Dear Parents, Pupils, Staff and Governors,
#AppleFEST2
#AppleFest2 will take place on the evening of Friday 21st July. The evening will start at 5:30pm. Randall Parker has kindly offered the use of their car park for the evening and I would urge you to use this option if possible to keep congestion on the hill to a minimum. The PTA will be organising refreshments and to help with catering we need a good idea of numbers. We have created an Eventbrite site (link provided in the newsletter that was emailed out) where you can find further information about the event and let us know how many from you family will be attending. Please visit the site enter how many people will be coming. You can do this on behalf of all those attending – for example, if there is mum, dad, two grandparents and three children then enter the number 7 in the drop down menu. Please be aware that this is an event for families for pupils at Appleshaw; grandparents etc. are very welcome but we are not opening the event up to the wider community. Registration also asks you about camping.
Sports Day
I’m very sorry that I had to cancel this week’s Sports Day but the morning forecast predicted further rain during the day, which duly arrived at regular intervals through the day rendering the site unsuitable for athletics. The new date is Thursday 13th July (weather permitting!).
The Three Little Pigs
Key Stage 2 (Maple and Oak Classes) will be performing Roald Dahl’s Three Little Pigs musical at #appleFEST. I’d really appreciate some help with costumes. The children are organised into three groups which for simplicity I have kept to the three house teams. Discovery (blue house) is Group 1, Spartan (red house) is Group 2 and Empire (green house) is Group 3.
Children in Group 1 need to wear clothes that a farmer might wear – welly boots, old jeans etc. would be perfect. Group 2 needs to wear sporty clothes – any sort of sportswear would be fine, Group 3 needs to wear the smart clothes of a business person – shirt, tie, smart dress etc. would be perfect. We could also do with two ‘wolfskin’ coats and a ‘pigskin’ bag – please let me know if you can help.
Could children make sure that their costumes are in school by the 20th July please? I have one or two additional costumes required for individual children but I will let those know in a separate note.
Annual Reports
Your child’s annual report will be coming home next Friday, 7th July. It contains an update about progress and achievement in maths and English, personal and social development and an overview of learning in other subjects. It will also include results from statutory assessments for pupils in years R, 1, 2 and 6 and attendance reports for all. Teachers will be available from 3:30-5:30 on Monday 17th and Tuesday 18th should you wish to make an appointment to discuss the contents of the report.
Talent Show
The School Council are busy organising a talent show for the pupils, the final of which we will hold on the last Friday of term. This is just a school event but I thought you’d like to know because I’m sure many will be discussing it at home!
Leavers’ Assembly
There will be a special service at Appleshaw Church starting at 2:30pm on the last day of term (25th July) to say goodbye to our Year 6 pupils and others who are leaving to pastures new in September. All are welcome, but we especially invite parents of pupils in Year 6 and other leavers.
Because this service is taking place at the end of the day we would like the children to be collected from Church. If it is possible for you to walk to Church to collect your child then please do; parking is limited. Even parking at the village hall and walking from there would be a great help. If you would like to walk down to church from school then please let us know – additional help would be much appreciated. We will be leaving at 1:45pm.
New Parents
It was great to meet our new pupils and parents on Tuesday; the children had a super time with the Year R/1 team. The PTA have arranged two ‘meet and greet’ sessions for September, primarily to help welcome new parents to the school. These will take place on September 15th (after morning drop-off in the school hall) and on September 22nd after school in the Yurt/playground (which is where we will dismiss the children from on this day). All are welcome to either/both events.
Classes for September
In my last newsletter I informed you of the class organisation for September. We have now finalised support staffing, which looks thus:
Willow Class (YR/1) – Mrs Ridley (Miss Burton), Mrs Lock (mornings), Mrs Plank (afternoons)
Beech Class (Y2) – Mrs Preece, Mrs Boulton (mornings), Mrs Henrys (mornings)
Maple Class (Y3/4) – Miss Yelland, Mrs Bilbao (mornings), Mrs Godwin (mornings + 1:1/small group support afternoons)
Oak Class (Y5/6) – Mrs Dabill, Ms Britten (mornings), Mrs Plank (part mornings)
Support staff are used in many different ways, sometimes supporting groups and individuals in class, sometimes providing out of class support and specialist intervention such as speech therapy or occupational therapy and sometimes working alongside the class teacher and working with larger groups. We are lucky to have such an experienced and dedicated team.
