1 Sep 2008 - September Newsletter
Dear Parent(s)
Newsletter – September 2008
Firstly I hope you have all enjoyed a lovely Summer. May I welcome the children joining the school this term and also their parents. I hope it is the start of a long and effective partnership. One slight change for this year is that I have altered the ‘going home’ time for Years Reception, One and Two. Reception will now finish at 3.05 pm with Years One and Two finishing at 3.10 pm. All the classes will be taken to the side gate rather than across the car park. To compensate for the earlier finishing time Years One and Two will now finish for lunch at 12.05 pm rather than at 12 pm. Hopefully this will ease the problems at the end of the day. However, I will monitor the situation and make further changes if necessary. On the matter of ‘end of school’ issues, I have been asked by the residents of 20
During the summer break the toilets have been refurbished. This has been long overdue and will no doubt come as a great relief to all of us!!. We also have new playground markings. There are still a few projects to be completed this term including the creation of a new PE storage area and a new hard area. In addition, following the Ofsted recommendation, we shall be looking at the issue of some form of cover for the Reception Class play area.
I would like to welcome to the staff, Mrs Brown (Year 1) and Miss McCabe (Year 3), Mrs A. George (bursar) and Mrs C. George (cover for Year 5 am and Year 2 pm).
Last year was a successful year in many ways. On the sporting front I need to tell you at the Awards Ceremony for the Buckinghamshire Family of Schools, Whitchurch won four of the seven categories, Individual Achiever (Rebecca Rodnight), Playground Leader (Amber Hinton), Team Achievement (Boy’s Cross Country Award) and Staff Member (Karen Hunt). In other areas the school met and surpassed our targets for KS1/KS2 SATs, we were second at District Athletics (by 3 points), we strengthened our links with MK Dons FC and London Wasps RFC and put on two excellent musical productions. In addition the School Association enjoyed another very successful year. I would like to take this opportunity to formally thank the School Association for their outstanding support for the school. It really is most appreciated. 2008/09 will see us again trying to focus on specific objectives, namely to continue to work towards achieving the Healthy Schools’ Standard, to enbed our enhanced sports provision, to emphasise healthy eating/lifestyles, to complete our revision of the PSCHE scheme of work, to complete our review of the playtime/lunchtime arrangements, to look at the installation of a cover over the play area, to enbed our new programme for monitoring standards, to ensure data analyses inform practice, to develop the role of the School Council, to review the role of the Governing Body, to develop opportunities for children to be more involved within the community, to develop year six children’s’ ability to self-assess further introducing self-assessment strategies to other year groups and to continue to develop all children’s awareness of environmental issues. Just one or two objectives for the year!! We are committed to ensuring that we continue to do all the things we do well but to also look at further improvements we can make. However we are also committed to not taking our eye off what we consider to be the core functions of the school, i.e. teaching and learning.
Class teachers will be issuing their termly letters in due course and I’m sure that, yet again, you will see that the children will be presented with many excellent learning opportunities.
We today received a cheque for £200 from Waitrose. We were nominated as one of three ‘worthy’ causes by Waitrose in Buckingham. Apparently when you shopped there you received a token which you deposited in the box of the cause you wanted to support and as a result we received a share of £1,000. Thank you to everyone who decided we were the ‘worthy cause’ they wanted to support, it is very much appreciated.
In response to a parental request, I thought I would list the names of the School Governors. I would also add that various school information is display in the school entrance, including year dates.
GOVERNORS
Mr Anthony - Chairman / LEA
Mr Thomas - Community
Mrs Davis - LEA
Miss Albrighton - Teacher Governor
Mrs Fulton - Staff Governor
Mr Calderbank - Community
Mr Wright - Parent Governor
Ms Beer - Community
Mr Rose - LEA
Mrs Brown - Parent Governor
Dr. Elphinstone - Community
Reverend Mansell - Parent Governor
Mrs Steele - Parent Governor
Mr Dee-Crowne - Parent Governor
Mrs Moody - Parent Governor
We would like to remind you that tracksuits are available to order from the school office for Years 5 and 6 and green crew neck sweatshirts for other year groups. (Sweatshirts for PE/ Games only, not school wear). The tracksuits are £16 and the sweatshirts are £6. If you would like to place an order please can you come into the school office before next Friday to let us know the size required and to pay for your order. Any orders received after Friday will be held until we have sufficient orders to send off again, which may be some time, so it is best to order next week.
Dates for the Term
2nd – 8th October - 11+ Tests
9th October - Year 5 to
23rd October - School Photographer
10th November - Parent Consultations (5 pm - 7.30 pm)
13th November - Parent Consultations (6 pm - 8.30 pm)
28th November - ‘Drumming Day’
9th December - Nativity 2 pm
10th-11th December - Nativity 7 pm
16th December - Yr 3 / Yr 4 Parties
17th December - Recp / Yr 1, 2, 5 & 6 Parties
18th December - Carols in the Hall 6 pm – 7 pm
19th December - Term Ends
5th January 2009 - Staff Training Day
6th January 2009 - New Term Starts
Yours sincerely,
S. Blore
Head Teacher