A Friday update with some key dates from Mr Schumm
Dear Parents/ Carers,
It’s not raining! What a lovely day to finish this half term on, without your winter coat! We have had a fantastic half term and are now well and truly in the thick of summer term madness. Grab a coffee – I have quite a few updates!
The school production is Bugsy Malone and Miss Whiting and I have had a terrific week holding auditions. We have so many talented children, but the thing we love the best is their confidence and ‘have a go’ attitude. It makes me feel so incredibly proud when the children get up in front of their, always supportive, peers and act their socks off! I showed some prospective parents around this week and one of them stated, and I quote “I had heard that the children at St Stephen’s were very confident and happy, but this is unbelievable!” I smiled, burst in to a song from Bugsy Malone and ended in the splits – I don’t like to be too over the top on a first meeting… I will send home class Bugsy Malone song lyrics today – you know you love a good singalong over half term!
Today was Good Work Assembly and we listened to all the superb achievements your children have made this week. Vidia, from Reception, came and told us all about dinosaurs – frankly I couldn’t get him off the Zoom, he was so filled with facts! We finished our whole school assembly by thanking God for this half term and for helping to keep us safe as we emerge from our long tunnel into the summer sunshine – sounds like something from The Railway Children – ‘keep of the line Bobby’.
Whilst praying for our school community, we also prayed for Mr Perry and Susie who are getting married next Saturday. We prayed for a long and happy life together, that Mr Perry would get through the service without crying and that God would fill him with a sense of calm and tranquillity, which would gently replace the stress and ‘rabbit in the headlights’ feelings he has occasionally mentioned.
This week the whole school went design and technology mad and was literally cooking up a storm. Check out the website for a full run down of the culinary delights of our cooktastic children – www.ststephensce.lbhf.sch.uk or follow us on Twitter (we love a like) @StStephensLBHF.
I also enclose a copy of the newsletter from Gardening Club telling us about what they have been learning about and some fun activities for half term.
Please see the attached copy of our school values and mission statement. I am meeting with an artist after half term to ‘reinvent the big blue wall’ in the main playground and would greatly value any decorative ideas you may have for the wall linked to the values and vision. Please get in touch with ideas via head@ststephensce.lbhf.sch.uk
Our children have been very busy on the sports front this term, managing to fit in plenty of fixtures whilst complying with Covid guidance. Last week, we took two teams to a football tournament organised by QPR. The children were thrilled to get to play on QPR’s home pitch at the Kiyan Prince Foundation. We brought home our first trophy since the pandemic began, after both teams played each other in the final. We also took two Year 4 teams to a ‘kwik cricket’ tournament organised by Wetherby up at Club des Sports. The wet and windy conditions were fairly appalling for cricket, but that didn’t stop the children putting their hard work from this term’s PE into practice in a match context.
This week all of our Year 5 and 6 children enjoyed a cricket festival at Shepherds Bush Cricket Club, where they all played one intra-school match and one match against St Peter’s Primary School. Again, it was wonderful to see such fine playing in such a great open space. On Thursday, Wetherby Prep School hosted us once again – this time, it was Year 5s who got to enjoy their hospitality and play some excellent team cricket. Finally, some of our Year 4s have been enjoying targeted tennis coaching in Hammersmith Park, with more groups expected to take up this opportunity later in the term. Hopefully plenty more sports fixtures coming up for the second half of term.
Despite the indecisive weather last week, the children took up the Walk to School challenge with gusto! We hope you all had the opportunity to do a little more walking than usual and there was a certain spring in your step. We last took up this initiative in October 2020 and have managed to increase the total number of walking trips to school by 300, which is fantastic. More walking = more oxygen to our lungs = more energy = more creativity = more time to reconnect. We collected Walk to School points by School House and by Class. The class who averaged an impressive 97% walk rate was Year 4 Rosen Class. The school house who amassed the most single walks was Aylward, who totalled 394 journeys to school. A bit of a cliché but in fact we’re all winners – well done all!
Imperial College are running a few free workshops for children during half term which might be of interest – they look great!
http://www.imperial.ac.uk/white-city-campus/community/
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/imperial-white-city-community-events-22727582165
We are delighted to announce that Mrs Foster had a baby girl on the 22 May – Rhiona Jean and mum are both doing very well and return home this weekend.
Over the last few weeks the Senior Leadership Team has been engaged in a series of Learning Walks across the school to observe the quality of teaching and learning at St Stephen’s. It has been wonderful to see the degree of engagement children have in lessons, the confidence with which they can talk about their learning and the excellent range of opportunities provided by staff. This is an important process in our efforts to provide outstanding educational provision.
Here are a list of key dates for the next half term but please be mindful that these dates could be subject to change cancellation – positive thoughts, positive thoughts are the order of the day.
Key Event Dates – timings and information for various events nearer the event.
Please note there will be other class / FOSS/ sports events that will be added to the calendar throughout the next half term.
7th June – INSET Day
8th June – Children return to school
18th June – Class Photos
16th June – New Nursery Parent Meeting at 6.30pm
17th June – New Nursery children to visit at 9.30am
21st – 25th June – Year 6 Residential trip
28th June – New Reception Parent Meeting at 6.30pm
29th June – New Reception children to visit at 9.30am
30th June – Year 1 Transition Meeting for current Reception Parents
30th June – Sports Day – Nursery, Reception and Year 1
1st July – Sports Day – Year 2,3,4,5 and 6
10th July – Summer Fair
13th, 14th (morning and evening performance), and 15th July – Whole School Play – Bugsy Malone (evening performances at 6.30 pm – children back at school for 6pm to get ready and Wednesday’s morning performance at 9.30 am – Reception, Year 1 and 2 are at the beginning of the performance so are collected early.)
19th July – Church v School Cricket Match
21st July – The Great St Stephen’s Summer Drinks Party for parents/ carers organised by the school – 7.30pm onwards.
22nd July – Year 6 Leavers BBQ
23rd July – Whole School Leavers Service
Have a lovely half term and see you for a great end to a rather eventful year!
Kind regards,
Mr Schumm
