Friday 23rd May 2014.

Dear Parents/Carers,

It has been an incredibly short but incredibly busy half term. We break up today for the half term break and upon our return will be into the final half term of the year. Time flies when you’re having fun…

 

Time to say goodbye… But not yet!

I trust that parents received the letter from Mr Sharma, Chair of Governors, yesterday which shared news that I am due to begin a Headship at a Barnsley Academy in September. I therefore begin my final half term at Cookridge after the holidays, and look forward to assisting Mrs Turner to get everything ready for a flying start in September. It has been an absolute privilege to lead Cookridge Primary during a period of significant improvement as we met the challenges that Ofsted outlined for us in 2011 across a two year time frame, a matter recognised in their return visit in 2013. During the past three years, I have personally learned a great deal from my time at Cookridge and am very grateful for the opportunity to serve the community – my time here will bode me well in the thirty year career in Headship which stretches ahead! I have had the pleasure of working with a very talented, very dedicated staff team who have surpassed all my expectations in terms of the personal and collective achievements they have secured. Most of all – I have loved your children. The pupils of Cookridge are very, very special and each little individual who makes up our school community has made every day a wonderful roller coaster packed full of fun, laughs and the occasional surprise! What a pleasure. It’s not over yet… 7 more weeks until the final bell for the Summer holiday rings on the 22^nd July, so let’s continue where we left off after the holidays.

 

On a personal note, please allow me to congratulate Mrs Turner on her appointment to the role of Acting Head teacher. This is a very significant step for her and she has the full blessing, confidence and support of the staff team, the governing body and the pupils of Cookridge.  I wish her all the very best for the years ahead: be brilliant, Mrs T!  

 

Reception Poddely

Last Friday, 45 excited Reception children and the staff unpacked an incredible parcel having taken delivery of Poddely – a fantastic new outdoor construction kit. The kit has literally millions of possibilities and of course, the children wasted no time in finding out a few of them. Let the good times roll… !

 

 

 

Allotment update

The garden angels continue apace and I’m delighted that more and more people are getting involved. On Thursday 5^th June – the first Thursday after the holidays – we are going to have an ‘all hands on deck’ afternoon to break the back of work that needs doing so that we can get the children back up into the area, planting crops for an Autumn harvest. If you can lend a hand between 1-3pm – just come along…

 

Breeze Cards

Mrs Brosnan would like to draw your attention to Breeze Cards – a card available to all Leeds residents. All under 19's are eligible for a free Breeze Card which can get you discount at leisure centres and lots more. It’s a great one to have ready for the Summer holidays and applications can be downloaded from https://files.breezeleeds.org/filestore/Breeze_Application_Form_2012.pdf​ and handed in to Holt Park Leisure Centre. Let us know if you would like help finding/completing the form – it’s worth it!

 

Sports News

Y5/6 Football- The Y5/6 team have been extremely busy over the past week. They played Holy Trinity last Friday and won the game 2-1 with goals from Nathan Brown and Almo Alfaify, who scored his first ever goal for the school team in two years! This result ensured the team stay top of the group phase AND continued their unbeaten run in the league to an impressive 6 games.

 

Y6 Kwik Cricket- On Wednesday, 9 of our Year 6 children took part in a cricket competition held at Horsforth CC. Despite some fine individual performaces, we didn't manage to qualify for the Leeds finals. However, there were some exceptional bowling from Matthew Hampshire and some fine batting by Ben Walker. A special mention must go to captain Matty Caines who took the most wickets for us with his fast paced bowling and hit THREE sixes onto the road when batting, scoring 21 runs in just one over! An incredible achievement.

 

School Fantasy Football- The end of the Premiership season a couple of weeks ago also signalled the end to an enthralling second season of school fantasy football. Special mentions must go to Matty Caines and Russel Turner (Mackenzie and Edie's dad) for being the highest placed pupil and parent respectively. The league was won by Mr Lucas who amassed a whopping 1413 points over the season. So, we've now had a pupil winner, a staff winner.....pressure is on the parents next year!

 

Y6 Golf- Professional golfer Paul O'Donnell came in this week to lead a 'taster' session for the year 6 children in the art of golf. He is based at Cookridge Golf Course and runs coaching and junior training. The children involved have taken home a letter this week with more information on how to sign up for his sessions and any child wishing to sign up can find more information on the Cookridge Hall Golf Club website at www.cookridgehall.co.uk/golf_main

 

Attendance

A staggering 98% attendance across school last week has led to yet another rise in our year-to-date figure. This is an unbelievable position for us – you’re all amazing… Class 6 have got the top spot for this week with a near perfect 99.7% - well done to them and well done to you all for some cracking attendance all year: what superstars.

