Newsletter: 8th April 2022

Posted on April 6, 2022 | By Mr Cole

I hope you like our new Village Schools Partnership logo which graphic designed Jay Bennett has been working on for us over the last few months. I asked Jay to incorporate the existing Bee (for Buckland Brewer), Kite (for Parkham) and overlapping W’s (for Woolsery) and also portray the rurality of our Partnership… and I think he’s done amazingly well. As mentioned in the piece about Uniform last week, the blue in the logo is for Buckland, the yellow for Parkham and the red for Woolsery, and these colours will be reflected in the children’s polo shirts.

FOPS Bingo

A huge well done and shout-out to FOPS who raised a brilliant £425.93 at Bingo last weekend. As with the FOWS event below, this income is vital to all three schools in order to supplement the funds we available to spend on your children. Thank you to everyone who came along and supported – we hope you had a great time and came away with at least one chicken dinner!

FOBBS

FOBBS have a tombola after school today to help raise money for next term’s swimming lessons. Please come and support FOBBS if you can.

Buzzards and Falcons at Tintagel

Buzzards and Falcons classes chose the best day of the week to explore the ruined castle at Tintagel!  They had a fantastic time and were full of stories about their adventures when they returned to school. We will see more of these trips and visits as the Partnership develops so I’m delighted that this one has been such a success.

Mrs Orchard was very happy to report that several members of the public (who were at Tintagel for a quiet day out…) congratulated the staff on the excellent behaviour and lovely manners of the children – what a credit to you all – thank you.

Woolsery Craft Outdoor Display

A huge thank you to parents Katherine and Louise for clearing the old “Sea Plastics” display from the entrance path and giving the backing board a spruce-up with a new coat of paint. This is all ready for an exciting new display, details of which are below for you…

Please enjoy the craft bags over the holidays that your children have brought home today. The aim is to create a nature craft with the materials but feel free to add other craft items you have or natural materials you can find to your designs.
There are some pictures for inspiration below.
These art pieces will be added to the outside display at Woolsery school so think of weather when you put your designs together.
Have a great holiday and enjoy!
Thank you and hopefully weather permitting the new display will be ready for your art when we return from the break.

Cathedral Performance

I have been in touch with Debbie Kent, music lead for the Devon Music Education Hub, and the video of the children’s performance at the Cathedral last month has now been fully edited. I am hoping to be able to share a link with families of the performers in the very near future: as soon as I have it, I will pass it on to you.

Glorious Greeks

On the first day back after the break, Buzzards and Falcons Classes will be holding an introduction to their Ancient Greeks topic Glorious Greeks. Everyone in those classes is welcome to come dressed in Ancient Greek-style costume if they’d like to.

Gymnastic and Dance Success

Well done to all of the children who took part in the Devon final of the School Games Virtual Dance and Gymnastics competition. In an unexpected change which only came through to us on Wednesday morning, more of our children were put through to the final competition, performing their skills via webcam to the judging panel. A special mention to Seren who came first in the County for her routine! Results were as follows:

Year 3 Silver: Seren – FIRST place, Olivia – 3rd, Henry – 5th

Year 4 Gold: Tegan – 6th

Year 4 Platinum: Isla-Mae – 4th, Xavier – 6th

Year 5 Bronze: Nate – 4th, Allan – 8th

Year 5 Silver: Nate – 5th, Lola – 6th, Isla D – 7th

Year 6 Gold: Hope – 5th, Josie – 6th, Isla-Mae S – 7th

Year 6 Platinum: Josie – 7th

Musical In A Day

Children from across the Atlantic coast Co-operative Trust came together at Buckland Brewer Village Hall yesterday to work with Anthony Chamberlain on putting together a Musical In A Day Carmen. A special mention to Xander from Parkham school who played the role of Don Jose. A selection of photos are below for you…

Dear Parents and Families

We are pleased to be able to announce the proposed membership of Board of Governors of the new Village Schools Partnership following nominations for the posts of staff and parent governors.

