Dear Parents,

It almost seems as if I am constantly saying how fast time is moving and it only

seems a short time ago that we were welcoming you all back to school at the start

of the school year. However, why break with tradition, because I never cease to be

amazed with how quickly the Festive Season is upon us each year and this year is certainly no exception.

We have had a tremendous term so far with pupils, staff and parents throwing

themselves into the work undertaken. We now have the lead up to the end of term with so many activities and events still to go. Don’t forget our wear a Christmas outfit in return for a gift for the Christmas Fayre organised by the Circle of Friends.

Once again we have a beautiful Mulberry handbag to raffle along with many other prizes. The list of events for the end of term is considerable so please keep an eye

on the weekly planner for details.

In the sprint to the end of the term may I remind you all of the ‘Growth Mindset’ event for parents on Friday 3rd February. This will be one of the most important

events you could attend in terms of supporting your child’s learning. An opportunity not to be missed!

Following our recent Governors Meeting, the School is submitting an application to

become a ‘Teaching School’ and have a leading role in the development of teachers, teacher training and support of other schools across the Local Authority. It is early in the application process but we hope to let you know the outcome of our application

in the New Year. We have already supported another school to obtain a ‘Good’ outcome at inspection and offer teacher training and INSET support to other schools.

So a formal plan to do this work should be a real benefit to the school and

ultimately the pupils. This is an exciting project for the school and we will keep you

up to date with progress.

School Gates and Access

Can we ask that at the end of the day cars leaving the car park give way to cars trying to come in due to their position in the drive and a need to not reverse over the crossing point.

Stoberry Times

December 2016

Friday Challenge Clubs

We have set up some whole school Friday challenge clubs that run every week last

thing on a Friday afternoon. The children have selected a club that they wanted to attend and as part of our transition support our Y2s travel over to KS2 and our Y3s

travel over to KS1. FS will be joining us in this venture after Christmas too. The clubs running currently are chess, drumming, iPad, film, construction, craft, film

making and puzzles and board games but these will alter throughout the year.

Remembrance Day

The school was drawn together in paying their respects during our Armistice Day service. Each child made their own poppy and planted it on the front lawn whilst thinking about what it symbolises and who we are remembering at this time of year

and what they have given for us all. A group of Y5/6s read a range of poems and prayers which moved everyone. Thank you to The School Council for organising the

delivery of poppies to all classes for us to buy in the week leading up to Remembrance Day.

Book Week

An exciting week started with a shared reading experience, both children and parents

came together for tea and toast and to visit the book fair. Then, Tuesday brought the visit by the author David Lawrence Jones who told us how he became and author and where he gained his inspirations. He wowed us with his fantastic, smoking bath

and his great story telling complete with actions and funny voices. It was lovely to see all the classes involved in book related activities on the theme of ‘Carnival’, a

subject close to our hearts.

This time of year brings to mind those values in life that are most important. It reminds us to focus on all of the good things around us. From all the staff at

Stoberry Park School we would like to wish you and your families a very Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year.

FS -Let’s Celebrate!

This half term we have been busy learning about a wide variety of Festivals and Celebrations. We began by exploring the excitement and colour of Bonfire Night, with a lot of art experiences. Following this we learnt all about a new festival - Diwali, the Festival of Light. Look at all the fun we had below. Next we thought about a very familiar

celebration to us…birthdays. We enjoyed writing invitations and birthday cards for our friends. We celebrated carnival too with lots of fun activities happening across the school. Somehow we also managed to fit in, Remembrance Day and Children in Need too. Finally we are learning all about our favourite festival of all…Christmas. We know the story of the first Christmas long ago when a very special baby was born. We are practising hard for the nativity play and the glitter is

slowly spreading itself around the classroom.

Firstly, a message from last half term. Thank you to the King family, for helping us yet again, with our Peepo walk, by arranging all the props on Lewmond Avenue. The children loved their first local walk and can’t wait to wear their high-viz

jackets again!

A big thank you also goes out to Kath Joyce for decorating the children’s hands with some absolutely beautiful mendhi patterns, during our Diwali celebrations. Also thank you to the Carnival Club who brought their exhibition van into school. We had so much fun dressing up and dancing with them.

We enjoyed learning about the history of Carnival and the importance of keeping safe

whilst watching it. We had a huge number of parents join us for our carnival float inspire afternoon. It was a huge success so thank you for your support. The finished floats look outstanding, well done everybody!

On Thursday we wore bright colours and had a Diwali party. We loved trying lots of new food such as, pilau rice, popadoms, korma, onion bhajis, samosas and pakoras. Yummy! We also drew Rangoli patterns, practised some Bollywood dancing, learnt the story of Rama and Sita and made diva pots with

clay. Mrs Ravalia shared her saris and we looked at the beautiful patterns and colours on the fabric.

KS1 – Wild Things / Christmas

Wild Thing Thursday – KS1 children travelled to the

jungle and explored the creatures that live there and their habitats. Children designed their own Wild Thing

creature and created a habitat for them in the school grounds. The quest was concluded by the children

becoming scientists and exploring living and non-living things in our world.

