school news october 2016 v2 - reigate parish church...

Reigate Parish Church Primary School

Blackborough Road, Reigate, RH2 7DB, Tel: 01737 244476 Email: [email protected]

School News

The Half-Termly Newsletter Celebrating the Wonderful Learning

in our School in Autumn 1 2016

Welcome to the first edition of “School News” for 2016-2017

This half termly newsletter gives you some headline information on a range of very exciting

curriculum activities that our children have been involved with.

Topics this half term have included Year 2 looking at “The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch” and visiting

the Sealife Centre. Year 1 have made their beautiful poppies as part of their “Superhero” topic

where they looked at the heroes who fought in WW1. The poppies are stunning to look at. The

Reception children have all thoroughly enjoyed learning through play in their roleplay area, in

their classrooms and outside.

A Letter from Buckingham Palace to “The Children at Reigate Parish Church School”

We are very proud to have received a letter and a card from The Queen. One of her

Ladies-in -Waiting wrote thanking the children for the “splendid

card and handmade magazine” that we sent to her on the

occasion of her ninetieth birthday. The letter goes on to say “The

Queen greatly appreciates your kind words and was interested

to know you have been learning about her life and reign. Her

Majesty hopes you will understand that because of the

enormous number of letters and messages she has received it

was not possible to reply until now but that she thanks us very

much for our thoughts for The Queen at this time.” We will frame

the card and letter and put it in our school entrance.

The children were told in assembly today and we will let the Year 2 children know from last year

about this special letter as they worked hard on the card and magazine for The Queen.

2016 Summer Holiday Headteacher’s Challenge

This year we had 65 families take part in the voluntary summer holiday challenge.

Mrs Davis has the privilege to look at all the work the children have done over the summer holiday

(pictures, photos, writing, reading, collages, maths and lots

more) and this year handed out 27 gold certificates, 22 silver

certificates and 16 bronze certificates.



Reception Autumn 1 Topic has been “Ourselves”

The children brought in photos of their families and talked about their family members. They also

labelled the people from their family that were in the photo. Many children were able to write

their own name and used some of the sounds they have been learning in phonics such as “m” for

mummy and “d” for daddy. The children have enjoyed painting in the style of Jackson Pollack

and flicking paint onto paper. These paintings are displayed in their classrooms. On the last day of

this half term children are celebrating the class’ bears birthdays with a party. The children have

enjoyed making the bears presents from different construction resources, wrapping them and

writing cards for the bears.

Year 1’s Superhero Topic

In Year 1 they have read and discussed a

variety of fantastic fantasy stories about

superheroes. They have used ideas from

these stories to make up their own

adventures in their superhero role-play

area. Using their brilliant imaginations

they created their own superheroes and

wrote character descriptions to explain

their appearance and powers. What a

SUPER start to the year!

Year 1’s WW1 Day

The children in Year 1 came to school on Thursday 13th

October dressed in wonderful costumes from the

past. They enjoyed tasting some typical foods which

families would have had in their larders and had fun

learning the song 'It's a Long Way to Tipperary' whilst

marching around the classroom!

They also made super Bi-plane models and were

excellent doctors and nurses in their war camp role-

play. It was a brilliant day and it really helped to bring

their learning to life.



Year 2 Visit to Seaside Centre in Brighton

Year 2 have been learning about the seaside and on Tuesday 4th

October, they went to the Sealife Centre. The children enjoyed seeing

all the sea creatures and especially liked seeing the Leatherback

Turtles. The children then went on the beach to look at the physical

and human features and also to play some games on the beach.

Year 2’s DT project linked to their Seaside Project

This half term the Year 2 children have been learning all about the

seaside. In their DT lessons they have been planning how they could

design and make a lighthouse, just like the one from ‘The Lighthouse

Keeper’s Lunch’. They have made pulleys so that the lunch basket

could be pulled up to the top of the lighthouse! They are really looking

forward to their DT day, where they will be able to construct their

designs and review their work once it’s finished.

Year 3’s Fantastic Forces

Year 3 have enjoyed finding out about their topic "Fantastic Forces." This half term they have

visited Reigate Priory Park to feel the force of pushing, pulling and friction on the different

equipment.

The children explored magnetism and used it to create their own plays, moving the characters by

attracting or repelling the magnets. They should feel very proud of their hard work, summed up in

their fantastic forces information page.

Year 3’s Display of our Houses

Year 3 have erected a wonderful display in the hall of the five new houses. There are the questions

the children have asked, information on the historical person and a picture of each famous

individual. It will be a great display to help us to get to know our five eminent people.



PE this year at Reigate Parish

This year is an exciting year in PE, with more students getting the opportunity to experience

external sporting competitions. Pupils from Year 2 will be randomly selected to participate in three

multi-skills festivals that will take place throughout the year. In Year 3 all students will be given the

opportunity to participate in a cross country run in February and there will also be a gymnastics

and athletics competition that will take place. Furthermore our PE Specialist teacher Mrs Seddon-

Hall is in the process of organising some friendly football matches here at school that every Year 3

pupil can take part in. Overall it should be a great year. As more PE events are organised then

school will let parents know.

Collective Worship

This half term our assemblies have focused on the value of friendship, respect and Harvest. This

year for the first time Year 3 led a very special assembly to their parents and to the rest of the

school. They spoke about their favourite foods, where food comes from and why we should be

thankful for all the food available to us in this country. We also, for the first time ever, had a live

cookery demonstration because “Ready Steady Cook” visited and the two teams of children

made a delicious fruit salad during their assembly.

School Council

The School Council in the Autumn Term comprises of two children

from each class in Year 3, 2, and 1 and they meet with Mrs Davis

every two weeks to talk about different topics, such organising a

friendship day and signing the school’s anti-bullying charter. After

the meetings the councillors then have time with their class to talk

about their meeting and often they ask their class to do an

activity, such as all the children in the school have worked in

groups and constructed a pipe cleaner sculpture to showcase

something from our school vision, values and aims statement. A

selection of these are on display in the school. Mrs Davis types up

the minutes so the teachers can read about the council meetings. The councillors change every

term and in the Spring and Summer Term the Reception children join the school council.

The Bike It Crew

Children from Year 1, 2 and 3 have to complete a simple

application form to complete if they want to join the Bike It

Crew. Then the successful child per class meets with Mrs Davis

every two weeks. To date they have promoted two

competitions, encouraged their class to enter the Road Safety

Poster competition and have introduced “Pedals” the Bike It

Bear to the school. Children throughout the school then have

the opportunity to take Pedals home for the weekend and they

are asked to write / take photos / draw a picture of their

weekend with Pedals in his special book. All the Bike It Crew are

pleased that the cycle shelter hoops have been moved so than bicycles and scooters can be



stored securely on the school site. Look out for the Bike It Crew’s Wordsearch competition that is

going home today. Each Term the membership of the Bike It Crew changes.

Attendance

Last academic year the school achieved 97.71% attendance, beating the attendance

percentage from last year (97.51%) and exceeding the target set by the Education Welfare

Officer of 96.9%.

Our target this year remains at 96.9% and with the continued support from parents we can make

sure that children are in school to learn. Accompanying this newsletter is an “Attendance

Information” leaflet and the updated Attendance Policy is on the school’s website. To date we

have achieved 98.75% attendance, with 1.2% authorised absence (illness) and 0.05%

unauthorised absence (holiday)

..and finally

I wish you a lovely Autumnal half term holiday and we will see the children back on Monday 31st

October for another fun and exciting half term of learning.

school news october 2016 v2 - reigate parish church...

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