A Friday night round up and a video from the House Captains
Dear Parents/ Carers,
Here we are at the end of a fun packed week of class assemblies, netball tournaments, workshops and so much more! Though there is a distinct chill in the air the days are getting longer. From next week, if you would like to join your child for lunch, please contact Miss Annora to book a place. We are also keen to have more volunteers to come into school and help with reading etc. Please contact me at head@ststephensce.lbhf.sch.uk if you would like to be a parent helper in school, we hope to get started with all this help from next week. Onwards and upwards!
The Life Bus
This week, our whole school has enjoyed taking part in online workshops led by Coram Education in lieu of the ‘Life Bus’. This is the second year in a row that the workshops have taken place via zoom and they have been a great success. Sarah – our Coram representative – knows the school well and all pupils were excited to work through the chosen activities for the various sessions. Early Years and Key Stage 1 children learned about keeping their bodies healthy, managing feelings and being a good friend. Keystage 2 children explored emotional needs, choices that can affect health and well-being, qualities of friendship and also learnt strategies for looking after their emotional needs. This online session compliments our ‘Relationships and Health Education’ curriculum and is a great opportunity for teachers to see what they know when introduced to a third party.
House Captains Sunday Lunch
A date for the diary is the House Captain’s Sunday Lunch Club – Sunday, 27th March. As part of their commitment for fundraising for their 3 chosen charities (Afghan Welcome, Great Ormond Street and Plastic Oceans) and their end of year school trip, they have decided to literally cook up a storm! So, on 27th March the school hall will become a dining room and we will be offering a three course meal with a vegetarian option from 1.00pm onwards. There will also be a cash bar. Please reserve a table via parentmail £150 per table of 8, £20 per head, £15 per child and £350 for a private dining experience for 14 with wine – child care available before/ during/ after the meal. Here we are coming up with the idea https://youtu.be/k6nqqz2R5_s
Lateness
A reminder to ensure that your children are at school on time and by 9am please. As you are all aware, doors open from 8.45am- our soft start. A prompt start to the day is best for everyone, so set that alarm a little earlier to get us all started in the right way.
Country Cultures Evening
As many of you will know, each year we have an evening of celebration of a different culture within our school. This year it is all things French! So could I please ask our French speaking parents to contact me head@ststephensce.lbhf.sch.uk so that we can set a date and start planning a wonderful evening. Thank you!
Year 3 Nichols Assembly
Mr Faith’s Year 3 class took us on a whirlwind tour of everything to do with computers – so many long technical words! The children were superb and their acting skills were very impressive. They took to the stage with supreme confidence and even threw in Sir Alan Sugar and Sir Clive Sinclair for good measure. A massive thank you to all the parents who joined us!
Netball
We were delighted to be allowed to take two teams to the Hammersmith & Fulham Netball 5s competition this week, after a team pulled out last minute, giving more children the opportunity to compete in this Borough tournament which is held annually at Godolphin & Latymer.
Both teams played fantastic netball from the start. We were particularly impressed with the B team as they hadn’t trained together as a team, but got through the group stages without losing a match, and therefore won their group. The A team won two matches very comfortably but drew two against very strong teams including Ravenscourt Prep, so they came second in their group. This of course meant a semi-final clash between our A and B team, which was won by the A team. They then met Ravenscourt Prep again in the final. This time though, with our rotations putting everybody at their strongest positions for the final, they won the match very impressively with some incredibly accurate shooting and excellent defending and passing. All members of both teams should be very proud of themselves, and the A team will go on to represent the Borough at the London Youth Games finals in March.
History Workshops
Last week, St. Stephen’s were lucky enough to have our school taken back in time for some amazing History workshops for our Year 2 and Year 5 children (The Great Fire of London and World War One). Through drama and a range of fascinating resources, it gave the children an opportunity to immerse themselves in what it would have been like to live through these times in history.
Book Corners
As part of our ongoing commitment to enabling our children to develop as readers and to enjoy their reading experiences, this term we have completed a survey of all the Keystage 2 classes regarding their reading preferences and habits. We discussed with them their opinions about book choices, class book corners and the library. The overwhelming majority expressed a strong preference for books chosen from the library, due to the greater variety on offer, newness of the books and ability to find specific books or books on particular topics. Some quotes include:
‘The books in the library are more exciting’; ‘In the library, I can borrow all the books in my favourite series’; ‘it’s easier to find things in the library’; ‘in the book corner, everyone wants the same few books but in the library there are loads of good books so everyone is happy.’
In consequence of this consultation with the children, and their teachers, we are changing the way we provide access to reading for pleasure books in KS2 from next half term. The classrooms will continue to have a small selection of quality texts, as chosen by the class. These will be supplemented each half term with a curated box of books from the library. These will include a selection of fiction and nonfiction books and including poetry books. On top of this, children will continue to visit the library once a week with their class and borrow a book. We are in the process of arranging a library club to be held at lunchtime twice a week for children who would like to exchange their book before their class session or just have some quiet reading time in the library.
Books taken out of class book corners will be reviewed and either put into the library collection for recirculation or sold at an after school book sale event at the beginning of the next half term. All proceeds of this sale will go towards buying further new books for the library.
We are committed to providing our children with quality texts from which they can draw inspiration and enjoyment and find themselves and their experiences represented. By centralising our books in this way, we are able to ensure that this is and continues to be the case and also that money for new books is best spent and benefits all.
The book corner books in Key stage 1 and Early Years will remain, and continue to be added to and reviewed, to ensure a good and representative mix of texts are available for the children to read.
Have a lovely weekend.
Mr Schumm
