Thursday 5th December 2019 www.st-chads.lancs.sch.uk twitter : @StChadsChorley

CHRISTMAS FAIR – TOMORROW - FRIDAY 6TH DECEMBER 2019 EVERYONE IS WARMLY WELCOME TO THIS ANNUAL FESTIVE COMMUNITY EVENT!

Doors open at 6:30pm. You may buy tickets to visit Santa on your way in, along with any raffle tickets. This year stalls will open straight away and Santa will be in his grotto ready to greet children.

FINAL DONATIONS : SINCERE THANKS FOR YOUR GENEROSITY! Friday 6th Dec – Bottles for tombola

OWN CLOTHES DAY – tomorrow Tomorrow, Friday 6th December, we invite children to wear own clothes (Christmassy and/or colourful if they wish!) as a thank you for all your generous donations. It also gets everyone on the mood for our Christmas Fair that evening!

CHOIR PERFORMANCE James has volunteered his time to give our wonderful choir an opportunity to perform at the fair. The choir are performing at 7:15pm in Class 2 (the mulled wine room). If your child is in choir and coming to the fair, please bring them to Class 2 at 7:10pm to prepare. We encourage festive outfits!

HOMEMADE CAKES We would welcome donations of homemade cakes for our refreshment stall.

MESSAGE TO STALL-HOLDERS… CAN YOU DECORATE YOUR STALLS?! To help create a fabulous festive atmosphere, please bring something to decorate your stalls. A bit of tinsel goes a long way!

GIFT STALL EXPLAINED In Class 1a (end of small hall) there is a stall where children can, if they wish, buy gifts for adult family members. School staff will be on hand to supervise and help them. Gifts will be packaged so that they can remain a secret until Christmas day! N.B. this is for primary school age children only. No other adults allowed! It’s a secret!

GIFT BAGS If you have any used/unwanted gift bags, could you please send them into school FAO Mrs Taylor. She runs the gift stall and would greatly appreciate your donations.

STALLS LIST – FINAL CALL FOR HELP? We still need help with a few stalls. The updated stalls list will be sent out again today by email. Please consider whether you are able to offer a bit of your time to make the fair a success. Thank you to those who have already kindly volunteered. Thank you!

NEW FESTIVE GAMES/STALLS It would be lovely to have some new Christmas-themed stalls/games for the children to enjoy. If you have an idea (or can find one on google) and could run a stall, please email the office to be added to the list. Thank you!

FOOD & DRINKS AT THE FAIR This year, we will have mince pies and cakes instead of hot food, along with juice, tea and coffee… along with mulled wine and bubbles for the grown-ups.

ADVENT : A SEASON OF PEACE

“So John went out to baptise and to prepare the people for the coming of Jesus. He told them to change their lives and to turn back to God.” Luke 3:1-6

FLU VACCINE – CATCH-UP SESSION – Wednesday 11th December Intrahealth will be returning on Wednesday to administer the vaccine to children who were absent or deferred on the day of the initial flu vaccination and had previously consented. If, however, you have taken your child to your GP to have your child vaccinated, please contact the Immunisation Team on: 0333 3583397 (Option 5: East Lancs/Bwd Imms Team or Option 6: Central Lancashire Imms Team) to ensure your child’s name is removed from the list to prevent them from being vaccinated again. STAFF SICKNESS Following some serious bouts of illness last week, most staff are now getting better. Sadly Mrs Deacon remains unwell, so we have welcomed the return of Mrs Wright to teach Class 3 until Mrs Deacon has fully recovered. Thank you for your support and understanding. GIFTS FOR DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN Last week Mrs Topp put a request out for ‘good as new’ unwanted toys that could be wrapped and sent to disadvantaged children in the Chorley area, to allow them to have a present to open on Christmas Day. The final day for our collection is Friday 13th December. Thank you for your support, as ever! INFANT NATIVITY PRODUCTIONS Thank you to those who responded on ParentPay requesting tickets for the infant nativity plays. Please check school bags for tickets. We will be setting out the correct number of chairs for the performances, so please bring your tickets along with you. We look forward to welcoming you for this heart-warming occasion. JUNIOR CAROL SERVICE

This beautiful annual service takes place on Tuesday 17th December in church at 6:30pm. Please note that staff and the camera-man need time to prepare, so doors will only be opened at 6:10pm. There is no need to arrive any earlier than this time, as you will just be waiting in the cold and we don’t want this for you. It would be more sensible to wait in your car until doors open. We prefer not to arrange restricted tickets as we’d like to welcome everyone to share this special service. It does get very busy, however, so please be considerate and allow the more

elderly members of the community to have a seat. I have no doubt that everyone will work together in the Christmas spirit to make this an enjoyable service for everyone! CHRISTMAS CARDS IN SCHOOL Children have the option to send Christmas cards to others in school, but we also recognise that some children may not wish to send any or just send one to the whole class that can be displayed by their teacher. There is expectation either way. We have a special Christmas post-box in school that children can post their cards in, which are then sorted and delivered to classes at the end of the day. Please ensure that full names and year-groups are clearly written on the envelopes so that they can be sorted and delivered efficiently. Our Eco-Council would like to urge everyone to buy charity cards and look out for the FSC logo which indicates sustainable forestry. We are proud that the children were so thoughtful, as ever.

