Dear Parents/Carers,
A busy week in school as we approach the Christmas holidays... Our Christmas tree has arrived and taken pride of place in the school hall, which has given a whole new ambience to school lunchtimes! The children – and adults – had great fun decorating the tree and have plenty of time to enjoy it in the next few weeks! We hope that you will join us for a festive singalong on the final day of term. ‘Carols around the tree’ will take place from 2.30pm on Friday 16th December, and we hope that it will be standing room only. We are also rehearsing in earnest for what promise to be fantastic school performances – I genuinely cannot wait to see the finished products and look forward to seeing you there. These are wonderful times in any primary school and we are certainly no exception!
On Monday 5th December from 1.30pm, parents are invited to join their children in Class 1 to work together on a range of Christmas Crafts. This is a wonderful opportunity for parents to come into school, meet your child’s friends and teaching team and see just what it’s like in Class 1! On top of all that.. you just might make one or two decorations for your own homes! We hope to see you there. Please come into school via the main Reception.
As we go into the winter months, the gardening team are very busy preparing the land for Spring and gathering the last of the year’s crops. Mrs Hawkins and the team have many ideas for further developments in the area and would be grateful if you could donate any old guttering, flagstones, sand/ready mix cement and weed suppressant fabric. She is also very keen to hear from any green fingered members of the Community who may be able to give up a few hours of their time to work on the allotment in the New Year. We are very keen to ensure our young children continue to enjoy the pleasure of gardening alongside real members of our community. Please give us a ring if this might be for you – or a grandparent near you!
Good news – we were finally able to pack the shopping of ASDA shoppers on Saturday and had a great day chatting with the local community... Many of you saw us there! A huge thank you to Friends for organising this event, to Mrs Arnott for managing the day for us and to all our children who were able to give up a few hours of their Saturday to support our school. Staff were also very generous – I have never seen so many teachers simultaneously packing bags and must say a huge thank you to them all. The great news is we were able to raise £550 through 4 hours work. We will be saving funds raised by our Friends of Cookridge PTA this year towards a significant play piece for the playground. We will begin talking to the children about what this might be in the New Year, and aim to have it installed over the summer. Many smaller items have already been purchased for the playground - including our very popular scooters! – and are already significantly improving the quality of our lunchtime play. Our next big Friends event is the Christmas Bazaar – more details to follow shortly.
Over the summer, PC’s were installed in every classroom throughout school. These machines added to our laptops in school to give us a very comprehensive level of ICT. During this term, we have begun exploring a few other devices and have invested in a small number of DSi’s and Ipads, cameras and voice recording equipment. We have begun developing the school website to complement our work in class and my blog has been joined this week by our first class blog for Class 1 (http://cookridgeclassone.blogspot.com/) created by the very talented Miss Golia – I am certain others will be available soon. Miss Cowles leads ICT in school with great passion and enthusiasm and we can be certain that we are on the brink of some very exciting developments in ICT at Cookridge and we are very excited about it!
Ireland Wood Church Fayre at St Paul’s Church
Between 11-1 this Saturday, St Pauls Cubs, Rainbows and Brownies will be running stalls at this popular annual event. Please support them by popping in..
Between 10am-4pm this Saturday, you are welcome to get the festive season underway with a bang by coming along to this spectacular Fayre. Hand-made crafts and gifts, festive table linen, winter bulbs and wreaths, home-made preserves and farm produce are all on offer alongside refreshments and the chance to see Santa...
That’s Saturday taken care of... !
Football Club has now stopped due to the short nights and inclement weather. It will resume in late Feb/early March and a letter will be sent out nearer the time.
In order to assure a ‘satisfactory’ outcome in line with the 2009 Ofsted Framework for Inspections, an overall attendance figure of 94% is satisfactory. Our attendance figures continue to be a concern to us, and this week has seen us sadly drop below this benchmark to achieve an inadequate figure for the week. This is as a result of 146 sessions of illness absence and 18 sessions of unauthorised holiday absence. I am sure that you are beginning to appreciate how easy it is to fall into this category. Can I ask for your continued support in ensuring that your child is in school every day unless there is an absolute need for them to be at home. Thank you.
Whole school attendance Thursday 17th November - Wednesday 23rd November: 92.4%
Friday 9th December Reception & Class 1 Christmas Concert ‘We Three Kings’ – 2pm
Monday 12th December Friends Christmas Bazaar - 3.05pm to 5pm
Tuesday 13th December Year 4, 5 & 6 Christmas Concert – 2pm and 7pm
Wednesday 14th December Year 2 & 3 Christmas Concert – 2pm
Thursday 15th December Christmas parties – pm
Wednesday 7th December Christmas Toy Giving Assembly – 9am
Friday 16th December Christmas Carols around the tree – 2.30pm
School closes for Christmas holiday
Tuesday 3rd January School reopens after Christmas holiday
Have a great weekend.
Mrs Bailey
