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Dear Families,
This letter has several subject matters and I hope you will read through to the end to catch up on them all!
Firstly, thank you to all those who attended our Easter service at church on Wednesday. It was a real pleasure to see so many of you there supporting your children and the school. For me personally, I feel as if a milestone has been hit. Finally, after nearly a whole year (I cannot believe that I have been in post for a year!) I was able to welcome you in person to share in school’s celebrations. The children read and sang beautifully and it was a proud moment for me, I am sure it was for all of you too; I look forward to sharing more of these over the coming years.
Secondly, you should know that I tried to get out of writing this whole letter by suggesting another suitable headmaster could do it for me – sadly he declined! He has, however, written a piece for the newsletter which you can read later. Needless to say, I would like to express my pride in the School Council (and thanks to Miss Barnett) in the work they undertake (particularly demonstrating their community awareness) and the challenges they came up with to raise money for the Red Cross and Ukraine.
I’m stopping counting now – I did warn you there was a few things - but next to highlight has been the welcome return of school trips. Every class has been on one (even if Reception’s was to our local church as part of their RE topic it still counts as a trip I think!). Class 2 explored Warwick as part of their topic the Great Fires of London and Warwick, Class 3 visited the botanical gardens in Birmingham and learnt about the usefulness of rainforest plants and handled some strange and wonderful creatures and Class 4 went to the records office in Warwick as part of their Crime and Punishment topic. I am a firm believer in extending learning outside of the classroom to inspire curiosity, help embed learning and leave lasting memories of school days. This learning outside the classroom does not always involve a coach and many lessons (if not all) can be conducted outside a traditional classroom and I am looking forward to developing this as a school.
This week saw the launch of the Reading Challenge by FOSS, commencing with the Rooftop Adventure’s den parked on our field. Thank you to them for supporting this initiative, I know the children enjoyed having a look inside the tent on top of the Land Rover! Keeping on the FOSS theme, we have the Disco tonight – long awaited and missed by many I am sure!
Yesterday and today, we have welcomed into school a special art project to commemorate the Queen’s platinum jubilee. Every child in school has made a clay tile which will adorn the front of the village hall as part of a whole community art project. We have been very pleased to work with Hilary, Andy, Robin and Melissa to get these completed. I am sure the children will proudly point out which are theirs when the installation is complete.
This half term’s character strength has focussed on curiosity and we were pleased to be able to award the special yellow badges to seven children who have demonstrated this strength: Freddie (Reception), Millie (Year 1), Lottie (Year 2), Isla (Year 3), Josh W (Year 4), Darnell (Year 5) and Max (Year 6).
Over the Easter holidays we have two building projects being carried out at school: the refurbishment of the rotten decking, fencing and benches in our pond area and the repair and replacement of the ceiling in the dining hall (the source of the leak was finally identified and corrected). Both projects have been long awaited so it is exciting that the time has come to complete them.
I think that just leaves me to wish you all a very pleasant Easter holiday whatever you may be doing. Oh no, wait! There is one more thing…
Today we say good bye to Mr Berry (aka Wayne) who returns to his previous occupation as a pilot. I would like to wish Mr Berry all the very best as he learns to fly a different plane and takes back to the skies. It has been a pleasure to work with him and he will be very missed by the staff here for his professionalism, his competence, his support and his humour. I know his friendly face and his ability to solve problems and answer questions will be missed by all the families too. Thank you Mr Berry for stepping into the job for 6 months but staying 18! I am sure we will still see you around picking up Ben when you can and hopefully calling out the Bingo numbers. Thank you and bon chance!
I wonder how many of you stayed with me to the end?
Best wishes,
Rowena Silk
Brace yourselves this is going to be totes emosh…
I’m still slightly in a state of disbelief that today is my last day in the office. I want to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support of the past 18 months and for your well wishes this week – it has been a HUGE privilege to work with your children! They are, universally, wonderful and I going to miss their smiles, their laughter and their chats more than I can express.
I also want to thank and pay tribute to my colleagues. They have made me feel so welcome and to say it has been an honour to work with them is an understatement. To witness the dedication and care that they give to the children, particularly through such an extraordinary couple of years has been inspirational. I am going to miss them a lot too.
