Growing Ambassadors in Action

This week, our Growing Ambassadors from across the school came together to work with Farmer Wong to learn new skills for planting and caring for seeds.  They mixed some soil, planted a choice of lettuce, chard or pak choi seeds,  fertilised the soil and learnt how to care for it.  They also got to work to replant seedlings to see how to work with the next stage of the planting.  Hopefully, if all the seeds grow, we will be able to transplant all the salad to our raised planters ready for a delicious harvest.  We'll keep you updated with how they are getting on.

Parent Staff Association (PSA) Update

At our EGM just before half-term, our Co-Chairs, Chrystal Hutchinson and Michelle Scopes stepped down after a fantastic 18 month period at the helm of the PSA.  They have helped to build the PSA and have overseen many brilliant events such as movie nights, Santa's grottoes, treat sales, a summer fair and discos.  The result has been the raising of significant sums of money which have supported the school with the purchase of books, library resources, forest school materials and sports equipment for the playground.  We would like to extend our thanks to them for everything that they have achieved.  At the meeting, a new chair, Brenda Baker was elected.  The first meeting with the new committee is taking place next Friday 8th March at 9:00 in the spare Year 6 classroom - please come along if you would like to find out about future events and show your support for the new team.

World Book Day - Thursday 7th March

A reminder about our celebration of World Book Day next Thursday.  As previously mentioned, we will be doing lots of fun things to promote our love of books and reading!  Firstly, we would love all the children to come to school dressed in their pyjamas (please make sure that your child will be warm enough - Oodies, jogging bottoms, any comfy clothing will do!) ready for their bedtime story and if possible, bring along a teddy. (It might be an idea not to bring their favourite teddy, just in case!) During the day, all the children from Reception to Year 6 will be reading the same book - Our Tower by Joseph Coelho. They will then be completing a range of interesting and fun activities linked to the book in their phase groups. This work will be presented in an assembly at the end of the day and then will go on display in the school for everyone to see. Finally, the children will have a fun but puzzling time trying to match the adult in school to their baby photo and their favourite book as a child! All the staff are already excited about World Book Day and can’t wait to share their love of books with the children. 

Free music concert tickets

A few weeks ago, I shared some information about a Kingston Music Service family music concert taking place on Sunday 24th March at The Rose Theatre.   Oompah Brass, a high-octane brass quintet, will perform a one hour show designed to introduce young people to the joys of brass instruments, packing educational material alongside Oompop renditions of well known favourites. 

I am now able to let you know that there are a limited number of free tickets available for this wonderful show.   In order to access the free tickets you need to follow this link to the Rose’s website and select the desired seats (the code works on all ticket types and all seats within the auditorium). The code SCHOFF should be entered on the ‘Basket’ page ahead of Checkout: please note, the reduction in price will not show until the very last stage of the process. Click through the following pages, and the tickets will show as free just before confirmation: once confirmed, you should receive an email with the ticket information. 

There are a limited number so please don't delay if you are interested.  If the code does not work it will mean that the free tickets have all been taken - good luck.

Brite Box - Cooking Together

Please see below the details for a Brite Box project to enable families to enjoy cooking and eating a delicious recipe together.  The sessions take place at Welcare House in Kingston so if you don't have adequate cooking facilities yourself, this is the perfect opportunity for a tasty family meal together.  Please click here to book.

Parent Consultation Reminder

Thank you to the 173 of you who have now booked your parent consultation meetings for next week.  We still have a way to go to get to 100% so please make sure that you have booked your consultation or spoken to your child's class teacher to make an alternative arrangement for a meeting - it is vital that we get a chance to speak with all parents about your child's progress, development and learning.

Have a fantastic weekend, see you next week.

Ian Hutchings

Headteacher