Another
week and yet another term have today drawn to a close amidst a wonderful
community celebration. The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee was celebrated today with
our very own street party. It was wonderful to see so many of you join in with
the celebration! You should have received your celebratory plant pot, designed
and decorated by your child to commemorate this momentous event – and we hope
you like it! My grateful thanks to the wonderful ‘Jubilee Committee’ who worked
hard to create a very special, memorable day for everyone.
Diamond Jubilee Concert at
the Leeds Town Hall
On
Wednesday, 25 of our pupils ably led by Mrs Thorpe took part in a unique
performance before a huge crowd at Leeds Town Hall. Our pupils worked hard to
learn a vast range of songs which they sang with heart, soul and talent amongst
an enormous massed choir drawn from schools all over Leeds. The concert was
attended by the Lord Mayor and the Lord Lieutenant of Leeds, was led by Dougie
Scarfe and was the brain child of Dame Fanny Waterman, a 92 year old musician
who has dedicated her entire life to inspiring in children the love of music
that has clearly given her a lifetime of joy. This, she told us, was inspired
by her own performance at Leeds Town Hall, aged 8. Our commitment to music
tuition and offering our pupils the opportunity to take part in musical
performances of this calibre is underpinned by our own desire to spark lifelong
passions and interests... Who knows? What happened on Wednesday may, indeed,
lead on to an 85 year career in music for one of our little starlets! Leeds Book Awards 2012
Last week, six budding authors and enthusiastic readers attended the Leeds Book Awards at the Carriageworks theatre and had a fantastic time meeting some ‘real-life’ authors. Holly Pemberton; Chelsea Fowler; Rachel Williams; Jade Casey; Leon Miller and Safia Al-Janabil formed a book group back in February and over the last few months have read six books which they’ve spent lunch breaks discussing. They then voted on their favourite book and attended the ceremony to find out which author had won the coveted Leeds Book Award Prize. This year, the children also gave a presentation about one of the books. They really did Cookridge Primary School proud as they performed monologues as characters from the book Moon Pie and received some thoroughly deserved fantastic feedback from members of the audience. Look out for them in years to come as we are sure they are going to achieve great things!
‘Mi casa es tu casa’, ‘My room and your room
This
year sees the third and final year of our global partnership with our Mexican
school in Txcala and one of our final projects is to explore the theme of
‘imports’ and where items in our homes come from. As part of this, children have been sent home
with a questionnaire to complete over the holidays. We need as much data as
possible so that the children can do some follow-up ICT and maths work after
the holidays. The work we do will be
shared with our Mexican partners so your help would be much appreciated.
Friends of Cookridge
I
am currently finalising the plans for the playground, where we plan to make
some changes over the summer. The PTA have been busy this year raising funds to
support our plans in this area – and the children have identified play pieces
ranging from £2000 – 14,000!! Please do show your support for school by coming
along to the Summer Fayre – undoubtedly the biggest Friends event of the year –
on Saturday 30th June. All monies raised will be donated to the playground
project this year AND you will have a great time, too!
Sports News
What a wash out! After three glorious weeks of sun, the rain arrived and washed out both the Ubunye Cup and the Year 5/6 Cricket Competition yesterday. The Ubunye Cup will be re-arranged for after the half-term holiday and the cricket competition has a new date- Thursday 14th June. Last week, local MP Greg Mulholland visited us to launch our use of a kwik cricket set, donated by ASDA. You can see us here on Greg’s blog! http://gregmulholland.org/en/article/2012/589007/mulholland-presents-asda-kwik-cricket-sets-to-primary-schools
Staffing Changes
The
summer term in schools always marks a time of change staffing wise, and
Cookridge is no exception. This summer we will be bidding farewell to Mrs
Thorpe and Mrs Willets, both of whom have served the community well for many
years and both of whom will be missed by us all. Mrs Willets will take early
retirement, and we wish her all the best for what are bound to be the best
years of her life! Mrs Willets’ leadership of our Friends PTA group is of
particular note for she has played a key role in this important aspect of
school and has coordinated countless discos, Christmas and Summer Fayres,
bringing much joy to and raising thousands of pounds on behalf of our school
community over the years. In her years
at Cookridge, Mrs Thorpe has created something simply wonderful. Our children
regularly perform as part of a band, an orchestra or a choir. The rich musical experience
in our school is Mrs Thorpe’s legacy, and it is as a result of her talent and
dedication that we have something very special to continue to develop in the
years to come. We will be drawing upon the expertise of Artforms to enable us
to build on the high quality music provision in school but undoubtedly Mrs
Thorpe will be missed by adults and children alike. Mrs Thorpe will be moving
on to Oulton Primary and I am glad for them that they will soon discover the
joy of music that Mrs Thorpe brings.
In
recent weeks, we have made the necessary appointments to join our team at
Cookridge. Miss Streams will join us in September and will work in partnership
with Mrs Speak, taking joint responsibility for Year 2 next year. We are also
delighted to welcome back Mr Maldonado to our Year 5/6 team next year. Mr
Maldonado is an experienced colleague who is currently teaching in Bramley. Both
Miss Streams and Mr Maldonado are very excited about their new roles and I very
much look forward to welcoming them in September.
Class Organisation 2012-13
There
will be some change to class organisation next year which takes account of our
increasing pupil numbers and one and a half form entry profile. As we take 45
pupils into Reception each year, this necessitates mixed classes throughout the
rest of school. Next year (and in subsequent years) we will have a class
structure which continues our tradition of having one Reception base led by two
class teachers. Next year, Reception will make use of our ‘Funtime’ room as well
as their class base and I am confident this decision will improve even further
upon our great Reception provision. Into Key Stage 1, we will have three
classes – a pure Year 1 class, a mixed Year 1 and 2 class and a Year 2 class.
Lower Key Stage 2 will incorporate three mixed Year 3/4 classes, and Upper Key Stage
2 three mixed Year 5/6 classes. All class allocations will be made on age.Soon after half term, I will share with you your child’s class teacher next year. There will be an opportunity for your child to meet their class teacher during a transition morning on Monday 2nd July and this will be followed with an opportunity for YOU to meet your child’s class teacher for the coming year in a parent meeting at 3.15 that same day. Please make every effort to come to the meeting on that day, as we hope to share some useful housekeeping information with you for the year ahead but are also looking forward to meeting as many of you as possible and giving you chance to ask any questions you might have.
Attendance
Our attendance this week was 96.5% and is again above our Local Authority attendance target of 95% this year. This term has been our best yet – we have consistently maintained our position above our target across the term and have increased our overall position to 95.5% and –during the past two weeks – both Class 9 and Class 5 have managed to achieve 100% attendance. Please keep up this brilliant picture across the Summer term.. I’m no mathematician, but I still believe that if we sustain a high percentage across the last 6 weeks of the school year, our 2011/12 figure will be even higher that the current 95.5%! A copy of the updated attendance policy can be found here http://www.cookridgeprimaryschool.org.uk/parents/policies.php .
Have a wonderful LONG Jubilee weekend, a super holiday next week and we will see you all on the 11th June!
Mrs
Bailey
