Welcome from Mr Tait

End of the Spring term and so much to celebrate! Yet again the children

continue to amaze us in school and they take all the opportunities that come

their way in their stride. From educational trips locally to trip abroad to France

and China - Bishop Aldhelm’s really is spreading the word of remarkable

children beyond the school gate. This is a real focus for me and I thank you

for supporting our expectations of high behaviour before and after school as

this does enhance our profile and help to maintain our reputation. Along with

this newsletter please do take time to read my Easter Letter. Enjoy the Easter

break, stay safe and we will welcome you back on Tuesday 23rd April.

Our Church School/R.E./SMSC Team—Reflection

This term in our worships we have been exploring the biblical account of ‘Holy Week’; the events leading up to Jesus’ death and resurrection. Our ‘Easter Experience’ events have also helped us to think about Jesus and the journey he made. Throughout Lent we have been filling up our ‘Serving Others’ Jar in our classes; taking time to think carefully of ways that we can help others around us. Thank you to all those who had a go at creating an Easter garden or an Easter cross. Over the break, spend some time thinking of the true meaning of Easter.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son so that all those who believe in Him would not die but have eternal life.” John 3:16

Message from Heidi Moxam—Chair of Governors

The Spring Term has flown by. It always surprises me how quickly we get to Easter. Governors, with the leadership team, have been working hard on budget commitments, new ventures, recruitment and training this term. It has been busy and also very successful. The governors and I have had plenty of opportunity to see and meet with children at school and we are so proud of their attitude to learn and behaviour in and out of school. This has also been borne out through their charity fundraising which has been an overwhelming success, thank you to everyone. Governors were involved in the Easter Experience at St Aldhelm’s church and it was fantastic to see how all children understand the real story of Easter - we also saw some great Easter gardens and decorated crosses. Happy Easter!

Message from our PSA

This half term, the PSA have been busy preparing for the Spring events and the forthcoming summer fayre. The spring events (entertainers for EYFS & Year 1 and discos for Years 2 upwards) were well supported and the children appeared to have a fantastic time. The PSA made a total profit of £1765, which will be used to benefit your children. We are now busy planning the summer fayre which will be held on the 7th June and promises to be a fun packed afternoon Please email PSA@bishopaldhelms.poole.sch.uk to get involved. You can also keep up to date by following our Facebook group. Check out: Bishop Aldhelm’s

Parents/Carers and PSA Page.

5th April 2019

Tuesday 23rd April

Children return to school

Monday 29th April

Coffee and Collective Worship

Morning (small hall)

9:50– EYFS+KS1 Worship

10:25– KS2 Worship

Monday 6th May

School Closed– Bank Holiday

Monday 13th-Thursday 16th

May

Year 6 SATS Week

Friday 17th May

Year 6 trip to Rock Reef

Monday 20th– Friday 24th May

Whole school Arts Week

Wednesday 22nd May

9am and 2pm: Inclusion Day

Presentation to Parents

Monday 27th– Friday 31st May

Half Term Holiday

Monday 3rd June

INSET Day

Tuesday 4th June

Children return to school

EYFS Update—Mrs Torok

What a fantastic half term we have had in Foundation. In R.E we have been looking at the story of

Easter. We have been reading and writing stories about Giants, Trolls and Princesses. In our Number

work we have been learning to add and subtract two single digit numbers and count on or back to find

the answer.

Year 1 Update—Mrs Goddard

Year 1 have enjoyed exploring the beginnings of spring through our new topic: ‘We’re going on a plant

hunt (Heathland)! We had a wonderful trip to Moors Valley and spent time exploring our own school

heathland area, the SSSI, and the wildlife it has to offer. With our Viking themed writing week, World

Book Day and Red Nose Day, it’s been a busy but exciting term!

Year 2 Update—Mrs Payne

We enjoyed planting seeds and have now grown some baby radishes and sunflowers. In Science, we

learned about what a plant needs to grow and researched our own amazing facts on the internet. We

have used the story of The Day the Crayons Quit to inspire our writing and also How To Train Your

Dragon for descriptive writing. In Maths we have been learning about time and problem solving.

Year 3 Update—Mrs Parkes

Year 3 enjoyed writing week when we shared the story of ‘Oliver Twist.’ The children loved learning

about how different the Victorian Era was. We have also learnt many facts about volcanoes and earth-

quakes. We now know how they happen and the devastation that can be caused. World Book Day and

Red Nose Day have added to the excitement of the term!

Year 4 Update—Mrs Davis

This half term, year 4 kicked off with some amazing work based around the book -Fantastically Great Women

through History. The children created some wonderfully creative and well-thought out home learning projects all

about inspirational women. Also during writing week, through a mixture of Reading, writing and PSHE objectives

we discovered more about the achievements of these remarkable women and the challenges they had to face.

