Events
Decorate an Easter Egg Competition 2017
Year 5 & 6 rapping & break dancing at our Singing Square
Making Mothers Day Cards
Red Nose Day Activities
Reception and KS1 Preparing for Their Class Assembly to Parents
We’re Going On a Bear Hunt
Christmas Events
Thank you to Rev Sue for leading our Christingle Service in church and for attending the Nativity and KS2 Carol Service, leading us in prayer. On Tuesday 13th December Pastor Chris Crocker and his team came and put on a puppet show for the children – “Christmas Photograph”. The children thoroughly enjoyed the show that was funny but with a clear message of the real meaning of Christmas. Well done to all the children on wonderful performances in the KS1 Nativity and Singing Square.
The Saga of the Bell
If you have a tendency to look up you may have noticed the bell is missing from the school belfry. Don’t fret, all is in hand! Over the past months St Andrew’s governors have been actively pursuing restoring the school’s belfry. More than a means to preserve the school’s heritage, the belfry will be integrated into school life by Mrs. Green. The bell has not been operational for about 25 years. A local resident remembers ringing it when she first attended St. Andrew’s but then it never rang again. We set out to explore this mystery believing the bell rope may simply have been tossed above the suspended ceiling in the hall so children were not tempted to ring it! As we explored it became evident no rope existed and so a new one had to be run from the belfry into the hall (what fun that was!). With the rope fitted and securely fastened in the hall above the reach of children came the moment we had waited for. We rang the bell but instead of a lovely “ding dong” came a dull “dunk dunk.” The bell was cracked! That was why it had been decommissioned. To cut a long story short we had to find a replacement bell. A new bell from the foundry was prohibitive in cost and welding the old bell not much better. Recently we found a used bell that will very shortly be mounted to a completely refurbished bell housing. The old bell will come to grace a wall inside the school.
“Stay tuned” for the finale of the bell saga when the bell will ring once more! If you are able, any donations toward the cost of this project will be gratefully received by bucket collection at the Nativity and KS2 Carol concert.
St Andrew’s Governing Board
Remembrance Day service 2016
Poppy wreath laid by eldest and youngest pupils, Lucas & John
Britishness Day
Easter
Well done to all the children that decorated eggs this week – here is a small selection
Sports Relief
What a super effort by all children last week during St Andrew’s sponsored walk/run in aid of raising funds for Sports Relief. On what was a grey, damp cold day saw the children full of enthusiasm and challenging themselves to complete as many laps as they could.
Thank you to all of you that have returned your sponsorship money. If you have not yet returned it, please do so as soon as possible in term 5. We will then be able to let you know how much we raised and can then send it off to Sports Relief. Thank you!
We have had a very exciting week celebrating National Book Week!
The infants have really enjoyed writing their own books inspired by the story ‘The Magic Finger’ by Roald Dahl. After listening to extracts from the story the children then planned and wrote their own versions. They have created their own characters, plots and even created their own book covers and blurb for the back! Even our youngest children have become authors this week with Reception writing their own Magic Finger stories too. Ask your child about it! Also in the infants we have entered the national “Design a Book Token” Competition, created book reviews and written character descriptions. Each day we have continued listening to the Roald Dahl story ‘The BFG’.
The juniors have also been celebrating the world of books by creating their own book reviews, making book marks and writing their own Myths and Legends stories.
The staff all brought in a favourite book from their childhood. The children enjoyed trying to guess which book belonged to which adult! We are continuing to promote a love of reading with the children and our Reading Sea is growing again this term. More children are reading every night at home and earning scales for their class fish.
Thank you to everybody who donated books to our second hand book sale. I am pleased to announce that we made £44, which will go towards new books for our class book corners.
A big thank you to the parents who volunteered to come into school to read a favourite book to a group of children. They really enjoyed hearing you read to them.
Finally, well done on a super effort with your book day costumes, they really brought world book week to life!
