News

Friday, 11th May 2012

Dear Parents,

Summer Term Newsletter No. 4

WORKING PARTY TOMORROW MORNING

Ashley School needs you! In anticipation of our Official Opening on Friday, 25th May, we would be really grateful if a team of parents could assist us in preparing our school site for this special occasion. The more people who can lend a hand, the more we can get done. We will start at 9.30am and finish at midday and we welcome any time you can give, whether it be half an hour at the beginning, an hour at the end or for the duration of the session. With the winter sporting season over, we hope that many of you can join us. Please bring digging forks, spades and brooms and if anyone has a chainsaw for some wood that needs cutting, even better. Your children are, of course, most welcome to come along and play on the field. We have 500 parents now part of Ashley School and if just 10% of you could come along, just think what we can achieve. Thank you.

NEW RECEPTION YEAR PARENTS EVENING

We were delighted to welcome several new faces along with a good number of familiar faces to our New Reception Year parents evening on Wednesday. The hour long session was a chance for parents of children starting in September to understand a little more about what the children’s first year at school will be like. Our fantastic Reception Year team and our equally brilliant kitchen staff and school business manager had worked really hard to ensure the evening ran smoothly with packs of information and school-made breads, cakes and rhubarb flapjacks ready for collection and consumption. Many thanks to parents Laura Edmonds and Nikki Vesey who did such an excellent job preparing the starter packs for the children. We hope those of you who attended had a good evening.

YEAR 4 WORK WITH THE PRINCE’S SCHOOL OF TRADITIONAL ARTS (PSTA)

You may remember that a few weeks’ back our Year 5 children worked on beautiful Indian miniature paintings with two artists from Prince Charles’s School of Traditional Arts. Well this week it was the turn of our Year 4 children to work with three artists from the Prince’s School to create the most stunning piece of artwork themed around the coronation paving stone in Westminster Abbey. The artwork captures the beauty and harmony of our cosmos and the final result is truly something to behold. You will be able to see it at our Official Opening. Great Work, Year 4!

YEAR 5 GREEN STALL TODAY

After their amazing adventure in Bude last week, Year 5 have been busy back in school this week, writing thank you letters to their team leaders and capturing some of the best moments from their trip. This afternoon Year 5 will be sharing their Green Stall with you and included in their array of wholesome produce will be cards they have made using photos of shells, rocks and beach scenes. The children have mounted the photos very carefully using the right coloured card to go with the image. At £1.00 a go, they really are great value. Thank you to the Year 5 parents, staff and children for working so well together to prepare today’s stall. Community in action!

YEAR 6 SATS WEEK

We wish our Year 6 children the best of luck on Monday for the start of their end of Key Stage 2 SATs assessments. This year for the first time the SATs tests will only focus on Reading and Maths as Writing will be assessed internally by the school. Science is also now teacher assessed. We believe this is a good step forward as it enables us to judge a child’s level of attainment in writing based on a number of pieces of writing done over a period of time, rather than two pieces of writing carried out in test conditions. We have high hopes for our Year 6 children, who have worked really well this year. Whilst we value the children much more than just the SATs results, these end of Key Stage 2 tests do give the school, the children and, of course, you the parents an indication of how they are progressing in their core learning. Think clearly and work quickly and carefully, Year 6.

SWAN CLASS ASSEMBLY NEXT WEDNESDAY AT 9.15AM

Next Wednesday at 9.15am it is Swan Class’s assembly when they will be sharing with us some of their learning about Ancient Egyptian life and how we can learn from the way they used to live. Looking forward to it, Swans.

CHAMONIX FOOTBALL TOURNAMENT – SATURDAY, 19th MAY

We now have most classes signed up with teams for the Chamonix football tournament a week tomorrow. Last year’s Chamonix football tournament was a great success and this year the event has been taken to new heights with a whole host of non-football activities to keep the family entertained. There will be a netball tournament run by one of our former Ashley pupils Amy Lowe. There will be a pamper zone for those of you who fancy something a little more leisurely. And there will be lots of games and a bouncy castle for the children. With a bar and barbecue, too, it sounds like a great family afternoon out. The event starts at midday with football from 1pm.

OFFICIAL OPENING – FRIDAY, 25th MAY AT 9.30AM

In two weeks’ time on Friday, 25th May we will be officially opening our New Build. Our local MP Dominic Raab will be here along with the Bishop of Dorking and many other invited guests. In anticipation of fine weather (!?!) we hope that many of you will be able to attend as well. We will start promptly at 9.30am and we plan to have the occasion out on the playground so that we can accommodate the large numbers. After the opening, we will have drinks and school-made biscuits and cakes in the hall, followed by tours of the school site. If you are keen to come, please let the office know. If it is raining on the day and we cannot hold the opening outside, we will not be able to accommodate parents in the hall unless the numbers are small. Fingers crossed for sunshine!

ASHLEY FLOWER SHOW – MONDAY, 9th JULY

It’s still a little way off, but with all this rain getting everything growing we wanted to highlight that on Monday, 9th July we will be celebrating our annual Ashley Flower Show. In line with our food and flower growing in school this term, we are keen for the children to have a go and growing something at home, which they can bring in and share at the Flower Show. Amongst other things, there will also be a photo competition focused on the natural world and our local biodiversity so do keep the camera handy next time you are out for a walk.

Thank you to the team of parents who have been digging the infant class flower beds this week. You have been amazing. We hope to have the plants and flowers in place for each class over the next 10 days.

AFTER SCHOOL CLUB

If your child has had to go home ill during the school day and they should be attending the After School Club, could you please let the club know. The school office doesn’t have a register of children for the After School Club so please could you make them aware if your child will not be attending. Thank you.

TRAVEL TO AND FROM SCHOOL

We are in consultation with Surrey County Council once again to try and get the pedestrian crossings made safer for those of you who walk to school. It is unfortunately not easy to get things moving forward, but we are on the case and will let you know as soon as we have any news from County. Still with travel to and from school, the police have been in touch to say that there are a number of parents who are parking opposite school, causing disruption to the traffic. They have told us that they will be monitoring the situation over the coming weeks. If you do need to drive to school, please can you make sure your parking does not cause disruption on the one-way system. Even more importantly, please use the pedestrian crossings to get your child safely into school.

MAY’S VALUE IS QUALITY

Our Value for the month of May is Quality. We will be thinking particularly about what makes for quality learning and quality work. We will also be reflecting on the qualities we have or aspire to have, as well as what quality relationships look like. Do share this value at home, especially in the context of producing quality work!

We hope to see many of you in the morning. Whatever time you can give will be much appreciated.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Dunne

Headteacher

PS There will be a Parent Prayer Meeting in the hall next Friday, 18th May at 9.00am. All welcome.