Newsletters

Friday 6th December

Dear Parents & Carers

We are definitely in the Christmas period with singing 'flooding' the school and the children starting to get excited about the weeks ahead. Thank you for supporting the 'Friends of School' Christmas shop this week, and we look forward to all the events coming up over the next fortnight. 

Last night we had our latest governing board meeting, and we heard all about how science is progressing in the school, as well as design & technology. We discussed all aspects of school life, from attendance through to data protection.   

We are going to be advertising for a couple of new parent governors after the Christmas break. In my time here, we've had many parents join the governing board and go on to make so many valuable contributions to the life of the school. The time required may be less than you think. If you feel like you'd like to get more involved in the school community, please consider finding out more about the role. 

We will soon be saying goodbye to Mrs Connell who starts her maternity leave when we finish in two weeks' time.  We wish her and her family all the very best for the next few wonderful weeks and months ahead. 

We look forward to many of you joining us next Tuesday and Wednesday at the church. Please remember that we are happy for pictures and videos to be taken but do not share them on social media if they contain pictures of other people's children. Thank you. 

It looks like it will be a rather wet and windy weekend. I hope it doesn't spoil any plans you have. 

Kind regards

Matt Walton, Headteacher 

December 

Mon 9th - Friends' Christmas Shop 

Tue 10th - Christmas Concert Year 3/4 (@ St Cuthbert's)

Tue 10th - Year 5/6 to Puppet Theatre (Sleeping Beauty)

Wed 11th - Year 3/4 to Puppet Theatre (Sleeping Beauty) 

Wed 11th - Christmas Concert Year 5/6 (@ St Cuthbert's)

Thur 12th - Christmas Jumper Day (non-uniform)

Tue 17th - Christmas Lunch 

Tue 17th - Musical Theatre Christmas Performance - 6pm

Thur 19th - Christmas Disco (6:30pm - 8pm)

Fri 20th - Last day of term

January 

Tue 7th - Spring term begins

Year 3/4 Ancient Greek Day 

 

Pupil Ambassador's Foodbank Christmas appeal

A huge thank you to everyone who sent in items for the Pupil Ambassador's Foodbank Christmas appeal. We were overwhelmed by the response again this year.

The Pupil Ambassadors visited the Foodbank to deliver all the goodies on Wednesday. A quick stop off to see the lovely people at Tesco Blue Boar Lane who added to our donation - thank you for your support again this year.

Next stop, the Foodbank where all the items were weighed in and sorted before the Pupil Ambassadors left. The total weight of all the donations delivered as part of the collection this year was a whopping 83kgs! That's about the same weight as a one and a half year old pig or four commuter bikes - amazing!

Click here to find out more about the amazing work the Norwich Foodbank does to help local people. There are details of how to contact them if you need support or what to do if you would like to help.

Attendance

Attendance currently sits at 93.5% which is below the national average. We 'd like to remind all parents & carers about the importance of good attendance and would like to ask for everyone's help to support an improved whole school attendance as the year progresses.  Attendance at school does have an impact on children's outcomes and it is important that children attend school every day. 

Did you know?

6 days off in the autumn term so far will mean that your child has an attendance of under 90%, which is deemed as persistently absent. 

We do encourage parents & carers to send children to school if they are only a little under the weather. The children often perk up whilst in school, and we are happy to call home if there is a need to. 

Year 5 Reading Cafe 

It was great to see so many parents/carers at the Year 5 Shackleton-inspired reading café last week. The children did a fantastic job of retelling the inspirational story of Shackleton's Antarctic adventure. Following this, there were opportunities to create gloves to withstand sub-zero (maybe not sub-zero, but it was pretty chilly) temperatures, design a paper boat to carry Lego passengers across the "Weddell Sea", freeing plastic animals that had been encapsulated in the ice that had frozen round plastic animals, complete challenges while wearing gloves - just Shackleton and his men did (including using tonges to move objects and building a jenga tower) and create a thermal insulated cup to keep hot chocolate warm.

Thanks to those that left messages in our school year book, it was great to hear that you all had a good time.

Year 5/6 Football

The Year 6 football ended the Autumn term league in style with a 6-0 over Avenue Junior School, this result secures the league title for this term! As with all the games so far this year, the boys have played both a fantastic attitude and real skill, well done boys! We are all now looking forward to our Spring term fixtures!

Also, a big thanks to all the parents for all their support both with transport and for cheering the boys on throughout the season!

Cross Country 

A huge well done and congratulations to all the children who ran in the cross-country county finals at Langley on Thursday. Every single child (Freddie, Courtney, Theo, Wayne, Jacob, Eliza and Ethan) represented our school amazingly and gave their all in their races. An extra congratulations goes to Wanye for coming in 2nd place overall and earning himself a medal. Also, thank you to parents for their support with the event!

Mini Moons sessions in school

Mini Moons were with us last week to hold taster sessions for a range of after-school clubs they are able to provide. Over the course of a day, they ran clubs covering the following:

- Yoga & Journalling

- Graphic Design

- Spanish

- Musical Theatre

- Film-making

We are seeking the views of the children and will soon be able to let you know which clubs will be running in the spring term, alongside our other club provision. 

Car park near misses

Recently there have been a number of incidents involving children and cars in the school staff car parks. Fortunately, they have not resulted in any children being hurt but we are worried that this might be the case in future.

A reminder that the car park is for staff only. Please do not use the car parks for either the junior or infant schools to drop off in the morning or collect at the end of the school day. 

If you're at a loose end, click here to find out more about what's on in Norwich this month.