St David’s Day
We celebrated St David’s Day on March 1st by dressing up in traditional welsh costume
The Reading Sea Update
Well done to everybody for a brilliant effort with our Reading Sea. So many children are now reading every night at home to an adult, earning lots of scales for our class fish. It has been good to see children reading from the 100 booklist too – please ensure you write in the reading diary every time you read one of these books including the title & author of the book so it can be added to the golden book!
Last terms scores were as follows:
Reception 26 scales
Year1/ 2 39 scales
Year 3 /4 36 scales
Year 5/6 36 scales
The staff 5 scales!! (could do better!!)
We have spoken with the children and each class has set a new target for term 4-based upon the length of books we are reading & how many scales that deserves.
Our targets for this term are as follows-
R-40 scales
1/2 50
3/4 50 scales
5/6 150 scales (reflecting the length of books children are reading)
Keep up the good work and reading every night!
Chinese Dragon
It’s Chinese New Year on 8th February. The infants made their own Chinese dragon this week
Singing & French Horn concerts
What a busy musical day the children in Key Stage 2 had on Tuesday! It was great to have so many parents attend both concerts. The children fully demonstrated what a talented group of children they are; with wonderful singing & French Horn playing.
The Reading Sea
We have introduced an exciting new reading initiative to all the children-The Reading Sea. Our ‘Reading Sea’ aims to encourage all children to read regularly at home, and to earn points in the form of fish scales for their class, each class will set themselves a termly target.
As a school we are part of a South Gloucestershire reading initiative called Time4Reading. Our aim this year is to be awarded the Bronze award for our commitment to reading across the school. Reading or being read to, every day is so important in a child’s literacy development. Children who read regularly at home not only develop a love of books into adulthood, but also develop their imagination and language which helps them with their writing. We are very proud of our reading here at St Andrews, but we are always striving to achieve more for our children. We would therefore welcome your support with The Reading Sea.
Each phase across the school (Rec, Yr1/ 2, Yr3/ 4 & Yr 5/ 6) has a fish on our Reading Sea display in the hall. There is also one for staff! Every time a child finishes a book at home they will earn a scale for their fish. Teachers will monitor this in school. We ask that you encourage your child/children to read as often as possible at home, (ideally every night) and to keep a record of their reading in their reading diary-older children can do this themselves.
The Time4Reading award encourages children to select books from the list of ‘The Top 100 Children’s Books’. I have attached the list to this letter, the books are organised into recommended reading ages, but this is flexible. We are not restricting reading to those books, but would encourage the children to choose books from that list, alongside the school reading scheme and other books. For our younger readers it is absolutely fine if an adult has read one of the 100 books to them, this would still earn a fishy scale!
Christmas Lunch & Christingle Service
House Names
Well done to all those children who spent time and made the effort to think of appropriate names for our “Houses”.
The following children were presented with a £5 book token for their winning entries:
William, George, Matthew, Bethany & Martha.
The house names are: Bibstone, Heathend, Townwell & Talbots End
Each house also has a tree (Oak, Mulberry, Walnut & Chestnut) as its emblem and is represented by a Church colour (red, green, white, yellow).
St Andrew’s Day
Report by Robyn & Bethany
On Monday the whole school came into the Hall & each class did something about St Andrew’s day. We did a story about Andrew & his life. Year 1 & 2 did some writing about Scotland. Year 5 & 6 acted out Andrew’s life and Reception made some Scottish flags.
Harvest
Many thanks to those parents who attended our Harvest Festival yesterday. It was good to hear the children sing hymns celebrating the joys of harvest & listen to the children in KS2 explain their thoughts about the meaning of harvest through poetry. Also well done to the Reception & KS1 children who produced a basket of fruit using the technique of collage. Thank you to those parents that sent in a donation – these will be gratefully received by the Julian Trust in Bristol & Thornbury Food Bank.
Tea at the Lake
What a wonderful place to spend Sunday afternoon. Many thanks to the PTFA and Tortworth for all their hard work.