National Minimum ‘Good’ Expectation		Target 2013-2014		Attendance this week   15/05/2014  -21/05/2014				Year to date   04/09/2013 – 21/05/2014
95%		96%		98.0%				96.2%
Class attendance figures for the W/E  08/05/2014
Rec A Rec B	Class 1	Class 2	Class 3		Class 4	Class 5	Class 6		Class 7	Class 8	Class 9
99.2% 95%	96.5%	98.3%	98.6%		99%	97%	99.7 %		99.%	98 %	98.4%

 

 

Have a wonderful half term holiday and we will see you all on Monday 2^nd June. June!  

Mrs Bailey

Statement about changes to Leadership.

Dear Parents/Carers,

 

I am pleased to inform you that Mrs Bailey has been successful in securing a new post as a Head Teacher of an Academy school in Barnsley. This means that Mrs Bailey will leave our school at the end of the summer term to take up her new role, commencing September 2014. We are sorry to lose Mrs Bailey but are delighted that she has such an exciting opportunity ahead of her. I am sure that you will join me in congratulating Mrs Bailey on her success in securing this appointment, and wish her all the very best for the future.

 

Cookridge Primary School has seen a great pace of change during the last three years culminating in our 'Good school' status recognised by Ofsted in 2013. This was under the leadership of Mrs Bailey, who has championed the professional growth of our staff team and the progress and attainment of all of our children during her time with us. Our school is a strong school and it inspires children to achieve fantastic things by realising their potential, academically and personally. Thank you Mrs Bailey for all you have done for us. You helped us to grow and be proud again. 

 

In line with our school ethos, our children enjoy a rich education system which enables them to “make a difference”, every day. This is what Cookridge Primary School is especially about. We therefore will continue our mission to make a difference unabated, and will continue to drive forward the exciting plans for the future of the school in the coming years.

 

Mrs Turner has kindly agreed to take on the role of Acting Head Teacher until further notice and I am very thankful to Mrs Turner for taking on this commitment. I am sure I speak for all of us when I say the whole school is united behind you. 

 

These are indeed changing times and all of us must proudly continue to do our very best as ambassadors for Cookridge Primary School in the community.

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

Vijay Sharma

Chair of Governors on behalf of the Governing Body of Cookridge Primary School. 

Email: CookridgePrimarygovernors@gmail.com

Friday 15th May 2014.

Dear Parents/Carers,

Phew! It has been a supersonic week filled with the adrenalin and excitement that inevitably arrives in school with the daily opening of KS2 test materials. The Y6 pupils must be commended for their brilliant maturity, personal achievement and the high level of resilience they demonstrated during a week of tests which are designed to test their very metal. Sometimes challenging, I was delighted to laugh with the children after the tests about the tricky bits, the easy bits and the things that took us by surprise. What a tip-top, cracking, blooming beautiful and frankly fantastic bunch of Y6 kids we have! Well done to them, and well done to the staff team who have prepared them so well for this week. It is down to the daily endeavours of Mr Maldonado, Mr Kerr, Mr Gamble, Mrs Turner, Mrs Strahand, Mrs Horsley, Mrs Harrisson, Miss Hester, Mr Deegan and Mr Green that our children have tackled the week with a desire to do their best, a brilliant attitude to live your life by that I hope they take with them, wherever they go…

 

Our wonderful choir…

The children and Opal ladies of the fabulous Cookridge Primary Intergenerational Choir put on a wonderful performance in the hall on Tuesday afternoon! Singing a vast range of music from across the ages, from Vera Lynn to the Beatles right up to Gary Barlow! It is quite extraordinary to marvel at how these children have developed over the time they have been rehearsing together and are truly a wonderful, confident group of beautiful singers! Many thanks to everyone who came along to support the children, it was lovely to see so many of you there supporting them. If you would like to look at photos taken of the event you can view them on the choir blog either by going through the main website or on this link: http://cookridgeintergenerationalchoir.blogspot.co.uk/"​

 

Reception delivery…

Yesterday, Reception received an exciting and mysterious package. The staff didn’t reveal the contents until today and enjoyed a great day with the kids guessing what might be within. The reality hit them today with a grand unveiling – a fantastic large building kit, designed to get the children thinking and working together to build all sorts of BIG models, outdoors. There’s a whole lot of fun on that there trolley – what a super summer term ahead the Reception pupils have lined up!

