Dear Parents/Carers,
This week 3 members of our teaching team have gone to Ireland to meet with colleagues from our partnership schools as part of our Commenius project, we have had artist Lee Threadgold back in school working with our Reception and Year 1 children, a fabulous book day and – as I am sure many of you noticed – mini police officers serving their community. A busy week by any standards...
Today’s book day was truly brilliant and the school was awash with colour, excitement and a whole lot of talking – about books! Your child will today bring home the £1 book voucher which can be used against the value of any book OR used to purchase one of the range of special £1 books produced specifically for World Book Day. Please help your child to spend this voucher and continue to ‘rave about reading’. Thank you to all parents for getting the costumes that made this event a very memorable one for our whole school community.
Friday 23rd March 2012 is Sport Relief day, a national event to raise money for good causes. To mark the event, we are having a day of sporting good fun and ask all children to come to school dressed in sportswear so that they can participate in the day’s events. All children are asked for a donation of £1.00 to support the charity and there will be an assembly on the day which makes clear what this day of fun is actually all about – supporting others around the world. As is traditional on Sports Relief day, all classes will be running the ‘Sports Relief’ mile, meaning that across the day we will collectively have run 10 miles in total!
Mrs Speak, Miss Hobson and Miss Golia are currently in Ireland. They made their way late Wednesday evening and have a return flight on Tuesday evening, ready to join us and share all their news on Wednesday morning. During the visit the team will visit schools, get to know teachers from all of our partner schools and develop their ideas for the project in school. This project is entirely funded by the EU and is part of the ongoing agenda to ensure our children have an opportunity to learn in collaboration with children all over the globe. This time around, they are even looking into the possibility of leading a trip out to Ireland in the next academic year, which is very exciting indeed! I will share any news/snaps I receive over the course of the week via the school blog http://cookridgeprimaryschool.blogspot.com/
Community Coffee Morning Tuesday 13th March 2012, 9.00am
This week’s coffee morning hosted by Mrs Riley was a great success and very well attended. My thanks to Mrs Riley for organising this and adding this aspect to our provision for parents. We very much look forward to getting the ESOL classes established and welcoming more members to our community events. The year 5/6 team bounced back from their last match against Adel with an entertaining win against Iveson. A great first half led to a 2-0 half-time lead with Dominic Purrell and Jack Appleyard scoring the goals. We saw off a spirited come back by Iveson to run out 4-2 winners with Dominic scoring a second and an own goal. Man of the match goes to captain Jack Appleyard, a solid and workman like performance in midfield ensuring we won the midfield battle. Brilliant work to all on the field!
Parent Consultations
We have allocated appointments to all parents who have returned their slips and you will receive yours by Wednesday of next week. Any parents who do not receive an appointment time should contact Mrs Hall or Mrs Hyde.Attendance
Our attendance this week was 96.0% and is again a good attendance figure which sees us exceed our Local Authority attendance target of 95% this year. Last October, when Ofsted called, our attendance stood at 94.7% after a period of some improvement. Overall this year – September to March – we are at 95.3% overall and I am pleased with that progress. However, we are still not firmly into a ‘good’ overall category (96%) and so hope we can continue to get this figure up – and optimise our children’s chance of primary school success. Last week, Class 6 won Cookie the attendance mascot.. Well done to them for their impeccable attendance. Thank you to you all for making coming to school every day a priority this year. For all willing volunteers – we need you! We are coming up to the busy time in the school allotment, and would invite any parents who are able to offer 30-45 minutes of their morning to water the beds in the garden area to get in touch with Mrs Hawkins ASAP. Your help is desperately needed to ensure a bumper crop this year – if you are able to offer even one morning a week, it will really help us grow the crops that we aspire to.
This year to celebrate Easter we are inviting all children to decorate an egg! The decorate an egg competition will be judged, and eggy prizes will be given to the most imaginative designs on display in a special assembly on Wednesday 28th March. Please encourage your child to get thinking about their design – there are LOADS of ideas if you google the subject! – and be ready to hard boil an egg or two to get them going. Completed eggs should be brought into school from Monday 26th March 2012. Eggsiting times!
As you are already aware, the Easter holiday marks the date on which we lose three very valued members of the Cookridge teaching team. Mrs Bowers, Mrs Morrison and Mr Llewellyn leave us after many years service to the community, and these are not partings we can allow to happen without due celebration of their individual and significant contribution to the school. We would like to invite any parents who wish to join us in our celebration during a special assembly on Thursday 29th March at 9am. There will also be the opportunity to join the staff members for a farewell coffee straight after the assembly. Any parents who wish to make a contribution to the leavers’ collections are welcome to do so. Please pass donations to Mrs Hall or Mrs Hyde.
Don’t forget, next Wednesday is your opportunity to join me for the first Head teacher forum. This is an opportunity for you to find out more about the areas of priority work that are currently happening in school, and are your opportunity to voice your views. Mrs Smith – our newly appointed Assistant Headteacher – will also be attending the meeting so please come along as it is vital that the school leadership team has a very clear understanding of parental views so that we can plan school developments with your views at the forefront of our minds. Parents should enter school via the school hall – gates will open at 1.55pm for the afternoon session – and you are welcome to attend with younger children in tow... The more the merrier!
And finally, a reminder to all parents that Friday 30th March is a Training Day and school is closed to pupils on this date.
Mrs Bailey
