Dear Parents/Carers,
This week in school has seen a frenzy of activity
in the school library.. With a visit from the school library service to help
our efforts, we have determined which of our current library stock is of good
quality, and which needs to go sadly as they are too old to provide up to date
information for our young researchers! With that mammoth task completed on
Tuesday, we then set about a 2 day labelling frenzy getting all our remaining
and new books organised into story categories. The finished product is rather
stunning, and we look forward to opening the doors to our library soon so that
you can see for yourselves just how worthwhile this work has been. Enormous
thanks to all the staff, parents and – of course – Miss Fowler for their
efforts in creating an incredible independent learning space! Keep the library
name suggestions coming in – we really need an incredible name to get the
library established at the heart of our school!
Tim Hutton – singer/songwriter
Thursday morning began with a real sense of fun in school, as we were
joined by singer songwriter Tim Hutton. Tim is a musician with over 40 years
experience who has written over 200 songs – including some for the Prodigy! He
was in school working with a group of higher attaining Cookridge pupils
alongside children from Iveson Primary and Meanwood Primary School
To be or
not to be?
Yes, that's right, Shakespeare is back at Cookridge
and this time in the form of A Midsummer Night's Dream. But this time, it's
even bigger and better than ever before and is going to be performed at the West
Yorkshire Playhouse on Friday 19th Octbober at 7pm. Tickets are
available from the West Yorkshire Playhouse box office and we would absolutely
love it if the audience could be filled with as many Cookridge supporters as
possible. There will be four schools on the night, including us, who will
perform a 30 minute abridged version of a Shakespeare play. This has been a
Year 5/6 project since the beginning of term with some children as actors and
others preparing marketing materials and props. The children have been working
extremely hard and it should be a wonderful night and a once in a lifetime
experience for them. It would be fantastic if you could join us!!
Millisa Morgan – chorister!
I am proud to celebrate the achievements of one of
our Y4 pupils this week. Last Friday, Millisa joined a choir of over 800 people
in Liverpool in an attempt to smash a Beatles
Guinness World Record. Millisa was very proud to be selected and keen to tell
us all about it on her return! No doubt she sung her heart out last week, just
as she does for us every time there is an opportunity to sing! Congratulations
Millisa – we are SOOO proud of you! Let’s hope Millisa joins our newly
established school choir, who will debut their talents around Christmas time...
Parent Governors Elections
It is with regret that I inform you that the recent
election for the positions of Parent Governors has had to be declared VOID.
Unfortunately, it transpires that staff in school who work more than 500 hours
a year cannot stand for the post of Parent Governor, and that fact actually
renders Mrs Colefax and Mrs Gibbs unable to stand. To ensure a satisfactory
conclusion to the election process, we are today circulating fresh ballot
papers and would ask parents and carers to re-cast your vote, choosing your
preferred candidates from a field of three. Enormous thanks to Mrs Colefax and
Mrs Gibbs for their offer... and perhaps there will be a place for them on the
Governing Body as staff representatives sometime soon! Apologies to parents for
the inconvenience of having to vote again – please make sure that you do!
Parent Survey
My thanks to parents who took the time to complete
this year’s parent survey. I am grateful for the good level of response, and
also very thankful for the overwhelmingly good feedback you provided. You did,
of course, give some pointers on things we can do better... In the past year,
parental voice really has shaped some of the key directions we have taken so
please KEEP TALKING!! The summary of the parent survey is attached for your
information, and I hope that you notice our work in strengthening those aspects
of school you have identified for improvement in the coming year. A parent
version of the school action plan for 2012-13 will be available on the school
website soon, and will focus some of the areas of improvement suggested by you,
and where homework is concerned I think a parent group steering party might be
an effective way of developing a consistent approach to homework across school
that works for pupils, parents and school... Let me know if you would be
interested in participating.
Garden News
A big thank
you to Fearne Johnson (Leo's mum) and Sarah O'Driscoll (Willow
On the
morning of Tuesday 23rd October, Mrs Hawkins will be taking a small group of
children out to plant bulbs in the community. In recent years, we have planted
daffodil bulbs on Otley Old Road and on Hillcrest Rise, opposite the school. We
are still confirming the location for this year (it won't be too far!) but we
will be starting from 09.30 and finish around 11.30. If you would like to join
in and help the children make the local area look stunning in spring, please
contact Mrs Hawkins.
Friends of Cookridge – P.T.A.
We had our first Friends meeting of the year on
Tuesday. Although the meeting welcomed two new members, sadly the future of the
Friends group is dependent upon YOUR support. The group are small in number, if
fine in form (!) and without new members joining in the fun, we are unlikely to
achieve our goals this year and may even find ourselves without a PTA group at
all, which would be a sad day indeed. We are looking to appoint a new Chair of
the PTA, and are also in need of a new treasurer... If you are able to lend
your support to this great cause, please come along to the next meeting @
6.30pm on Thursday 15th November.
The first PTA fundraising event of the year will be
a non-uniform day on the final day of term, Thursday 25th October. Children can wear their choice of
their own clothes and bring £1 to donate to school. Friends will also be
offering the first school disco of
the year on Thursday 25th October, from 3.05-4.00 for Reception and
KS1 children, and 4.00-5.00 for KS2 children, who for £1 will enjoy a DJ,
drinks and a snack. More information is coming soon, but pencil that date in
your diary...
Attendance
Cookie our attendance bear continues to enjoy a
rich and varied lifestyle! He is a ‘good time’ bear, and the children all know
that when Cookie comes to class, he expects a good week – be it extra
playtimes, perhaps the odd party (or two!), extra sports, games, activities and
FUN! He also gets to go home with one of his hosts every evening, and he has a
whale of a time... He’s been bowling, bike riding and to the park, out for
meals, to meet grandparents – this bear is treated like royalty wherever he
goes! Of course, we all know that Cookie only comes to the class with the
highest attendance overall that week. So far this year our attendance has been
really rather good, and this week..
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National Minimum ‘Good’ Expectation
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95%
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Target
2012-13
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96%
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Attendance this week
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96.8%
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Year to date
|
96.3%
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Class attendance figures for this week are:-
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Rec
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Class 1
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Class 2
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Class 3
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Class 4
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Class 5
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Class 6
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Class 7
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Class 8
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Class 9
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|||||||
|
A 89.6%
B 97.7%
|
93.5%
|
96.7%
|
98.7%
|
97.9%
|
98.2%
|
95.9%
|
100%
|
97.6%
|
97.4%
|
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Don’t forget – Coffee Morning next Wednesday @ 9am
for anyone who fancies joining us in Funtime for coffee, biscuits and a chat...
Have a great weekend,
Mrs Bailey
