £4 (a saving of over

£20). Both adults and juniors attending on the day will be entered

into a prize draw to win two junior annual memberships (one aged

under 11 worth £18 pa and one aged 12-25 years worth £50 pa) and

one adult membership (worth £120 pa for 26-63 year olds)

The Open Day runs from 2.00-5.00pm. Coaches and league players

will lead sessions of free tennis for children aged 5 and over, to

adults of all ages! Apart from joining in with the coaching and match

play sessions, visitors can join in on a fitness-based cardio tennis ses-

sion. Light refreshments are available.

Anyone wishing to attend the Open Day should, ideally, register their

interest by going to www.greatbritishtennisweekend.com and search-

ing for Portcullis or just turn up on the day.

Nicola@implementor.biz

07739 407259