 

Allotment update

I enjoyed a walk around the allotment this week with the lovely Mrs Holmes, Mrs Denton and Mr Frampton-Tripp. It was a bit of an education for me as this self-formed team know their onions! Admiring the herb garden, they were able to smell and identify the name of every herb gathered there – and there were a few. Keen to join in, I snapped off a ‘herb’ and inhaled deeply – only to be told it was common old garden grass I was clutching! Oh dear – I have a lot to learn… Mrs Denton introduced some tadpoles to the pond and the team have uncovered the strawberry plants, the raspberry bushes and today harvested the rhubarb with some very willing children. We’ll keep you posted. If you want to get involved – give us a shout. I honestly think it’s going to be good fun up there…

 

We have also uncovered a large wellington boot mountain up in the shed. Many apologies – for these must belong to you. We will bring the wellies around into the main playground after school at some point next week – please re-claim your wellies if they’re there and you’ve been looking for them!

 

Cookridge Challenge Night

Disappointingly, we haven’t sold a single ticket for the Challenge Night. It seems you’re not overly interested in competing in an event like this? We’ll take that as good feedback and put our heads back together for the next family event we plan. The Challenge Night is therefore cancelled next week, and the next event is the final event of the year - the Summer Fair, believe it or not!

 

Sports News

A team of Year 4/5 children represented our school in the annual Jim Childs trophy held at Leeds Trinity on Tuesday night. In some appalling weather conditions at times, we managed to play some good football. Despite not making it through the group phase, there is a solid foundation of a great team there which promises a great deal in the future. Special mentions must go to Connor Fenton, Jamie Rice and Arjan Afshari for their outstanding play on the night and to ALL the parents who braved the torrential downpours to support and cheer the team on! Thank you!

 

Twenty pupils from LKS2 competed at the Ralph Thoresby Kwik Cricket Tournament this Thursday. The competition was held for local primary schools. We are proud to announce that Cookridge A team were the unbeaten winners! The team was led by Captain Sam Appleyard who showed not only great batting & fielding skills but also great leadership on and off the pitch. Rebecca Caines and Joshua Lawrence were particularly impressive in bat scoring 6's and 4's in their innings. Well done to the rest of the team; Connor Fenton, Nicholas Darby, Rebecca Harrison, Nasser Al-Juraysi, Chloe Smith, Zak Moxon & Jamie Rice who all played major parts in what was an impressive team performance. Cookridge B team came 4th in the competition and showed great progress as the games went on. Shania Colefax and Sara- Al Salman worked well together in bat with neither losing points in their innings throughtout the entire tournament! Thanks to Mrs Wood who came back to school on her day off to enable our kids to participate in this great event, and to the parents who came along to support the children.

 

Attendance

Goodness me – attendance actually continues to rise! What a truly phenomenal year we are having – you are amazing. Congratulations to Class 6 with their near perfect attendance this week – 99.4% is a triumph!

 

National Minimum ‘Good’ Expectation				Target 2013-2014		Attendance this week 08/05/2014  -14/05/2014				Year to date 04/09/2013 – 14/05/2014
95%				96%		96.4%				96.1%
Class attendance figures for the W/E  08/05/2014
Rec A	Rec B	Class 1	Class 2		Class 3		Class 4	Class 5	Class 6		Class 7	Class 8	Class 9
98.0%	92%	94.2%	93.3%		98.2%		96.6%	97.2%	99.4 %		97.%	95.5 %	99.2%

 

Leeds Midnight Walk

Some of the staff including Mrs Fletcher, Mrs McHugh, Mrs Arnott and a few of their family members will be taking part in the Leeds Midnight Walk in aid of St.Gemma`s Hospice this Saturday May 17th. St Gemma’s is a hospice which relies heavily on charitable donations. The ladies are busy collecting sponsorship at the moment and would be grateful for any donations you could offer either in person or by using this Just Giving Page at this link: https://www.justgiving.com/cookridgeprimary . ​By donating, you will be helping local people who require the vital care that St Gemma’s Hospice provides. Good luck, ladies!

 

Have a wonderful weekend,

Mrs Bailey

Friday 9th May 2014

Dear Parents/Carers,

This week, Y3/4 have enjoyed their visits into Leeds to visit the museum. It’s been a hectic week with 3 days of trips in a 4 day week but well worth it when you hear the children talk about the joy of a school trip – something none of us are too old to remember! Thanks to the Y3/4 staff team who organised the visit during their hols, and who are always a little bit more tired on a trip day than a school day. Spare a thought, then, for some of our lovely people who willingly went along on all three days… Zzzzzzzzz!

