CE VA Primary School Autumn Term 2015-2016 Newsletter 8 7th December 2015 Dear Parents / Carers,

Recent Events  Well done to all our Year 5 pupils have now completed their bikeability training.  The children who are taught music by Mrs Boreham had the chance to show the rest of the school how much progress they have made this term by playing clarinet and piano pieces in assembly.  You may have seen the school on ‘Look East’ last Monday following the assembly visit by Ben Smith. Ben talked to the children about his world record marathon challenge and how he is raising money and awareness for the anti-bullying charity, ‘Kidscape’. We have some wrist bands on sale in the office (£1.50 each) up to the end of the week if your child would like to support Ben’s work.  Year 6 pupils learned all about Ancient Greece when they took part in a ‘Play in a day’ workshop. At the end of the afternoon the children performed to their parents and the rest of the Key Stage 2 pupils.  Congratulations to the Under 11 football team for winning the autumn term league competition. They will be presented with the Branston Shield in an assembly before the end of term. The team drew their last match 3 – 3 against West Earlham Junior School. Next term they will play against all the other teams that finished top of their respective leagues.  Year 2 pupils took part in a multi-skills event run by NSSP at Easton College.  A Year 5 / 6 team took part in the NSSP Sportshall Athletics event at UEA on Friday and finished second. Well done to all the children who took part.  Puffin Class enjoyed their recent Reading Café.  Fiona Whiting talked to a group of parents about internet safety. She will shortly be sending out some written information about keeping safe online and useful website addresses. Future date There will be a maths calculations meeting for all parents on Thursday 14th January in the school hall starting at 7 p.m. This will be led by two of our staff members, Mr Andrew and Mr Barwick, and will help you to understand how you can help your child with maths and find out about various methods of calculation being taught in schools today.

Christmas cards

We now have post boxes in place so that children can send cards to other children. It would be helpful if you could remind children to make sure they write children’s names and class names / year groups clearly on envelopes to make sure the right children receive the cards. If there are children with the same first name in a class then it is important to add the surname to avoid confusing our Year 6 postmen! Alternatively, your child might like to bring in one card for the whole class and this card will be put up on display in individual classrooms.

Art Club Winter Exhibition: 'To the Sea'

Children from Cringleford CE VA Art Club will join , Rockland St Mary and groups for a wonderful winter exhibition of artwork created this term and inspired by the theme ‘To the sea’. The children have created a lot of beautiful and inspiring work using collage, painting, drawing, weaving, felting and paper mache. The exhibition will go live on the Art Club website at 6pm on Friday 18th December and will be available to look at throughout the whole of the Christmas break. To view please visit http://www.artclubforchildren.com and click on the ‘Winter Exhibition 2015’ tab.

Well done to all the young artists taking part!

Sarah Jarrett – (art club teacher)

Reminders  The whole school site is a non-smoking one, and this includes e-cigarettes.  Car parking around the school has always been challenging. However, parents can now use the Willow Centre car park so there is no reason for anyone to be parking on the yellow zig- zag lines or immediately in front of the entrance to Juniper Close. The staff car park is for staff cars only and should not be used by parents picking up or dropping off pupils. Please also respect the disabled bays in the visitors’ car park. On more than one occasion last week cars parked in these bays, causing great inconvenience to parents and children who do need to use them.  Don’t forget, as we approach Christmas, that the school website has a link to Amazon and Easy Fundraising. Both links allow you to shop on-line, with the added bonus for the school that any purchases from these links bring in some additional funds for the school.  Thank you for the donations of sugar bags. If your child would still like to support this cause, please bring in a bag of sugar first thing on Tuesday morning as this is the collection deadline. Thank you The PTA did a wonderful job putting on this year’s Christmas Bazaar. I would like to thank all the members and volunteers who gave of their time to make sure there were lots of fun stalls and activities for pupils and parents. The PTA has supported the school so well this term with a number of key events put on – car boot sale, disco, Ceilidh etc. The PTA always makes sure the children enjoy Christmas at school by putting on a great bazaar as well as providing crackers for the Christmas lunch and Christmas class grants for each class. Mini-tennis coaching

MINI-TENNIS COACHING ON MONDAY AFTERNOONS NEXT TERM Starting on 11th January, Cringleford Tennis Club is offering two new mini-tennis coaching sessions in the School Hall on Monday afternoons. The first session (4.45 – 5.45 pm) will be for children in Reception and Y1 and the second session (5.45 – 6.45 pm) will be for children in Y2 and Y3. (There are also mini-tennis sessions on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, but these are already full.)

Coaching will focus on ball skills and team-work, balance, footwork and racket control. Rackets will be provided. The sessions will be led by Charlotte Groves, who already leads the Thursday afternoon sessions. The block of ten sessions, running from 11th January to 21st March, will cost £60 (with half-price for a second brother/sister). To reserve a place, please contact Nick Brewin for a registration form or collect from the school office: [email protected] (503770; Mob 07901 884114 www.cringlefordtennis.net )

Cringleford Lodge Cricket Club

Cringleford Lodge Cricket Club, based in Oakfields Road, has a thriving junior section and is looking for players for our U11 team. Ideally pupils will be in Years 5 or 6. We commence indoor nets in March and the season commences in May. The team will play on Sunday mornings in the South Community League. Anyone who is interested in joining or giving it a try should contact Kevin Taylor [email protected] or 07870948444, including those who have not had any experience of playing before. In addition we run two senior teams playing in Division One of the Norfolk League and on Sundays in the Mid Norfolk Sunday Cricket League. Any parent interested in playing should also contact Kevin Taylor. The indoor nets sessions start in March next year.

Kevin Taylor

Music lessons

Colin Shaw has two spaces in the New Year for drum lessons. If your child is interested in taking up drumming, please contact him on 07534 620245 or email [email protected]

After School Club It was good to meet up last week with a group of parents interested in finding out about the changes to after school club provision next term following the school’s termination of contract with School Friend. Set Your Sights will be putting in place some activity club sessions and a leaflet detailing this provision will be available from the office to all parents from Wednesday 9th December. There will be a further meeting for parents interested in finding out more about the interim provision on Tuesday 15th December at 5.30 p.m. This meeting will take place in Room 7 – the room next to the Year 4 classroom. Future Events

Date Event Year Group

Tuesday 8th December 9.30 a.m. Christmas assembly Reception classes

Wednesday 9th December Christmas service at St. Year 1 classes 9.30 a.m. Peter’s Church

Thursday 10th December 2.30 p.m Christingle assembly Year 3 classes

Friday 11th December 9.30 a.m. Christmas assembly Year 2 classes

Tuesday 15th December 9.15 a.m. Christmas assembly Years 4 - 6

Wednesday 16th December Orchestra performance Various 9.15 a.m.

Wednesday 16th December Christmas lunch Reception, Year 1 & Year 2

Thursday 17th December 9.15 a.m. Christmas musical assembly Various

Thursday 17th December Christmas lunch Years 3, 4, 5 and 6

Further details of assemblies and Christmas parties will be sent out by your child’s class teacher.

Yours sincerely N. Henery Mr Neil Henery Headteacher

‘For unto you is born this day in the

city of David a Saviour, who is Christ

the Lord.’ (Luke 2 vii)