Thank you to the parents who stood for election for the two Parent Governor places on the new Governing Board. As there were only two nominations, there has been no need to hold an election. We look forward to welcoming back Miranda Roper and Ewan Wallis as Parent Governors and thank them for volunteering to stand again

We thank Ben Trevor and Katherine Bass for their time and commitment as Governors on Woolsery’s Governing Board. Ben has been a former Chair of the Board and has had many years’ involvement with the school, and Katherine has been a valued member of the team, albeit for a shorter period of time. Both have decided to not stand for office on the new Board due to other commitments.

We are delighted to be starting with a full Board and to have representation from across all our communities with governors offering a wide range of experience and expertise.

All Governors will be formally appointed at the first meeting of the Governing Board on Tuesday 26th April 2022 when they will elect their Chair and Vice Chair.

FREE ATLANTIC RACQUET CENTRE OPEN DAY

SATURDAY 23rd APRIL 10-4PM

Free for all the family to come and try out tennis, badminton, table tennis and the gym.

We have different classes happening through the day with expert coaches on hand to help you. Spread the word to your friends and come join us for a fun FREE day.

For more info on what’s on use the link below , just turn up on the day, no booking required.

http://www.atlanticracquetcentre.co.uk/opendays

It’s been lovely to see the range of learning animals teachers have chosen to award certificates for this week- our children are amazing! Well done to…

Buckland Brewer

Owls Class: Jacob (tortoise) – Being resilient with his writing; Elenora (dolphin) – Engagement with Reading at home and practicing her spellings 

Falcons Class: Connie (dolphin) –  Engagement Amazing presentation and handwriting; Hannah (dolphin) – Engagement with reading at home 

Eagles Class: Bella (spider) – Making links and connections  Producing a well-considered piece of writing about blood using her science knowledge; Kane (owl) – Understanding the Learning Journey Taking pride in his learning and working slowly and systematically.

Parkham:

Kestrels Class: Ethan – For showing increased responsibility for his learning. This is seen most clearly with his reading and writing. Ethan is working hard on increasing his fluency and on writing more independently; Ashley – For showing great reflection when writing. Ashley has been listening hard to hear all the sounds in words and working hard on ensuring his letters are formed correctly.

Buzzards Class: Ruby  and Molly – showing kindness by welcoming a new child to our class, ensuring that she knew the routines of the school and by helping make her first day a very happy experience.

Hawks Class: Grace – What an amazing start! Starting at our school very recently; settling in to life at Parkham. Grace has even delivered an assembly to the rest of the school about autism; Bodhi  – Showing his understanding of complex fraction problems and explaining clearly how to calculate the answer to the rest of the class

Woolsery:

Sunflowers: Albert and Joshua E  (cat) – both showing independent participation in messy art play

Cranford Class:  Oscar (cat) – always listening and wanting to learn more!; Harry (dolphin) – enthusiasm for looking at books and always wanting to go to the library to look at more.

Burscott Class: Mollie-Jo (tortoise) – showing resilience in her maths symmetry work this week; Alfie B – (spider) making links in his phonics learning… and always smiling!

Stroxworthy Class: Archie (tortoise) –  being resilient when writing his superb time-travelling story in English; Harrison (dolphin) – diving into his learning like a dolphin when writing his amazing descriptive time-travelling story in English. 

Alminstone Class: Robert (spider) – making links across his learning and for having a more positive attitude to everything he does; Melanija (tortoise) – being resilient in her learning and not giving up when she finds some activities challenging.

Ashmansworthy Class: Arthur (cat) –  thinking of interesting questions in Science from his bar charts and his invertebrate survey; Isaac (spider) – making links and connections in his final write for the Lion and the Unicorn

Family Group Points

The winning Family Group at Woolsery this half term is Willow (Mrs Newell’s group). Unfortunately due to staff absence, we’ve not been able to do the planned Family Group Treat, which was to decorate eggs. We will have a different treat for  Willow Family Group on the first Wednesday back, 27th April.

Well done also to Phoebe who won the raffle of Easter goodies organised by Arthur and Monty for FOWS funds – well done, Phoebe! This raised £33 for FOWS – great work, boys!

Mr Cole’s Work Pattern:

Happy Easter!

Have a lovely Easter Holiday. The schools reopen on Monday 25th April, the first official day of the Village Schools Partnership.

With best wishes

Matt Cole, Headteacher

Posted in Newsletters