Its been a very busy month at school and what follows is an unapologetically photo heavy celebration of what a fantastic school we have!
Enjoy your Easter break and I’ll see you in the playground next term.
All the best!
Mr Berry (aka Wayne)
As you know our amazing School Council have been raising money to aid the Red Cross and their efforts to bring help to Ukrainian refugees.
Thursday 31st March saw the Councillors completing their sponsored events. Ben made an outstanding acting Head of School (although I did receive a reprimand for failing in my duty to bring him a drink at break time!); Joel "The Silent Banana" managed to get through a whole day with a single utterance; Tommy & Noah made it through a full day tied together (including Forest School) without injury; and Forbes and Willow managed to walk and run in excess of 15,000 steps - an incredible effort!
We have been blown away by both the determination of the children to help out those in dire need and by the incredibly generous donations from you, your friends and familes. We are so pleased to announce that the grand total raised was a mind-blowing £1580!!!!! We even made the Stratford Herald!
A message from the Acting Head of School
"Thank you for all the donations we received. I enjoyed my job as Head Teacher and I am glad everyone else in the School Council enjoyed thier jobs for the day. I think it is wonderful we have raised such a large amount of money for such an amazing cause. Thank you to all th eteachers who helped School Council do something like this."
Mr Benjamin Tyler
On Wednesday 30th of March we had a visit from Alf Rajkowski who has set up Ambulance Aid. He is one of the drivers driving to Poland in an ambulance full of medical supplies to help people in the Ukraine. He had heard about what School Council were doing to raise money and he said he would love to come to our school and tell us his story. All the children had the opportunity to look inside the ambulance and leave messages of solidarity to the people of the Ukraine. We would like to wish him and the other people involved in the charity the best of luck on their journey.
It was wonderful to see so many of you at the Church on Wednesday as we celebrated our Easter Service - we hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did! (Any one else still whistling "Lord of The Dance" or "I'm a Real Spring Chicken"?)
Here are some photos of our first gathering since the start of the pandemic...
And we had to share with you this photo of Riley (Class 2), resplendant in his Easter Bonnet!
FOSS have orgainsed a sponsored read over the Easter Holidays, in the lead up to that and to inspire the children in the reading adventure, Rooftop Adventures kindly lent us a Landrover and rooftop tent - it was so cool!
Class_1_and_2_Reading_Challange_FOSS.pdf
For the last two days we have been very lucky to have had artists Robin Wade and Melissa Keskinkilinc (assisted Hilary Schmidt-Hansen and Andy Brettell) from the Snitterfield Jubilee Art Project in school. The children have all made ceramic tiles which will be part of an installation on the Village Hall to mark the Queen's Jubilee later this summer. All families are invited to make their own tile at the Village Hall tomorrow!
Class Three had an amazing adventure at Birmingham Botanical Gardens last month - check it out!
Class Four were rewarded for all their hard work this term with an Easter Egg hunt today...
This term saw a number of small FOSS events including a lovely mothers day breakfast at the village pub. Thankyou to The Snitterfield Arms for hosting us, and for everyone that came along for a delicious breakfast.
We have just launched a sponsored read for the Easter Holidays. Rooftop adventures provided us with a ‘den’ for one of the challenges on Tuesday & the children enjoyed having stories in the cosy set up. If your family is intrigued about a unique camping experience, their defender and rooftent is loaded with everything you need to start an adventure of your own. Please check them out www.rooftopadventures.co.uk or look them up on Facebook and Instagram. Quote SCHTEN for a 10% discount off hire.
All the children will have been sent home with details of the sponsored read – please do get involved, there are some lovely challenges to take part in.
To mark the end of our Easter holiday sponsored read we will be holding a 2nd hand book sale in school in the first week of May. If you are thinking of have a clear out over the holidays please bear this in mind! All childrens books welcome up to yr 6 level.
We’ll be sorting them out into appropriate age groups for the sale so if you know the age they are appropriate for please put them in a labelled bag - it’ll make our lives easier!
The last day of term will see the return of the legendary school disco. DJ Kev will be on the decks. KS1 17:00 – 18:00, KS2 18:15 – 19:15. Please make sure your children come with their water bottles. £2 suggested donation.