The Tidcombe Times

Newsletter

Available online at www.tidcombe.devon.sch.uk and via subscription

Tel: 01884 252973 Email: admin@tidcombe.devon.sch.uk 22nd November 2019

If you have any concerns at all about anything to do with school please do come in to discuss it with us as most problems can be

solved easily and quickly if we work together. This newsletter can also viewed on our website www.tidcombe.devon.sch.uk

Child Protection—if you have any concerns about any child, then please contact Simon Green (Headteacher) Claire Goddard or Jill

Mallender (Assistant Headteachers). Further contact details are on our website.

Dance Performance

Thank you to all of our wonderful parents and carers for

coming along to support this super event. Also, huge thanks

to Tom Mallender and all of our teaching and support staff

for helping the children with their performance.

The weather was kind to us and it was brilliant to be able to

make use of our amphitheatre.

Meet the Team Each week this term we will be introducing you to our wonderful

staff. We are aware that you may see us around the school and not

actually know who we are! So here we go...

Hi, my name is Sharron Phillips and I am one of the Senior

Mealtime Assistants here at Tidcombe. Part of my role also

involves being the Health and Safety Co Ordinator which, as

you can imagine, keeps me very busy!

I’ve been part of Tidcombe for 18 years now and have

worked here for 10 years. I’m really proud to say that all 3

of my wonderful children came to this lovely little school

but I can’t quite believe that my ‘baby’ will be leaving

school next year! Time has certainly flown by—it really

doesn’t seem that long ago that I was running our toddler

group.

Outside of school, I have a great interest in classic cars and

try to go to as many local car shows as I can, with my family.

My name is Harriet Gowing and I am the Year 2 class

teacher at Tidcombe Primary. I am also currently the

subject leader for Computing and E-Safety.

I have worked at Tidcombe for 10 years and have had

the pleasure of teaching classes in Nursery, Reception

and am now in my third year of Year 2. When I’m not at

school I enjoy baking, walking my dog, gardening and

babysitting my many nieces and nephews!

I feel very privileged to work at Tidcombe and recently

joined the Governing Team, I am thoroughly enjoying

my new role!

The Term Ahead

Following last year’s feedback from parents, we will once again be putting out dates for your diary

each week in the newsletter which will be updated in each publication. We’re hoping this will help and

we totally understand how difficult it can be to juggle events with work etc. but hope this will help.

NOVEMBER

Friday 22nd PTA Winter Bonanza and Bingo

Monday 25th and Thursday 28th November Parents’ Evening (booking forms are now on classroom

doors)

Saturday 30th November Lantern Parade / Christmas Light Switch on in Tiverton

DECEMBER

Wednesday 4th Whole School Christmas Lunch (Christmas Jumpers can be worn instead of Tidcombe

sweaters)

Tuesday 10th EYFS (Nursery and Reception) Christmas Party 9am-12pm

Thursday 12th Carols and Cocoa 5.30pm, school hall —Nursery and Reception Class

Tuesday 17th Year 1, 2 and 3 Nativity. Performances at 10am and again at 5pm (school hall).

Wednesday 18th Year 1, 2 and 3 Nativity. Performance at 5pm (school hall).

Thursday 19th Year 4, 5 and 6 Christmas Service starting at 6pm (St Andrew’s Church, Tiverton).

Friday 20th LAST DAY OF TERM

BACK TO SCHOOL ON MONDAY 6TH JANUARY 2020

Keystage 1 Request

As you will see later in this newsletter, Alfie’s dad in Year 2 has kindly built us some amazing mud

kitchens!

We can’t wait to for you to see them - but we need your help with some donations:

Do you have any old pots, pans or utensils (wooden spoons, spatulas etc.) that you no longer use? If

so, we would be extremely grateful for them to be donated to enhance our exciting new role play

area.

Thank you.

Sign up sheets for Parents’ Evenings

(taking place on Monday and Thursday next

week) are now available on classroom doors.

