5th February, 2016

Key Information (details below)

All children need a coat in school every day!

Sports Awards Assembly, Friday 26th February at 9am – certificates in by 24th February

Year 1 Oak Class Assembly, Friday 4th March at 9am

Dear Parents, Firstly, a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has helped to improve the flow of traffic on Glebe Road over the past few weeks. Your consideration is much appreciated by us at The Pelican and also by our neighbours, one of whom has been kind enough to send in a letter of appreciation.

Recent comings and goings at the Pelican…

Year 2 Trip to Duxford Imperial War Museum The bitter wind below straight across the runway and took the children back in time to World War II. They had great fun using the interactive activities as they

found out about life in 1939 – 1945 and the visit greatly enhanced our topic. The children showed their perfect Pelican behaviour throughout the day and worked well with their learning partners to complete the tasks set. Thank you to the parent helpers who came along to assist the children and teachers.

Year 1 Year 1 have been learning all about weather. We have been finding out the temperature at the Pelican, in the Arctic and the Rainforest for comparison. Using the iPads we have recorded our own weather forecast on Pelican TV.

Reception Trip to Cambridge Market What a marvellous learning experience. Reception jetted off to Cambridge Market armed with a shiny golden coin. Yes, you have guessed it, £1! The adults involved on the trip were rather dubious as to whether such a small amount of money could buy something in such a place, but the children were shrewd and careful with their precious coins and came back with an amazing array of items. These included; flowers, fruit, bread and pairs of gloves. Some of the children even managed to barter to spend their last 20p and others received flowers thrown in for free. This rounded up our learning about money in a practical context. The children also learnt about £ signs and decimal points on their journey around the market.

Nursery This week Nursery continued their bear theme learning more about different types of bears and listening to popular bear stories. Our favourite bears from home were invited to join us in school and we introduced them to our friends, explained Pelican Behaviour and enjoyed Bear yoga! In the classroom we weighed and measured our bears and made each of them a passport.

In music this week… Nursery have been learning about classroom instruments and using them to play a piece of music to accompany the story of Goldilocks.

Reception have been learning Curwen hand signs to show high and low pitch and playing these patterns on the glockenspiels. They have also learnt some songs from Aladdin the pantomime to link in with their learning in other curriculum areas. Year 1 have been studying Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals and learning

about how composers can use elements and techniques to represent animals in music. They are creating their own animal music to produce a piece on animals and sounds of the rainforest using percussion and their own instruments.

Year 2 have been looking at UK myths such as the Giants Causeway, Robin Hood, King Arthur's Knights and the Loch Ness Monster and have been appraising, performing and creating music related to this theme.

Cedar and Willow Friends and Family Afternoon Thank you to you all for supporting us in making this a very special afternoon for all who attended. We had 64 visitors who were shown around by extremely enthusiastic hosts and hostesses. We were proud of all the children and delighted that the event was appreciated so much by our visitors. Neighbours, godparents, family friends, grandparents and even great-grandparents expressed their thanks and we were honoured to have them all.

Year 2 Music Recitals These have taken place for woodwind, piano and violin this week. In total 34 performers have entertained us with solos, duets and even premiers of compositions – a first for The Pelican. Many thanks to Mr Thompson, Mrs Gogna, Mr Clough and Ms Galenski for

preparing and inspiring the children so that everyone performed confidently and with obvious enjoyment.

400th Anniversary Sports Dinner with Alastair Cook

On Saturday 19 March, we celebrate sporting life at The Upper with a morning of OP sport and an afternoon of School fixtures, followed by a special sports dinner with guest of honour England test cricket captain, Alastair Cook.

Tickets for the dinner cost £60 and are selling fast on the back of England's recent test series win in South Africa. To book your ticket, please visit www.perse.co.uk/box-office. Your WisePay username is your email address and you can click on the 'forgotten password' link on the right hand side of the screen should you need to.

Please email ictsupport@perse.co.uk for help using WisePay.

Prep and Pelican parents are very welcome to attend the dinner as well as come and watch any of the matches at the Upper. There will be separate Prep and Pelican sports showcases on 19th and 20th May respectively. Further details will follow next term.

Other 400 Events in the pipeline .. This week many of our instrumentalists took part in a second workshop that will lead to the 400 3-18 Music Project on 18th March. It promises to be a memorable evening of participation and immersion in music for everyone. Details to follow.

As we approach a particularly special Founder’s Day on 23rd March plans are afoot for all Pelican pupils to participate in a mosaic art workshop. The children will create artwork that will be displayed around the school. These will include numbers and our Perse values.

Sport Awards Assembly, Friday 26th February at 9am

A reminder that our termly Sport Award assembly will take place on Friday 26th February. This is an opportunity for children to be presented with a certificate or medal that they have been awarded, either in or out of school. Parents are welcome to attend.

To assist with organisation, please ensure that your child’s favourite certificate or medal is brought in to class teachers by Wednesday 24th February at the very latest.

APP Quiz Night

It is that time of the year again - Quiz Night! Friday 4 March at 7.30pm The Pelican quiz night is a very popular event which every year drives returning and new teams to the Pelican to battle it out and strive for first position. So, contact your class rep to put yourself up as an individual ready to join a team, or round up some budding masterminders and put your own

team of up to 10 together. Last year the Pelican staff team lead the way to become Quiz Champions 2015, so this year the parents need to make a comeback!! There is a cash bar on the night, snacks and nibbles to feed your mind, and altogether a lot of laughs and sporting competitiveness!! At £10 a ticket, this is a wonderfully social and fun evening for all. Reply slips and cheques must be returned to the APP box by half term - Friday 12 February.

Poppy Appeal The Royal British Legion have recently thanked us for the £217.74 raised for them at The Pelican. Thank you to Year 2 for taking the poppies round to the classrooms each day and to all the parents for supporting this cause. Following an assembly on

Remembrance Day the entire Pelican community stood motionless and silent in a large circle on the playground for 2 minutes.

Next Week… In addition to welcoming our visitors from the Independent Schools Inspectorate we shall be delighted to see musicians from The Prep and The Upper Schools as well as Canon Sue who will be making her half termly visit, prior to our Easter service at St John’s near the end of term.

Enjoy pancake tossing in readiness for Shrove Tuesday! With very best wishes from Mrs W and all the staff at The Perse Pelican