Chalfont St. Giles Junior School

Last newsetter

With only a week to go until the two week Spring break it seems barely possible that another term has already passed. I hope everyone enjoyed the added bonus of the Easter weekend in term time and also hope that the Spring break will bring better weather than we saw over the bank holiday weekend.

STAFFING UPDATE
Parents in Year 4 will already have been aware that Miss Cato has moved back into a classteaching role of late and this will continue until the end of the school year. Her release time, to carry out some of her many SENCO duties, will be provided mostly by Mrs Holt who has now returned from her maternity leave. Mrs Scott has now left the school following her decision to resign from her post.
The additional teaching groups in Year 3 will be revived during the Summer term with the return of Mrs Young who rejoins the school on a one term contract until we make a permanent classteacher appointment for September to allow Miss Cato to return to a full time SENCO role. News of this appointment, following next week’s interviews, will feature in a Summer term newsletter.

MUSIC FESTIVAL
The joint music festival, with 7 other local schools, held at Chalfont Community College was an absolute treat. 30 children from our school contributed to combined orchestral and choral performances that led to perhaps the longest unbroken round of applause I have ever heard at a school event. The enthusiasm and quality of the performances were very much down to the hard work put in by the children and of course Mrs Whiteley and Miss Breakell who had been preparing them during the term. Plans for another, possibly bigger, event are already being formulated for Spring 2009. Well done to everyone involved, it was brilliant!

UNIFORM QUESTIONNAIRES
Thank you to everyone who sent in their responses to the change in uniform questionnaire. We have combined the results with those offered by the children and I can now inform you of the following definite decisions:
The V-neck jumper will be green (over 2/3rds support from parents, though majority of children opted for black)
YES to shirts/blouses (over 80% of parents and over 60% of children)
YES to ties (over 70% of parents and children in favour)

I will be seeking further opinions on the standardised colour of coat as, at present, although there was a majority in favour it wasn’t as clear cut as the other questions.

We will now be investigating which company will be supplying the jumper and tie (likely to be a green/black combination) and will let you know as soon as a definite arrangement has been put in place and the next steps for parents.

CLUBS
Most after school clubs have now finished for the term. There are three exceptions, Spanish Club on Monday, Tag-Rugby on Tuesday and Animation Club on Wednesday. Details of the clubs on offer for the Summer will be sent out next week to give children and parents an early opportunity to think about the options open to them.

YEAR 4 PRODUCTION
Year 4 pupils will be performing ‘Just call me the Pied Piper’ on Wednesday morning and Thursday evening to Year parents and their guests. We wish them every success for the shows and feel confident that all the hard work will pay off once the audiences are in to see the fruits of their labours.

SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT WORKING PARTY
Miss Bicker would like to thank the 3 parents who have so far offered their services towards this project and has asked me to remind parents that all offers of help, however small, will be greatly appreciated. She will be contacting those who have offered to help in the near future with details of what needs to be done. This is an exciting project, funded through the PA and this year’s sponsored walk, and we would urge parents to get behind the all the additional work being put in by the team of teachers involved that will ultimately benefit the children of the school.

PA EASTER PUZZLE HUNT / HOT DOG LUNCH
My thanks to all the hardworking members of the PA who organised and ran this new event in the school calendar in which the children worked together in teams to find 50 missing pieces of an Easter Egg puzzle around the playground areas. All the children who took part received some sweets to reward them for their efforts and the winning teams on each playground had a bonus prize for being the first to complete the egg. A reminder that any Hot Dog lunch request forms need to be handed in on Monday.

YEAR 3 SWIMMING (SUMMER TERM)
We have secured a slot at the Chiltern Pools for each of our Year 3 classes to engage in a 6 week block of lessons on Wednesday afternoons during the Summer term. A letter with the exact dates for each class will be sent home next week along with details of the contributions we will require from parents to meet the costs of instruction, use of the pool and transport.
With this now arranged all of our year groups will have been swimming during the school year, something we aim to continue throughout each new school year.

TESCO VOUCHERS
We have begun to see a slow but steady trickle of Tesco vouchers for computers come into school and would encourage all parents to remember to ask for them at the checkout and for children to remember to bring them into school. We are aiming to acquire more control equipment for use in IT and other lessons so let’s see if we can match the fantastic effort earlier in the year that enabled the school to gain 4 basketball posts and a set of basketballs.

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Previous Newsletter

Welcome back to the second half of the school year. Can it really be that time already? Once again the school has been buzzing to the sights and sounds of activity and learning and the staff and pupils will no doubt be taking a well earned rest over the weekend!