School Councillors 2019 / 20

Introducing…..our School Councillors:

Congratulations to our new board of School Councillors,

who were all voted in by their fellow classmates! Miss

Davies is really looking forward to working with you all.

Edith, Rowan and Olive

Oscar and Abbie

Hayden, Oscar and Polly

Freddie and Lottie

Freya and Jaxon

Mikey and Mia

This morning, we received two mind

blowingly amazing new play kitchens

from the Farmer Family.

Alfie’s dad, Dean has worked really

hard to build us two fab kitchens which

you will find in the Early Years play

area and under the canopy by Year 1

and Year 2 classrooms. The kitchens

will be loved and played with for many

years to come and we cannot thank

Dean enough for donating them to our

school.

As you can see, the children

were thrilled to bits when

they saw them this morning

and Alfie is particularly proud

of his (camera shy and vey

humble) daddy!

Special thanks also, to Abbie’s

grandad in Year 5 who came

and helped Dean with this

creation!

Empowering our Parents

For many of our parents, it may

have been a while since you have

had time to stop and think

about...you!

We have been contacted by this

amazing charity which can offer

advice and support to enable you

to take the first steps in going

back to work or changing career.

We have some leaflets in the

office as well, should you need

more information.

Facebook

As you know, we tend to use Facebook for messages, sharing special

videos or photos of your children (with permission) and generally as

another way of communicating.

However, we must remind you that although it is a super tool for

last minute notices to parents and for sharing links to our website,

we DO NOT use this platform as a means of communication.

We will shortly be building a new “business” page on Facebook

which will allow us to publish messages, photos, videos etc. but will

not (if I do it correctly) allow replies or private messages. We will let

you know via our newsletter and current Facebook page, when this

is live.

Please, please only contact us via telephone, email or face to face, as

we don’t have the capacity to manage replying to posts which often

come outside of normal school hours.

Thank you - Kate Southcott.

Parking

We had a very concerned parent in the

office this week, regarding the parking out-

side of school. It appears that cars have

been parking on the double yellow lines

which causes a hazard to pedestrians as it

will reduce visibility to oncoming traffic.

We do appreciate that when the school was

built, we didn’t have as many cars on the

roads but we would like to remind you that

the safety of our children is of our utmost

priority, so please consider when factoring

in pick up time, it may mean parking further

away from our school gates.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Rim Rockers—Roof Lifters!!

Our fantastic Year 4 Class amazed their audience of parents,

carers, grandparents and fellow pupils on Wednesday with a

special debut performance from their group, which they

named “The Rim Rockers!”

Thank you to everyone for your support and to Mandy and

Tom from Tiverton High School for coming in each week to

teach the children this super instrument!

Reception We have had a real focus on reading this week in Reception.

All the children have taken their first school reading books

home and we are already having great reports from parents,

about how well they are getting on.

Miss Loughnane and Miss Atherton are so proud of how the

children are progressing with their phonics and applying their

knowledge to their reading and writing.

We have also been thinking about why we read and write.

Please ask the Reception children for some of the reasons

they came up with?

Don’t forget this amazing event, taking place TONIGHT!

Year 6 Isabelle and Millie N

Year 5 Louis B and Harriet

Year 4 Sam and Jovie

Year 3 Freya and Taylor

Year 2 Isla and Molly

Year 1 James and Odin

Reception Ileana and Oliver

Nursery Mr Farmer, Ollie and Louis

Marvellous Marnie

Marnie in Reception has a very proud family after

receiving ALL of these trophies and medals at a recent

presentation event. Marnie is part of a local major-

ettes troupe and she has been competing throughout

the year with them. Well done!

Nursey Disco

The afternoons have certainly been quite dark outside this week, but

our Nursery children didn’t mind at all...it meant that the lights in

their new “disco dancefloor” area could shine more brightly!

They’ve all been having a great time dancing and singing along to

their Disney CD—we’ve been, “Letting It Go” all week!