 

Cookridge has Talent

Following my appeal regarding the school allotment last week, I have been contacted by four parents offering their talents. Enormous thanks to Mrs Holmes (who got busy right away, harvesting the rhubarb) and to Mr Frampton Tripp and Mrs Bantock who have both offered their help and eagerness to share their ideas. I am also grateful to Mr Philpott who also let us know about the work that Groundwork do in Leeds communities, an organisation I will be contacting next week. This is exactly how, together, we make a difference to our children’s school experience: sharing ideas, things we know, things we can do and things we just simply fancy getting involved with. More of that! If you want to join the crew – let us know. Many hands make light work…..

 

Friends

An exciting Friends update for you, too. You may recall that our current balance in raised funds is around £8,000. We have therefore planned a spend and this summer expect to add to our fixed playground equipment with another installation. This week, Mrs Turner and I met with Playforce to discuss our plans and we are awaiting the final drawings as I type. I’m hopeful that they will be with us next week and we will display them in the school playground so that you can see for yourself what your support of Friends events has achieved.

 

Cookridge Challenge Night

Don’t forget – the next Friends event is just around the corner: competing in teams to complete quizzes, golf challenges, giant skittles and Wii interactive challenges, amongst other things.  There will be prizes for both the winning and losing teams.

 

Event: Challenge Night!

Where? The school hall.

When? Wednesday 21^st May 2014, 6.30-8.00

Refreshments? Of course!

Why? Why not?!

Cost? £2 per person/child.

If you would like tickets, please call in at the school office where Mrs Lucas, Mrs Lister and Miss Crabtree will be happy to help!

 

Footwear

Can I please remind children and parents that school uniform specifies black shoes or trainers. There is an increasing number of big, bright trainers and other unsuitable footwear hot-footing it into school. Please be mindful of the uniform when investing in new shoes. Thank you.

Sports News

Year 5/6 Football- The football team kept up their impressive run of form with a 6-2 victory over Ireland Wood on Tuesday. Goals from Sam Appleyard, Arjan Afshari, Mackenzie Turner and man of the match Nathan Brown (3) helped to strengthen our position on top spot in the league and kept up the fantastic record of not being beaten yet this academic year! Long may it continue!

 

Junior Cricket At The Old Mods- Last week, three coaches from local cricket club Old Modernians came into school to coach the entire Year 3/4 cohort in one afternoon! The children had an amazing time, having fun whilst learning new skills- some even showed off their new skills in the assembly talent spot the next day! If your child is interested in joining the junior cricket section at the Old Mods, please contact Mark Ripley on 07970 566139.

Attendance

It is week 30 and still we continue to hold our excellent attendance. I am ambitious that we can maintain this through to the end of the year and secure our finest ever attendance stats! This is brilliant, for the impact on each child’s learning of great attendance is proven – and from the learning I see in school every day, I’d say the proof is in the pudding at Cookridge! Congratulations to Class 4 this week who have pipped Class 9 by 0.7% - fan-tab-u-lous!

 

National Minimum ‘Good’ Expectation			Target 2013-2014			Attendance this week 01/05/2014  -07/05/2014			Year to date 04/09/2013 – 07/05/2014
95%			96%			95.3%			96.0%
Class attendance figures for the W/E  30/04/2014
Rec A	Rec B	Class 1		Class 2	Class 3		Class 4	Class 5		Class 6	Class 7	Class 8	Class 9
91.5%	93.8%	96.4%		95.8%	94.0%		98.7%	90.8%		96.4 %	97.8%	94.4 %	98.0%

Time to shine, Year 6!

Next week, Year 6 pupils right across the UK will be sitting the KS2 National Tests in Reading, Maths and Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar. The tests will take place on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday – so it’s a tough week for an 11 year old by anyone’s standards! We will ensure that all our little champions are well looked after in between tests, with a fun and active week planned. Please do your bit for your children by ensuring they get good sleep, time to relax, a good breakfast on the day and LOTS AND LOTS of love, praise, encouragement and support. The children have worked incredibly hard in preparation for the week ahead and we couldn’t be more proud of them than we already are… Good luck to each and every one of you and remember – we only want you to do your best!

Mr & Mrs Walker suggested via Twitter that we have a non-uniform Friday in celebration of all the hard work put in. Great idea – I’m up for that! Pupils (and staff!) in Y6 are therefore invited to come in their own clobber for the day – including onesies if that’s your preference (Mr M?)  There will be a celebration event of the children’s choosing on Friday and we are very much looking forward to enjoying the next 9 school weeks with our lovely 6’s before they fly the nest in July. Lots of fun between now and then, though…

A final reminder to all Y6 parents – please ring the school office immediately if your child becomes ill on any of the test days so that we can take advice from the DFE on the best way to ensure your child’s talents are appropriately recognised. Thank you.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Mrs Bailey