The children wrote in role and produced some very thoughtful and well-written diary entries.

Year 5 Update—Ms Piwowarska

This half term has been an exotic adventure! We have explored Brazil, the Amazonian rainforest and

its flora and fauna. We have also written a persuasive letter to the Minister of Environment in Brazil to

reconsider high scale deforestation. Finally, we painted realistic Amazonian animals and joined the

characters of our book -The Explorer—in their jungle survival quest.

Year 6 Update—Miss Hardwick

This half term, we have been studying Evolution and Inheritance. To start the topic, we had a visit from

Monkey World, who taught us about the Theory of Evolution and how primates have adapted. This has

linked nicely in with our RE topic of Creation, and we enjoyed meeting with Father Pip, David Warden

(a humanist minister) and Mrs Choudhury (a Muslim) to discuss their different views on Creation.

Update from our Year Group Champions

Year 1 Photo Year 2 Photo

EYFS Photo

Year 3 Photo

Year 4 Photo

Year 6 Photo

Year 5 Photo

Update in Pictures

Little Bears

It has been an exciting half term for the

Pastoral Team introducing our new parent/carer

toddler group, Little Bears!

We have been running the group every Friday

from 9am - 10am in our small hall. Each week we

have different craft activities, a range of toys and

we finish our session with a song! It has been

widely received by our parents and also families

that are not yet linked with the school. If you have

children aged 0-4years come and visit us!

Angelina & Jo

Sports News

What a fantastic half term Bishop Aldhelm’s has

had in terms of our sporting events!

The Year 5 Football and Netball teams did us proud

at Bournemouth Collegiate School, where the

football team won the tournament out of 12 schools.

Well done everyone! Miss Read and the Netball

teams have been super busy with multiple

tournaments this half term. The Year 6 Netball team

came second in their most recent tournament at

Oakdale taking them through to the county finals—

good luck to all! Finally, the Year 5/6 Football team

made it to the quarter final stages of the PEDSSA

league, but unfortunately lost to a very strong

Hamworthy Park Junior School. They all did

fantastically as a team to reach this stage of the

competition, well done.

We now look forward to the summer term, where

we have lots of cricket, athletics, sailing and more

Trees

Thank you to all of the families that planted trees during our Parents’ Evenings this term. We had over 300 plants and trees planted on our site. We look forward to the wildlife that they will attract as they grow and their beautiful blossoms and berries that they will produce in a few years time. We hope that you enjoyed the opportunity of planting your very own tree, leaving a legacy at Bishop Aldhelm’s for your family.

Music News

This term our KS1 Choir performed beautifully to their parents and carers.

The Panto Club also gave a fantastic performance demonstrating lots of confidence, humour and projection. Well done to everybody involved!

Bishop Aldhelm’s Facebook and Website Catch-up...

Inclusion Team

This half term, ten year 5 students and

three adults visited China for a week. They

have had an unforgettable time exploring

the ancient landmarks, visiting different

primary schools, admiring pandas and

taking part in traditional Chinese culture

sessions. We look forward to having

Chinese students over to our school in the

Summer Term. Thank you to the parents

that attended our presentations in February.

Our next presentations will be on

Wednesday 22nd May at 9am and 2pm–

more information will be sent out next term.

.

Science Team

Science club have been busy again this half-

term. The children have been learning how

sounds are made. They have created their

own instruments and had a go at beat-

boxing. As you can imagine, it has been

very loud. In addition, Year 6 received a visit

from Monkey World to kick start their

Evolution topic.

The Green Club will be helping to plant our

new trees on Parent’s Evening. Thank you

to all those who have brought in their used

batteries, this will be continuing until May.

Maths Team

This term, the Maths Team have been

finding out about bar modelling and how we

can use it in our school. Some of the

children have trialled using this technique to

support them with problem solving and

have found it very helpful, so we will be

introducing it to all year groups after the

holidays. The children have also been busy

with TT Rockstars. Special mentions go to

Lui, Harry and Jonathon, all in Year 3, who

are the top scorers. We are also proud to

announce that we are currently holders of

the ‘fastest speed’ locally, with a mean

speed of 2.57 seconds per question.

English Team

This term has been very busy! We started the

term with our annual writing week, this year

we linked it to historical texts with each year

group being giving a different book. Thank

you to all of you who created a family learning

project linked to this week, there were so

many brilliant and varied projects. We also

took park in World Book Day and as always

there were some amazing costumes. We also

had a visit from our school author, Martin

Coleman who completed story writing

workshops with some of the children. Each

year group in the school also took part in an

illustration workshop.

