News

Friday, 25th May 2012

Dear Parents,

Summer Term Newsletter No. 6

OFFICIAL OPENING TODAY

Wow! What a fantastic turn-out we had for our Official Opening today. It was great to have so many of you there to join with us in celebrating the opening of our New Build. As many of you will know, this day has been a long time coming with many months of planning and preparation before we even started on the build work. We had a term and a half last year without a school hall or kitchen, and we had builders on the school site in total for a year and a half. In the middle of that journey, we lost our first building contractor, ROK, but due to the dedication and commitment of our New Build Governors, we were able to get the build back on track with our new contractor, Primus, and today we can see the stunning results of all that hard work.

Our local MP, Dominic Raab, was here this morning to open the two new classroom blocks. The Reception and Year 1 block has been renamed

The Stapleton Block in recognition of our Chair of Governors, Nigel Stapleton. It was Nigel’s leadership and determination that got our build back on track after we lost our ROK contractors and enabled us to see our build project through to completion on budget. Thank you, Nigel and indeed all our New Build Governors, who have worked tirelessly in support of this great achievement. Our Year 5 and 6 block has been renamed The Jubilee Block in celebration of The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in just 10 days time. We have also renamed our junior block The Millennium Block as this building was opened at the turn of the millennium.

Those of you who were present at the Official Opening today will know that we have a large number of people to thank. In summary, here are the people we would like recognise today:

• Surrey County Council and the Diocese of Guildford for their major funding of our New Build.

• Our sponsors, who contributed so generously to our 10% contribution for the Diocesan £1.2 million.

• The teachers, teaching assistants and special needs assistants, who consistently work so hard for this school.

• Special thanks to Jackie, Ruth and Catrin in Year 5, as well as many of you who made the fabulous bunting.

• Our office team of Carrie, Laura, Hilary and Aileen, who have co-ordinated today so efficiently.

• Steve Andrews, our caretaker, who has spent so much time smartening up the school.

• Our kitchen team, led by Rachel and Mandy, and Charlotte Dunne who have organised the catering for today

• Darrel Leggett, who has done a great job, overseeing all our food growing out on the field.

• Lisa Richards, Lara Lavery, Martin McCarthy, Rachel Grace and others for planting all the beautiful flowers.

• Steve Gilligan for producing the designs to start our thinking around how we might rebrand the school.

• Mark and Helen Johnson for composing our wonderful Official Opening song ‘We’re building’.

• Artists Jo Thompson and Nathalie Beauvillain-Scott for the stunning art in the Yr 2 playground and library

• Andy Hyatt, Simon Arrowsmith, Fabio Borzacco and Chris Stewart, who helped everything come together

• All of you, our parent community, who contribute in so many ways to the success of this school.

• In particular today, members of the FOA who have organised all the teas and coffees.

• Every one of our children, to whom this New Build is dedicated.

CHAMONIX SPORTS DAY

A perfect example of this school at its best took place last Saturday when many of you came along and participated in the Chamonix Sports Day. The event, co-ordinated most impressively by Mike Vickery and the Year 6 team, combined lots of fun and laughter with some healthy competition both on the football pitch and the netball court. Rabbit Class retained their 5-a-side trophy! And there were no injuries, beyond a few aching limbs. The only down side was that Mr Dunne was put in the stocks at the end and got absolutely soaked!!! All for a good cause! A big thank you to everyone who made the day possible. It raised an amazing £2,300. What a great day!

FLOWER ARRANGING – YEAR 1’S GREAT WORK

On Monday the children in Dragonfly Class worked with florist, Emma Hart (Mum to Zara in Year 2), to create their own flower arrangements. The children really enjoyed making their own flower arrangements and the results were beautiful! A big thank you to Emma for all her hard work and preparation, and thanks, too, to the FOA for their generous donation towards the flowers. Frog Class are looking forward to their turn on Monday.

PRIMARY TEACHER MAGAZINE

On Wednesday morning, amidst all the business of the preparations for our Official Opening, we had a visit from three members of Primary Teacher magazine, one of the UK’s top educational magazines. They spoke with staff and children and captured some of the learning around the school. They wanted to do a feature on Ashley as an Ofsted graded Outstanding School. They said they had visited quite a few schools graded Outstanding, but had never been to a school quite like ours. They were bowled over by what they saw; our work on real life learning and sustainability initiatives, the children’s great works at the end of each half-term and their Design for Change projects. It was really good to receive such positive feedback from one of the main education magazines.

JUNIOR RUGBY TOURNAMENT

Well done to the rugby players who took part in a Harlequins organised tournament yesterday. There were six team involved and the Ashley team had a great afternoon, scoring lots of tries. They played five matches, winning two, drawing one and losing two. There were plenty of red faces at the end due to the heat, but lots of big smiles, too.

CLAREMONT ATHLETICS ON MONDAY

Some of you may remember that we used to be part of an athletics meet at Claremont Fan Court School a couple of years ago. Since then the event has been offered to private schools only, but this year one of those schools had to back out so we have been invited again and on Monday afternoon around 40 of our junior runners, long jumpers and ball throwers will participate in an event in the beautiful grounds of Claremont School. Good Luck, athletes! It will be great practice for the inter-schools District Sports athletics next month.

JUBILEE LUNCH NEXT WEDNESDAY

There will be a Jubilee Lunch next Wednesday for all the children who have school dinners and the theme will be red, white and blue, of course. I wonder what kind of blue food they will be having?! If your child has a packed lunch and you would like to include any red, white or blue food, please pack it into their lunch box on Wednesday.

FUNKY FURSDAY WITH A JUBILEE THEME

Next Thursday is the last day of our half-term and it will be a Funky Fursday when the children will break into mixed age groups across the infant and junior years for the day. Usually on a Funky Fursday or Friday, the children come in their own clothes, but this time we would like the children to dress in red, white and blue clothes. The junior children will be making their activity choices for the day this afternoon and our infant children will be participating in a range of Jubilee themed activities. The school will come together at 2pm to present their learning.

INSET DAY CLOSURE NEXT FRIDAY

Don’t forget the school will therefore be closed next Friday so half-term will start a day early. We return for the final half-term of the academic year on Monday, 11th June at the usual time.

FRIENDS OF ASHLEY SURVEY

Thank you to all of you who have already responded to the FOA Survey Monkey to find out what kind of events you would like to see on next year’s calendar. If you haven’t responded and could spare a few minutes, it would be great for the FOA to hear your views. The link is: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/P3XZD3R Finally and once again, thank you for a memorable day for this school.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Dunne

Headteacher

PS If you are going to the May Ball tomorrow, have a great time. Thank you, Ball Committee, for making it happen.

PPS If you would like to learn about dyspraxia, there will be a 7.30pm talk here in the hall on Wednesday, 13th June.