Useful Diary Dates

13th February Year 6 Visit to Chester Zoo

17th February Staff Training Day (School Closed)

20th-24th February Half term – School closed.

27th February School reopens.

1st March Share the Learning 9.00-9.30am

13th-19th March Travelling Book Fair in school.

20th-24th March Maths Themed Week

27th March Y4 ‘Wider Opportunities Concert’ 10:15 → 10:30

22nd / 28th & 30th March Parents Evening (Details to follow).

3rd-14th April Easter Holidays (School Closed).

17th April Easter Monday (School Closed).

18th April School reopens.

1st May May Bank Holiday (School Closed)

8th-12th May Year 6 SAT’s Week

8th-10th May Year 5 Residential Marle Hall

10th-12th May Year 4 Residential Marle Hall

Christleton Primary School Quarry Lane Christleton Chester CH3 7AY

01244 981189

www.christletonprimaryschool.co.uk head@christletonprimary.cheshire.sch.uk

@christletonpri

Friday 10th February 2017

Spring Term Newsletter : Three

Dear Parents / Carers

World Book Day

To mark World Book Day and encourage a ‘love of reading’ (Possibly to have a little fun too!) We are asking the children to dress up as a character from Where's Wally on Thursday 2nd March. On this day the teachers have planned a range of enjoyable and engaging activities based around reading and the Where’s Wally series. We are also in the process of constructing a Where’s Wally lunch menu for that day (further details to follow!) We are sure it will be an unforgettable experience!!

School communications

Please be aware that the school has two numbers that may appear when we try to contact you over the phone. The numbers are as follows 08451480060 and 01244401188. You are not able to return a call to the 0845 number as it has come through the council’s phone system. We have had occasions when parents have not answered their phone as it has displayed 0845…. (assuming it was a sales call etc.) With this in mind it may be worth adding these numbers to your contacts so you know that it is the school trying to contact you.

Twitter

Thank you to all of you who have embraced the new Twitter feed. We now have over 150 followers which is fantastic. We hope that you find the information and updates useful. If you do not have Twitter on your phone or tablet the feed can be viewed through the home page of the school website www.christletonprimaryschool.co.uk

Young Voices

Last night 43 children took part in the Young Voices concert. The behaviour and participation of all the children was fantastic and they were a credit to the school, their parents and themselves. All of their hard work and dedication paid off, and as part of a choir of

over 8000 children, they sounded incredible!

Share the Learning

The children and staff would like to invite you into school on Wednesday 1st March between 9.00am and 9.30am to share their learning with you.

Fortnightly Attendance

Regular attendance has a huge impact on a child’s education. As a school we are working hard to ensure that our attendance is as high as possible and appreciate your support with this. For an outstanding school we would look to achieve at least 97%. The figures below show the percentages for each class over the last two weeks.

Well done to the children in year 3 with the highest percentage attendance of 97.8%.

Difference from last

fortnights figure

1st Place Year 3 97.8%

2nd Place Year 4 97.4%

3rd Place Year 1 96.9%

4th Place Reception 96.7%

5th Place Year 5 95.3%

6th Place Year 2 95%

7th Place Year 6 94.6%

School average 96.3%

Parents Evenings

We will be holding our parents’ evenings on Wednesday 22nd, Tuesday 28th and Thursday 30th of March. Each evening will be held between 4.00pm-7.00pm. Further information and details will be provided the first week after the holidays (Week ending March 3rd).

E-Safety

We are aware of several children in school who are using an app called Musical.ly. This is a video social network app which allows video creation, messaging and live broadcasting. While this app has many exciting uses we would like to highlight the importance of ensuring that the privacy settings are set at an appropriate level and the videos are filtered to remove those with inappropriate content and lyrics.

On the 7th and 8th February we celebrated ‘Safer Internet Day’. During these days the children learnt about the importance of being safe online. As part of this the digital leaders are leading an assembly next Thursday. To further enhance the children’s understanding of this, after the half term the school will be working on several projects to increase the children’s and awareness of cybercrime, and internet safety.

Travelling Book Fair

The school will be holding a Travelling book Fair between the 13th – 19th March. Further details will be provided nearer the time.

Residential Dates for your diary

Dates of the residential visits for this year are shown below.

Year Group Dates Location

Year Five 8th – 10th May 2017 Marle Hall (Llandudno)

Year Four 10th -12th May 2017 Marle Hall (Llandudno)

Year Three 7th & 8th June 2017 Beeston Residential Centre

Year Six 21st – 23rd June 2017 Conwy Centre

Further information will be provided closer to the time by the class teachers.

Sports News

Chester School Sports Partnership Indoor Athletics

This event took place at Ellesmere Port Sports Village on the 2nd

February. We entered a team of 20 Year 5 & 6 children who took part in a range of running, jumping and throwing events. Whilst we won some of our events, out of the 19 schools that took part we came 11th overall. As always the children who attended represented the school brilliantly demonstrating excellent sportsmanship and effort. Well done to: Isabel B, Phoebe, Lola, Bethany, Alice C, Rosie, Elsie, Holly, Daisy, Natalie, Aidan, Jack, Mathew, Tom M, Carter, Toby, Niall, Lewis, Harry and James C.

Netball League

We played our first league match at home against Farndon on Friday 3rd. Despite the wet and miserable conditions the team worked brilliantly together in attack and defence meaning that we won 7-0, a really positive start! Well done to Charlotte, Toby, Christina, Bethany, Phoebe, Isabelle H, Lola, Sally and Molly.