Book Week – This whole school themed week saw the KS1 children involved in a range of exciting activities and they also focused on the

story of ‘The Carnival of the Animals’ by Camille Saint-Saens. They made carnival hats and thought closely about the atmosphere created

by a carnival and what they might hear, see, do and smell there. It was a fun and engaging week being able to learn more about

something very special to our Somerset culture. We also enjoyed our visit to ‘Waterstones’ and were amazed at the thousands of books there

and were treated to the first chapter of ‘The Christmasaurus’ by Tom Fletcher, we were instantly hooked and wanted to hear more, but sadly we ran out of time…maybe one for the Christmas list!

Ash Sports Festival – Ash Class were very active at their afternoon of sport at Wells Blue School and it was great to see

some familiar faces of past Stoberry children leading some of the activities and listening to them reminiscing about their time at

Stoberry. There were 3 activities that we took part in which were multiskilled team games, parachute games and dancing. A lovely

quote from Harry Lewton summed up how we all felt… “I would love to do this every week!”

Maths – Thank you to those parents who attended the playground Maths session and

we hope it was useful and informative.

Longleat – On a bright, chilly morning KS1 ventured to Longleat full of excitement as to what the day had in store. We were first

treated to a ‘hands on’ educational workshop where the children got to touch a cockroach, armadillo, snake, lizard and a tortoise. It

was great to see the children’s faces as they braved touching animals they hadn’t experienced before. We then made our way

back to the coach for the ‘Longleat Safari’ where all of the animals were very active and gave us so much to look at and talk about

as we observed wild animal behaviour, including stopping the traffic as they made their authority known to the

vehicles around them!

The afternoon was spent enjoying all of the other Longleat attractions including the Jungle Cruise, Adventure Castle,

Jungle Kingdom, The Bat Cave and Penguin Island. Our

day’s finale finished with a walk around the stunning ‘Festival of Lights’ which is the Europe’s largest Chinese

Lantern Festival where there were many amazing creatures, large and small, and the beloved characters from Beatrix

Potter. They were all beautifully lit up against the night sky and transformed the park into a glowing winter

wonderland. Just before we left we watched the giant Christmas Tree which was more magical than ever. Using state-of-the-art,

multimedia technology and breath-taking projections, the dazzling tree took us on an enchanting journey and told the story of the

real meaning of Christmas. A lovely start to the festive season for us all.

Nativity – We were extremely proud of all the children throughout all the fun and joyful Nativity performances of

‘A Little Bird Told Me.’ Y2s had diligently learnt their lines and everyone sung with enthusiasm

especially those 2 very brave soloists Layla Care-Slade and Ishtar Jones who brought a tear to many

an eye! We hope you all enjoyed watching and we

would like to thank you for all of the donations made.

Merry Christmas from us all in KS1!

Rotten Romans!

Team 3 & 4 banqueted in style in November. Three teams of children each developed

an aspect of the banquet, these included: providing excellent entertainment, fabulous food and drink as well as divine decorations. Many thanks to all of the VIP guests

who came along to eat, drink and be merry.

Read All About It! Read All About It!

Team 3/4 became reporters after discovering some exciting Roman ruins within our grounds.

The children were very excited to find some silver coins, cracked pottery and an old, wax

tablet and used this as a starting point for some fantastic non- fiction writing. Ask your

child if they can remember the 5 W’s that are needed in a newspaper report!

Magical Maths

Team 3/4 have been busy practising the four operations; addition, subtraction, division and multiplication. They have been using their knowledge of these operations within

problem solving activities. They have been using real

money and Dienes (counting blocks) to support their deep

understanding.

Other Curriculum Areas

Team 3/4 have become engineers and architects by researching and creating their very own Roman aqueducts. After sketching and annotating in their sketchbooks, they

worked together using recycled items such as cardboard to build an iconic Roman structure. They worked as a team

as well as developing their D.T skills.

On Friday 11th November year 5/6 were invited to a hockey lesson at Wells Cathedral

School. Luckily it was a sunny morning, and after a brisk walk down to the astro-turf we took part in a range of activities led by Wells Cathedral staff and students.

The activities included goal scoring, dribbling and coordination activities. The children rotated around the activities and the morning ended with a drink and cookie snack

before returning to school for the remembrance service. We are hoping that we will be able to make further use of this wonderful space in the future.

On Thursday 20th October the year 6 children were invited to Wells Town

Hall for an enthusiastic talk on how to become an author. This was led by author Piers Torday, and encompassed his youth and growing up in

Northumberland, to tips on successful writing and the fact he looks like the BFG!

On Wednesday 16th November the year 5 children were invited to attend ‘A play in a day’ at Wells Cathedral. This linked in with our current quest ‘Lest we forget’ and

formed one of the many activities the school enjoyed as part of book week.

As we approach the end of the term, we also took a large group of the Year 5 and 6

choristers to the Cathedral for a magical start to the Christmas season. We went down in the afternoon to rehearse in this amazing space and, led by professional

jazz musician Pete Letanka, managed to piece the fragments of the service we had learned at school into an amazing evening’s concert. Some of the highlights included

Benjamin Britten’s New Year Carol and Jack Brooke freestyling with Pete on glockenspiel in front of an audience of 700!

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, from the Year 5 and 6 team.