GENERAL ELECTION – POLLING STATION As usual, our school is being used as a Polling Station for the general election. This takes place on Thursday 12th December. Class 5 has a secure and lockable internal door and its own exterior door, so we are able to separate the rest of the school to ensure that our safeguarding measures are secure. We are fortunate, therefore, that the school can remain open. Class 5 will be relocated to the main hall for the day. PRIMARY SCHOOL ADMISSIONS SEPT 2020

For anyone with children due to start school in Sept 2020, please contact the school office to register your interest so that we can send details of the admissions process. Please also inform anyone you know who may be interested.

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY – N.B. summer term dates have been updated on the website calendar See ‘Calendar’ section of school website to subscribe and link the dates for the whole year to your electronic calendars http://www.st-chads.lancs.sch.uk/diary/ical/KelygWDrxUqm/ics/29th Nov – Fair Collection: chocolate 6th Dec - Fair collection: Bottles (own clothes) 6th Dec – Christmas Fair 6:30-8pm 10th Dec – Infant nativity 1:45pm 11th Dec – Infant nativity 6:30pm

12th Dec – General Election Polling 17th Dec – Junior Carol Service 6:30pm 18th Dec – Christmas Parties (party clothes) 20th Dec – School closes for Christmas

SCHOOL ADMISSIONS SEPTEMBER 2020 APPLY ONLINE WWW.LANCASHIRE.GOV.UK/SCHOOLS

PRIMARY CLOSING DATE: 15TH JANUARY 2020

Community news

BROWNIES 1st Wheelton Brownies have places available for Year 3 and 4 girls. We meet on Tuesday evenings, 6-7.30pm at Heapey & Wheelton Village Hall. We hold two free taster sessions to introduce Year 3 and 4 girls to Brownies. If your daughter is interested in joining, please email Jacqueline Berry on jberry.brownie@gmail.com for further information, where a warm welcome awaits you and your daughter. Jacqueline Berry Leader in Charge

PLEASE HELP TO RAISE FREE FUNDS FOR ST. CHAD’S PTA WHEN

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CHOIR CLUB – RECEPTION TO YEAR 6 We have a partnership with a professional musician, James Cairns, who runs an after-school choir club for children in Reception to Year 6. This takes place on a Monday 3:15-4:15. Please contact James directly on james.cairns@icloud.com or 07803 777397 to register your child. The children will be dismissed from the back doors to the main hall at 4:15pm.

CHAD-FEST!… NEXT STEPS Thank you for your responses so far! We are amazed and excited by your skills, contacts and generosity. We hope to arrange a meeting early in the new year to gather those who have kindly offered their assistance in the planning etc. We do still need more help to make it a success, so if anyone else would be able to help or offer advice in any way, please reply using the form sent via email previously.

HOW CAN I MAKE FURTHER DONATIONS TO THE PTA? We appreciate that families are not always available to attend every PTA event but you might still want to support these events by making a donation to PTA Funds. We have, therefore, created a payment item on ParentPay that you may use to make any additional donations at any time.

Visit www.parentpay.com

Every penny raised counts and PTA funds are spent directly on the children to support their learning and to provide resources which schools are unable to fund through the school budget. BOOK PEOPLE DONATIONS We have been informed that when ordering items from the ‘Book People’ online, you are able to select a school that they make a donation to. Please consider us should you be using this company in the future. Many thanks! HOW CAN I MAKE FURTHER DONATIONS TO OUR PARTNER SCHOOL IN UGANDA? Should you wish to make additional donations to our Peace Together Uganda project, we have created a payment item on ParentPay that you may use to make donations at any time. Sincere thanks to those who have kindly donated. RECYCLING Please note that we run recycling schemes for all of the following:

If you have any of these items which you no longer require, please send them into school. Perhaps you can ask family members to collect these items for school as well.

Click image to link to website for more details

CHARITY BAGS BATTERIES SPECTACLES OLD MOBILE

PHONES PENS ORIGINAL INK

CARTRIDGES