SCIENCE WEEK
Wow what a week it’s been! Science Week really has captured the imaginations of the children with challenges and experiments galore, visitors from the Science Museum, Planetariums, The Quantum Theatre Show, Microwave Magic in assembly and so much more. My thanks to Miss Blackburn for the great deal of extra work that went into organising such a fabulous week for the children and to all the staff for their enthusiasm, ideas and input in helping to make the week such a success. Thanks also to Mrs La Motte and Mrs Gilbert for their governor visits during the week, they certainly went away impressed by what they’d seen. All week the teachers have been nominating children who have really shone or made specific scientific finds and discoveries to enter a draw for two prizes of RC Cars donated by the Science Museum. The draw was made in assembly today and the winners were Edward Weedon (Y3) and Mack Tate (Y6). Our tower (made of spaghetti and marshmallows) of strength challenge was won by a Year 4 team of Elliot Smythe, Olivia Rowe, Arthur Hill, Georgia Cave-Hawkes, Issa Doha and Taylor Richardson with a tower of 53cm that supported a cream egg for the required 1 minute. We hope the week has really fired the children’s imaginations and spurred them on to take an even greater interest in Science in the future.

READING WORKSHOP
For the parents who came along this proved to be both a worthwhile and informative evening, yet despite being on the term’s events list, pieces about it in two newsletters and a specific letter about the evening itself it was very poorly attended. Mrs Whiteley spent a significant amount of time preparing the workshop and materials and she, along with Mrs Johnson and Miss Smith who assisted her on the evening, felt disappointed that so many parents missed out on the opportunity to find out more about how reading skills are developed in the school and can be reinforced at home as well as a chance to view the new reading scheme (which feedback suggests is proving very popular with children and parents alike). The school has made great strides in working with parents over the past few years and we will continue to aim to improve both communications and the working relationship with parents, responding to requests and concerns as they arise. However we do see this as a partnership and ask only that parents work in tandem with the school when teachers provide opportunities, in their own time, for parents to play a more active role in their child’s learning. My thanks go out to Mrs Whiteley and the other staff involved for putting on such an event for parents.

WORLD BOOK DAY / SPORTS RELIEF
A reminder that the theme for next Thursday is animal characters so we are looking forward to seeing the usual mix of imaginative and creative costumes to help mark this annual event in school. Teachers are preparing a mix of activities to help further raise the profile and pleasures of reading and Miss Breakell is busy co-ordinating the whole school programme for the day. There is no financial contribution to this non-uniform day but it would be great to see all the children taking part once again this year (and I will try to wear something a little less scary than the Childcatcher or Willy Wonka this year).

The following Friday (14th March) is Sports Relief day and as with two years ago the staff will be preparing activities to help raise children’s awareness of the charity and to have a bit of physically active fun on the day. There’s even rumours of a sports related X-Factor (as if we haven’t only just recovered from last year’s performances!) if the children can raise enough money to hit our target figure of £500. Contributions from all the children will be welcomed in addition to specific fund raising ideas throughout the day, some generated by the children of Year 6.

TESCO / SAINSBURYS VOUCHERS
We’ve just taken delivery of the 4 basketball posts and 16 balls we acquired through the Sports Vouchers Scheme and a huge thank you to Mr Wattam for the hours of work put in this week in constructing the posts which are now out on both of the playgrounds. This will enable children to practise their skills at break-times as well take part in curriculum based basketball activities, all thanks to those little green vouchers!
We have also just received our computers for school pack so keep an eye out in Tesco for the vouchers which will help us acquire even more exciting resources for the children to use to add to the Digiblue cameras from last year that have been in frequent use in curriculum time and used regularly by our animation club.

The Sainburys vouchers for sports equipment scheme has also just started so if that’s where you do your weekly shop then please make sure you ask for the vouchers that will help the school acquire some additional sports equipment for the children.

TRIPS AND VISITS
Both Year 3 (March 27th) and Year 5 (March 20th) will be enjoying a day at the Chiltern Open Air Museum partly funded by a generous donation from the Village Show Committee. Both parties will take part in two workshops based around their current history topics (Victorians for Y3 and World War II for Y5) which will help give them some first hand experiences to enrich their learning. Parents will be notified via a separate letter regarding the exact details of each trip.

Year 5 will also soon be departing for Norfolk (April 21st – 25th) and a meeting for parents of children going on the trip will be held at the school on Tuesday 25th March starting at 7.00pm. The meeting will introduce the parents to the activities and timetable for the week as well as covering what the children will need to bring etc. There will also be an opportunity for parents to ask questions about the trip.

CLUB UPDATE
The promised London Wasps Year 3 and 4 Tag Rugby club starts after school next Tuesday with spaces limited to 15 children. To date only 10 children have returned slips so there’s still an opportunity for any interested boys or girls to bring in their return slip on Monday to join in what has always been a popular and enjoyable club.

ACHIEVEMENTS

The winners of the weekly class certificates since the last newsletter are as follows. Well done to all of those pupils who have been chosen for their various achievements.