News

Dear Parents,

CHRISTMAS BAZAAR TOMORROW 12-3PM

All the hard work and preparation comes to fruition tomorrow for our FOA Christmas Bazaar. It is one of our most important school events and we look forward to seeing many of you there with friends and relatives. Thank you to everyone who has put so much time and effort into making it happen, especially the committee. The Christmas Bazaar always brings out the best in our school community with so many people pulling together to make it a success and tomorrow promises to be a great day. If you still haven’t returned your raffle tickets, it is fine to do so on the door. The committee would be grateful if you could also return any unsold tickets so that they can be sold on the day. Some amazing Christmas hampers have been arranged as prizes so do give those tickets one last push! A particular thank you to our local Homebase who has donated our lovely Christmas Tree in the Hall!

You will know that as a school we work hard to reduce the amount of waste we produce, reusing and recycling as much as possible. To this end the Christmas Bazaar committee has met with our Year 5 children to talk through how we can minimize the waste most effectively tomorrow. Following their conversations, the children and the committee would like to remind you that there will be recycling facilities available on the day and proper plates and cups will be used for the food and drink. The children are particularly keen that you bring reusable bags with you.

MR DUNNE RETURNS FROM INDIA

I returned from India in the early hours of Wednesday after a fascinating stay in Ahmedabad in the state of Gujurat. I was there to attend the Design for Change (DfC) India conference where 20 of the best projects from across the sub-continent were recognised and celebrated. It was humbling to hear from children and young people there who are literally shifting the cultures of their communities to a better place; challenging the caste system, teaching their illiterate parents in rural villages how to read and write, swapping their school places for a week with street children, and running workshops in slum areas to educate locals about how to live and eat well. I was one of about 15 people from around the world, all of whom are developing Design for Change projects in their own countries. Included in the group were representatives from Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Israel, Laos, Taiwan, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Singapore, Spain and Sweden.

Along with the DfC conference, I was able to learn more about the outstanding educational practices at the Riverside School, who hosted the event. Riverside has a strong focus on real life application of learning, something we are developing in exciting ways here at Ashley, so I have come back with more ideas about how we can improve and refine our practices further in this school. Most excitingly of all, our Year 5 children, who will be learning about India next term, are going to be learning in partnership with their counterparts at Riverside. On Monday I was able to meet with the Riverside children and discuss the projects and ideas they would like to explore with our Year 5s. We are planning our first face to face Skype call for January when the children will get a chance to introduce themselves to each other. How learning has evolved from our childhoods!

GIRLS FOOTBALL MATCH

The girls had another football match this week when they played away at St Paul’s. In a close game, they lost 3-2. The team started off slowly and were 2-0 down at half-time. In the second half, they played a lot better with goals by Louise McGlennan and Tayla Grant, but their opponents scored again and a 3-2 defeat was the final score. A special mention goes to Laura Upsdell who played very well in only her second game for the school.

OTTER CLASS THANK YOU

As many of you will know, Otter Class ran their very own stall earlier in the week to raise funds to support otter conservation in the UK. Cai and Amy from Otter Class came to see me yesterday with a message from the class and it reads as follows: Thank you to everybody who came to our Otter Class stall. We raised £88.66!

CHRISTMAS PRODUCTIONS NEXT WEEK

Our school Christmas productions take place next week. As you should all by now be aware, the junior productions will be on Tuesday and Wednesday at 1.45pm. The infant productions will be on Thursday and Friday at 2pm. All the performances will be in the hall and the doors will open 10 minutes before the start. The two ticket programmes per family will be out on Monday. Once again, here are the days we would like you to come:

• Tuesday, 6th December – Junior Production for Families of Children or Older Junior Siblings in Year 5 Owl Class, Year 4 Kingfisher Class and Year 3 Fox Class.

• Wednesday, 7th December – Junior Production for Families of Children or Older Junior Siblings in Year 6 Eagle Class, Year 4 Swan Class and Year 3 Badger Class.

• Thursday, 8th December – Infant Production for Families of Children or Older Infant Siblings in Year 2 Otter Class, Year 1 Frog Class and Reception Year Hedgehog Class.

• Friday, 9th December – Infant Production for Families of Children or Older Infant Siblings in Year 2 Rabbit Class, Year 1 Dragonfly Class and Reception Year Squirrel Class.

Please ask your child(ren) to practise their words one last time over the weekend!

OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD

The Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child project has been a huge success this year. The boxes are being collected today and we have nearly 100 of them wrapped and ready to go in the hall. A huge thank you to everyone who has put together a box. A child somewhere this Christmas will be filled with joy by your wonderful gift.

KINGFISHER CLASS’S CHRISTMAS STALL NEXT FRIDAY

Kingfisher Class are running a Christmas Stall to support Great Ormond Street Hospital as part of their Design For Change Project. Children, parents and grandparents had a busy and productive morning on Wednesday making decorations, Christmas cards and bookmarks to sell for a donation to this worthy cause. As many of you will know, this charity is very close to their hearts. Please come along to the stall next Friday, 9th December at 3pm.

CHRISTMAS SERVICES

Don’t forget that our Christmas Services at St Mary’s will take place on Thursday, 15th and Friday, 16th December at 2pm. With the exception of any children who are going to After School Club and those children who have younger siblings in Reception where we will bring back older siblings, we ask you to collect your child from St Mary’s. We invite you to attend as follows:

• Thursday, 15th December – Families of Children or Older Siblings in Owl Class, Kingfisher Class, Fox Class, Otter Class, Frog Class and Hedgehog Class.

• Friday, 16th December – Families of Children or Older Siblings in Eagle Class, Swan Class, Badger Class, Rabbit Class, Dragonfly Class and Squirrel Class.

SCHOOL DINNER MONEY

It is great to have so many of our children enjoying school dinners. Please can you ensure that you pay for school dinners in advance. The office will be letting you know shortly about the amounts for next term. Thank you.

NEW BUILD UPDATE

As you will have noticed, our final phase of the New Build, the four classroom linear block is now close to completion. We had hoped that the block would be ready next week, but you will not be surprised to hear that we are slightly behind schedule with a completion date of the end of term. We have three classes to move before we break up – Year 4 Swan Class are moving to our current Year 6 class base and the Year 6 and Year 5 classes moving across to the linear block. To give the builders as much time as possible, we have agreed that we will move the classes after lunch on Tuesday, 20th December, our last day of term. If any of you could come in early that day and assist us for an hour from 1-2pm, we would be most grateful. As with the cluster block move, when so many of you came along to lend a hand, we hope that many hands really will make light work of this transition.

See you at the Bazaar!

Yours sincerely,

Richard Dunne

Headteacher