Lane End Primary School

July - Newsletter (3rd July 2015)

Dear Parents/Carers,

We have had an exciting, energetic and inspiring fortnight: Zambian visitors, sponsored skip, two sports days, Girls cricket and football tournaments, class assemblies, our elephant sculpture, the sculpture competition, voting for the trim trail, junior production rehearsals, young entrepreneurs not to mention all of the learning and activity that goes on in each class every day. Let’s have a closer look at some of those events:

Well done to our Girls Football Team coached by Miss Rainey. Miss Rainey also organised the annual girls football tournament and we hosted it at Lane End and (once again) Lane End won! That’s three years in a row now, beating much bigger state and independent schools to be crowned champions! A great team effort – well done all!

Well done to our Girls Cricket Team coached by Mr Toyne who played very well at the borough finals – although we didn’t progress any further in the competition the team spirit and cricket on display was excellent.

Both our Infant and Junior Sports Days went very well and were lovely events to share with parents and relatives. Thank you for coming and for bearing with us (and the weather) for the Junior sports day as we had to change the date. All of the children competed brilliantly and the Yellow Team (Yellowhammers) triumphed in the end for the Juniors and the Blue Team (Kingfishers) for the Infants.

Our teacher visitors from Zambia thoroughly enjoyed their visit and we all learnt a lot from each other. They presented us with a book full of work and letters from their children, answered our many questions during an assembly, helped us with our sponsored skip and went into every class to work with and talk to the children. Our International School Council went with the teachers and Mr Vallance to do a tour of Lyme Park and our Year 2 children took part in a sports event with the children from St Simons and St Peters school along with our visitors. The Zambian teachers also put their handprint on our elephant sculpture along with all of the children and staff at school. The elephant will go in the garden once Mrs Rogers has finished off the final details and varnish – you’ll be able to see it at our Open Evening – it really looks fantastic.

Well done to our wildlife sculpture completion winners: Alfie Aughton, Kieran Stringer, Olivia Lennon and Isobel Smith. The standard of entries was extremely high and we were impressed with both the number and quality of the sculptures – well done all. We will keep them in school for display as they all look so good.

Our sponsored skip was another fun and energetic event and the children (and staff!) skipped very well indeed – 3 minutes is a lot longer than you think when you’re skipping! Thank you to everyone who has already brought their sponsor money back for Cancer Research UK and The British Heart Foundation – we already have an amazing (and very symmetrical) £1111 and I know there’s a lot more to come in. Please could you return it next week, thank you.

 Thank you very much for all of the votes for the extra £5000 for our trim trail flooring – we got over 370 votes in the end and I know lots of people were drumming up support and votes and we really appreciate it. A big thank you to Bev Sangster, our PTA chair, who spear-headed our campaign! We will know next week whether we have been successful, fingers crossed.

It is our Open Evening on Wednesday (8^th July) from 6-8pm. We really hope to see you all there. You will be able to look round your child’s current classroom, classroom for next year and meet and talk to their teachers – please do have a look at the work all around the school whilst you are here. Reports will also come home on Wednesday next week (not Tuesday as previously advertised). Children will have some time in their new classes before the end of term.

Teachers and Teaching Assistants for next year are shown below:

Mrs McCoy will continue to be our main cover teacher and cover some of our junior teachers’ PPA. We are pleased to welcome back Mrs Mealand who is returning as a Year 5 class teacher having received her qualified teacher status. She came for interview along with the shortlist of other teachers from our many applicants and performed brilliantly at both interview and the observed lesson. We are also pleased to have employed Miss Sweeney as a full time teaching assistant from September. Both Mrs Mealand and Ms Preskey (who is returning from maternity leave in October) will be at our open evening.

Year 1 – Swashbuckle TV episode – the Year 1 children will appear as the audience on the Cbeebies show ‘Swashbuckle’ broadcast on Sunday 19^th July at 11:00 on the CBeebies Channel. Parents and children from Year 1 are invited to watch the episode in the school hall together!

Jackpot - Our Year 3 Young Entrepreneurs –are selling their cake mix jars after school on Wednesday outside the Year 3 classroom. They cost £2.99 each and look fantastic.

Junior parents – we have more tickets available now on a first come first served basis for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Tickets cost £2.50 each.

Cross Country – the last cross country club training session for this term will be on Friday 17^th July.

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