Mrs Farley
Due to previously arranged commitments, which can’t be rearranged, Mrs Farley’s last day will be Thursday 13th July. I will teach Maple Class from 17th July until the end term (which I think amounts to 7 days – not that I’m counting!).
PTA AGM
All are welcome to attend the PTA’s Annual General Meeting. It will take place at 7:30pm on Wednesday 27th September at school. We do need a good number of people at the meeting so if you can spare an hour or so then we’d be really grateful.
Reading Evening – SAVE THE DATE
On Thursday September 14th we will be holding an information evening at school focussing on all aspects of reading. Topics covered will include early reading (including phonics), reading development, good habits for reading and there will be an opportunity to view books in school and find out more about reading schemes. The evening will run from 6pm onwards and we hope will be a useful session for all the family.
Osmington Bay Residential Trip
Years 5 and 6 will be visiting Osmington Bay, near Weymouth and Portland during the week of 18th September. This is an excellent opportunity for children to spend a week away from home experiencing a wide range of activities such as rock climbing, orienteering, raft building and so on, whilst also developing their independence and team work skills. There will be a short meeting for parents on 5:30pm on Monday 10th July to find out essential information about the trip and enable you to prepare children over the summer holiday.
Community engagement
A reminder that there will now be two non-uniform days towards the end of term: the first will be on Friday 21st July in support of the Appleshaw Village Fete, which is held on the August Bank Holiday Monday. The ‘fine’ for this will be a bottle for the bottle tombola. The second will be on Monday 24th July in aid of Guide Dogs for the Blind.
I met with Caroline Tomlinson recently who talked to me about the Historic Churches Trust and their ‘Ride and Stride’ event in September which helps to raise money to support our historic churches and chapels. We will be visiting Appleshaw Church on Friday 8th September as part of this event and raising awareness of the ride and stride event on the Saturday. You can find out more here: http://www.rideandstrideuk.org/
The PTA have started a Thrift Shop which some of you will have seen this week. If you have any unwanted but good quality items of school clothing then please donate to the school office for the PTA to sell on.
Water Bottles
We have a new stock of water bottles in school. Unfortunately, the cost of these has risen to £1.
School Money
- If you have a child in Year 6 who is leaving school please make sure that any accounts are settled before the end of term.
- If you have a child in Year 2 who will be moving up to Year 3 please remember that you will have to start paying for your school dinners from September at the cost of £2.15 per meal.
Clubs
There will be no clubs running during the week of the 17th of July or on the last two days of term. I expect that autumn clubs will resume from the week beginning 11th September.
School Dinners
We have had more issues than usual over the last few weeks with school dinners. There has been much more wasted food than we would normally expect and children have needed a great deal of encouragement to eat their dinner. It may seem obvious but please go through the menu carefully each day or at the beginning of the week to help ensure the children are happy with what they are having at lunchtime.
GSuite (Google Apps)
A reminder for Year 6 pupils: your school Google accounts will be shut down over the summer holidays. Please save any work you want to keep by downloading it to a home computer or memory stick. Most documents can be downloaded either as PDFs or as Word, PowerPoint or Excel documents.
Andover Lawn Tennis Club
Andover Lawn Tennis Club is holding a talent identification day on Saturday 8th July from 12:30pm – 3:00pm. They are looking for children with agility, balance and coordination. You do not need to have played tennis before and tennis rackets and balls will be provided. There are four age groups: 8 years and under, Age 9, Age 10 and 11-14. If you might be interested, to find out more please contact them on info@momentumtennis.co.uk.