Lane End Primary School

July - Newsletter 25 (15th July 2015)

Dear Parents/Carers,

Playgroup - It was announced late last week that the playgroup at the Methodist Church would be closing as they aren’t able to sustain the morning only hours. They have been a big part of the community for a long time (nearly 50 years) and a lot of our children attended the playgroup when they were younger. To say thank you and goodbye and celebrate the good-times you are invited to the Methodist Church at 12:15 this Friday for cakes, tea and coffee – everyone is welcome. Mrs Stockley and Mrs Barnsley from the playgroup are coming in to school on Thursday to work with Reception. We also extend our thanks and best wishes to all of the staff.

PTA picnic – Friday from 6:30pm –8:30pm. Pay on the door (£1 for adults, free for children). All children must be accompanied by a parent. Bring your picnic to enjoy on the field. We’ll also have inflatables and some fun events. Hope to see you there - fingers crossed for good weather!

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory- the children are doing a brilliant job in our junior production and there’s just one more show tonight. Mrs Rogers is taking some photos so we will put some of these on the website next week.

Volunteers - We are very fortunate to have some excellent volunteers at Lane End who help in many of the classes – some of our volunteers are students and some are parents or grandparents. We also have some volunteers who are able to give us extra expertise which benefits all of the children. For example, Mrs Stutfield, who runs our choir with Mrs Toyne, has been a regular feature in school recently as she has helped so much with the singing in the junior production. Also Mrs Paddock and Mrs Graham have been acting as our librarians on a voluntary basis for a number of years now. Thank you to all of our volunteers for your hard work and all of the talent, support and enthusiasm that you bring to the school - it really is appreciated.

Parent Questionnaire – these were sent out last week. Thank you to everyone who has already returned their questionnaire. We’d really appreciate your feedback. Please return all completed questionnaires by Friday. We use the questionnaires when forming our school improvement plans.

Sports Awards – I am pleased to let you know that we have just been presented with two Stockport School Sport Partnership Awards. One for our commitment to participation in PE, Sport and Physical Activity and the other for 100% pupil participation in the Skip4Life challenge. We raised a fantastic £1342 from the sponsored skipping event – thank you for your generosity. We are pleased to offer all of the children a rich diet of sport and physical exercise in school through their weekly P.E. session and their weekly games session as well as the large number of sports clubs we have on offer. We also have some exciting news about our curriculum P.E. and games provision from September as all classes from Year 1 – Year 6 will be working with expert sports coaches from individual sports each week over the year. More details will follow in September.

Hallé Trip – As parents of our instrumentalists and choir know, and others of you may have heard, we were disappointed that our instrumentalists and choir weren’t able to attend the ‘Come and Play with The Hallé’ event at the Bridgwater Hall as planned because we were let down by the coach company. The Belle Vue coach company was booked by Stockport Music Service as part of the event, however Belle Vue sub-contracted the service to another coach firm which then made an error with the booking.

 Despite our best efforts in speaking with Belle Vue, the coach failed to turn up and the children had been waiting for a long time.  Our staff and the children responded very well throughout and although understandably upset and disappointed, the children were very sensible, understanding and well behaved.

I have spoken to Phil Hitchen, Managing Director, from Belle Vue and he has given us a full apology and assured me that they are reviewing their systems and procedures so this does not happen again. He has also been in discussions with the Stockport Music Service who booked and paid for the coach. He wants to help recompense for the missed opportunity and is trying to sort something out with Stockport Music Service for our children for the new academic year. In the meantime, because we are currently supporting The Seashell Trust charity, Belle Vue are giving us the cost of a coach (£225) to add to the donations to the charity.

As mentioned by Mrs Toyne in the letter to parents involved, the children are performing their instruments at the upcoming music assemblies and the choir will also be performing their two Hallé songs at both of these assemblies - so choir parents are also very welcome to join us. The assemblies are on the dates listed below as mentioned in previous newsletters:

Woodwind Assembly – Parents/relatives of children who learn flute, clarinet or saxophone at school are invited to an assembly at 10am on Thursday 16^th July.

Guitar Assembly – Parents/relatives of children who learn guitar at school are invited to an assembly at 10am on Wednesday 22^nd July.

We will of course also be refunding the £3 for each child who was due to go on the Hallé trip – this will be put in an envelope and returned via your child as soon as possible.

We are fortunate to have an active Local Authority music service in Stockport, which is able to provide many inspiring events which our children enjoy taking part in. Although not his fault at all, Craig Eastwood, head of Stockport Music Service has been very supportive and also has some ideas for extra musical opportunities for our children – including seeing if it is possible for some of the Hallé orchestra to visit us in school in September. Added to this we can book the Hallé trip again for our instrumentalists and choir next July and hopefully we’ll have a lot more luck! Although this doesn’t help the Year 6 children I know most of you have been on the Halle trip before and if you carry on your musical instrument and/or participation in choir you will have many more opportunities in the future at high school too.

Playing an instrument or joining the choir has many benefits: musical, social, academic and cultural and we are very pleased to offer these opportunities to your children. There will be a letter coming home from Mrs Toyne next week about instrument tuition which children can start in Year 4 – Mr Gosling teaches our woodwind and Mrs Yates teaches our guitar. We are looking to move the after school choir to a Tuesday in September as then they will have some opportunity to use the hall. This information will come home with the club letter in September. Thanks again for your support.

We aim to be approachable and work in partnership with parents, so if there is anything you wish to discuss, please do not hesitate to come and talk to us.

Yours sincerely,

James Twigg