Football

Year five and Six

The year five and six football team played fantastically well in a close game against Guilden Sutton which included late penalty drama. The game eventually finished Christleton 1:2 Guilden Sutton. Well done to all those who competed. Well done to Lewis, Toby, Tom, Thomas, Harry, Aiden, Matthew, Noah, Junior, Aaron, Jack and Niall.

Year three and four

The year three and four football team took part in a 5 aside tournament at the King’s School yesterday. They played fantastically well and came second in their group, narrowly missing out on the semi-finals. Well done to Jack B, Jack R, Bailey, Harry, Lewis and Tom.

WCAC Inter-schools Cross-country Series

The third race in the series takes place this Saturday morning with the first race at 10am, it is open to all KS2 children, registration begins at 9.30am. More details can be found at http://www.westcheshireac.co.uk/races/off-road/ Mrs Williams will be there to support but please remember that children who attend remain the responsibility of the parent who brings them.

Sports Kits

Do you know anyone or work for a company who may consider sponsoring a school sports kit? We are currently investigating the cost of purchasing new sports kits for our school teams. To make this more affordable we would like to consider the possibility of companies or individuals sponsoring the kit. If you know of anyone or work for a company that may be interested please could you let us know.

Co-opted Governor Positions

Thank you to all of those people who have expressed an interest in the co-opted governor positions. All of those who have expressed an interest will be contacted by the Chair of governors Emma Binns in due course.

ParentPay

As mentioned in the previous newsletter the school is in the process of purchasing ParentPay. This system has now been purchased and staff are to be trained in its use after the half term. We anticipate that the system will be ‘live’ after the Easter break. Hopefully you will find this a useful development, as it will allow you to pay for dinners, trips, residential visits etc. over the internet, in the comfort of your own home. We will of course provide further information closer to the launch.

Information Evening Survey.

Thank you to all of those who took part in the Twitter survey regarding further information evenings that you would find useful. ‘Spelling and Grammar’ received the highest number of votes and will be something that we look to provide in the near future. Thank you for taking the time to provide your input!

Story Teller visit (Richard O’Neill)

On the 31st of January the Key Stage 2 children were visited by the story teller Richard O’Neill. The children enjoyed a range of stories and tips for developing and improving their writing in imaginative ways. The children worked fantastically and had opportunity to share their writing at the end of the day.

Image Theatre

On Tuesday 7th the Image theatre came to school to perform the ‘Selfish Giant’. Many of the classes have been working on texts this term which involved giants or imaginary lands so this production fitted in nicely to the work taking place in school. The production was very interactive and many children also had acting parts. From conversations had with staff and children it was a very enjoyable experience.

Sickness and diarrhoea

While there is no specific cure for stomach bugs such as the ‘Norovirus’ there are several steps which can be taken to reduce the spread and treat symptoms. In school we teach the children the importance of good hygiene including ‘effective’ handwashing. Please can you support the school to reduce the risk of children contracting the virus by ensuring:

Children are kept off school for at least 48 hours following the last occurrence of any sickness and/or diarrhoea. This allows the virus to run its course.

Encourage your children to wash their hands frequently and thoroughly.

Cheshire Youth Orchestra Open Day

Edsential Musical Routes music education hub are holding a special open rehearsals day with the Cheshire Youth Orchestra and Youth Choir on Saturday 11th February 2017 (this Saturday) for musicians who may wish to join an ensemble. The open day is from 10am to 1pm at Hartford College Campus Chester Rd, Northwich, Cheshire CW8 1LH.

PTA Events

A reminder that the ‘Debenhams Whistlestop Fundraising Evening’ is being held on Thursday 2nd March between 6:00-8:00pm. If you would like your child to attend with you there is also a child’s package which can be purchased. Please see the attached flyer for more information.

Irlens Syndrome Petition

Within school we currently have a child who has Irlens Syndrome. Irlen Syndrome is a perceptual processing disorder. It is a problem with the brain’s ability to process visual information. This syndrome can affect many different areas, including: academic and work performance, behaviour, attention and concentration. This problem is not remediable and is often a lifetime barrier to learning and performance. Currently the condition is not recognized by the NHS and the school has been asked to support a petition for this to be the case. Testing for the syndrome and a pair of Irlen / Colourimetry / cerium lenses costs in the region of £300-£400 pounds and several sets of lenses may be needed over the year. If you would like to support this petition then please follow the link before sign the petition by the 28th March.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/178508

Pizza Idol

Is your child a culinary genus? Do they have flair in the kitchen? Well… the Ring O’Bells annual ‘Pizza Idol 2017’ competition is here! All your child has to do is design their own pizza using their favourite pizza toppings. The winning design will be included on the Ring O’Bells spring / summer menu 2017. An entry form is attached to this letter if you are interested.

Bronze Award Winners.

Congratulations to

Last week’s winners (03.02.17)

Georgia B, Isaac, Riley, Harry, Lucas, Oliver K, Dexter, Bela, Austin, Arun, Sophia, Oliver P, Oliver T, Joshua , Holly, Alice, Isaac, Phyllbie, Rory, Evie and Summer.

This week’s winners (10.02.17)

Emily P, Benjamin F and Mia C

Kind Regards

Oliver Mitchell (Headteacher)