Arts Team Yet again the children have been very active with their music activities. Year 4 have had a great time learning the clarinet on Wednesday afternoons. The KS1 choir has been rehearsing regularly and are looking forward to performing their Spring Concert. We have an Art Week coming up in May which we are really looking forward to. If there are any parents that would like to volunteer with this, please contact Miss Read as we would love some extra help.

Curriculum Team News

China Trip Pupils and staff from Bishop Aldhelm’s CE Primary School have just returned from an experience of a life

time in China.

Bishop Aldhelm’s sees global learning as an important part of the school’s vision to

inspire, motivate and educate our children. This includes developing the spiritual,

moral, social and cultural development of pupils, but also includes supporting

improved teaching, pupil behaviour, school leadership and pupil achievement.

Fundamental to the trip was an understanding that global learning is an education

that puts learning in a global context, fostering: Critical and creative thinking; self-awareness and open-

mindedness towards difference; understanding of global issues and power relationships; optimism and

action for a better world.

Working with One World Education, Bishop Aldhelm’s is a Global Youth Ambassador Partnership (GYAP)

School. We have had Chinese students visit us on a number occasions over the years, allowing all of our

children to benefit from sharing cultural experiences. In addition, these links have allowed us to offer the

opportunity for a group of Year 5 children to go to China. Visiting Chengdu and Zigong in China, the group

visited 5 schools and took part in a variety of lessons and experiences including calligraphy, Kung Fu,

archery, cooking, Chinese instrument lessons and bamboo weaving. The trip also included visits to the

Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding and Zigong Dinosaur Museum. Of course, no trip to

China would be complete without lots of tasting of traditional Chinese teas!

This was a fantastic opportunity for our children to experience what they have learnt first-hand when hosting

students from China whilst also helping to raise aspirations and prepare them

for being employment fit for the future. Bishop Aldhelm’s teaches Mandarin to

some of its pupils and has a number of young interpreters deployed to support

learning across the school.

As a result of the trip, the children from Bishop Aldhelm’s, are now better placed

to understand what it means to be a Global Citizen and draw on the benefits of

breaking down cultural barriers and sharing experiences with other children

from across the globe.

Bishop Aldhelm’s Goes International!

French Trip Children from Year 4, 5 and 6 had a fantastic trip to France at the end of March. On the first day, we met up with pen pals from our French twin school and visited the grounds of a beautiful castle! While we were there, lots of the children joined in together in a big game of football and they even learnt some new French games. In the evening, we enjoyed a photo hunt around Cherbourg and a lovely French meal! On the second day, we were up early to visit the French school and spend some time in French lessons across the school. Our visit to the City of the Sea Museum was a real highlight and all the children learned lots about Cherbourg’s involvement the Titanic, as well as spending time in a real submarine and discovering some marine life. The children were a credit to the school with their behaviour and we had several comments from members of the pupil about how polite and lovely the children were!

Spring Term Bishop Bonds Update

In numbers...

5242 Bishop Bonds awarded to the children

1114 Bishop Bonds Awarded for the Value of Love

703 Bishop Bonds Awarded for the Value of Courage

985 Bishop Bonds Awarded for the Value of Unity

2440 Bishop Bonds Awarded for the Value of Inspiration

Red House won the Value of Love Award with 297 Bishop Bonds

Yellow House won the Value of Courage Award with 193 Bishop Bonds

Red House won the Value of Unity Award with 267 Bishop Bonds

Red House won the Value of Inspiration Award with 632 Bishop Bonds

YELLOW HOUSE WON WITH 1375 BISHOP BONDS

Congratulations everyone!

Blue Red Yellow Green

Love 265 297 289 263

Courage 180 160 193 170

Unity 236 267 262 220

Inspiration 621 632 631 556

Totals 1302 1356 1375 1209

Individual Reward Scheme

We strongly believe that pupils should be regularly and fairly rewarded for their achievements, to not

only celebrate pupils’ successes, but to also inspire and motivate young people to achieve their

very best and become confident, independent learners. This vision, in turn, raises standards and

improves behaviour and attendance.

The Platinum Award winners are presented with a certificate and the privilege of being a Bishop

Aldhelm’s VIP. As an Autumn Term VIP they will receive a ride in a limousine with the staff of their

choice. Key Stage 1 / Foundation VIP Children

Austin Knowles

Isla Macfarlane

Edward Buchanan

Tatum Harris

Layla Mann

Key Stage 2 VIP Children

Ava Delve

Imogen Grist

Leah Short

Julia Lubaszewska

Alfie Fitzpatrick