Lane End Primary School

June - Newsletter 24 (26th June 2014)

Dear Parents/Carers,

Sports day – well done to all of our juniors on an excellent sports day. Everyone competed well and the green team triumphed in the end. It was great to see so many parents and relatives there and there was a lovely supportive atmosphere throughout – thank you. The level of sport in the school is constantly improving and this showed during the sports day – we were very impressed with the way the children took part.

Our girls are doing extremely well competitively and the football team are now the undisputed best team in Stockport and 4^th best team in Greater Manchester after representing Stockport at the Greater Manchester tournament and winning the local tournament held at Lane End last week. At the local tournament they beat private school teams and large primary teams (Cheadle Hulme School, Greenbank, Hursthead, Cheadle Catholic and Bradshaw Hall) without losing one game! The girls cricket team also won the Stockport tournament and are now through to the Cheshire finals which are next week in Warrington.

Infant Sports – this is scheduled for next Monday at 9:30am. We have our fingers crossed for good weather however the forecast isn’t good for Monday at the moment. If we do need to cancel we’ll put a sign up on the morning but also send you a text.

Connecting Classrooms – as I hope you already know we have a link with three schools in Zambia. A teacher from each of these schools is coming over to Stockport on Saturday and will be staying for the week and visiting the three Stockport schools involved in the link: Lane End, St Simons and St Peters. They will be in Lane End all day on Tuesday and will talk to each class about Zambia and schools in Zambia and then see how we work so they can take information back with them. The Co-operative store on Gillbent Road have kindly agreed to support us with some food for the teachers on the visit and as part of a local community link we went over this morning with some of the children from our International School Council to open their new look store! There is some information on our website about some of the work we have done so far over the years with our Connecting Classrooms link – look for the tab on the left hand-side of the website.

Summer fair – the summer fair went really well and was a lovely family occasion. Thank you very much to the PTA for the super organisation and to everyone who helped in anyway – it’s much appreciated. Thank you for all the tombola prizes and selling raffle tickets too. It’s always helpful to have more helpers on the day of the fair so please do consider helping next time if you weren’t able to this year. We were lucky with the weather and everyone seemed to have a good time – we also raised approximately £2100 which is fantastic!

The PTA Summer Ball is on Saturday 5^th July – please send in your reply for tickets by tomorrow (Friday 27^th June) if you’ve not done so already. If you have a prize you could donate for the raffle at the ball it would be much appreciated.

Singing School – each class has been working with Mrs Nelson or Mr Henderson (2 of Stockport’s singing teachers) this year along with their class teacher to learn new songs and musical techniques as part of our ‘singing school’ work. Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 performed some of their songs to the school on Tuesday and Years 4, 5 and 6 did the same on Wednesday. Each class sang beautifully and were presented with a certificate for their participation in the programme. We’ve videoed the singing and will put it on the VLE in the podcasts section by the end of the week – please have a look!

Dinners – The cost of a school dinner is rising to £2.30 from September - £11.50 per week. Our school dinners are all cooked in our school kitchen and offer a healthy and balanced meal. From September children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 will receive a free school meal if parents want this. A letter will be coming home to Year 1 and Reception parents soon asking about your preference.

Woodwind assembly – parents/relatives of children who are learning woodwind instruments (guitar, flute, saxophone) are invited to an assembly on Thursday 17^th July at 10:00am.

Guitar assembly – parents/relatives of children who are learning the guitar are invited to an assembly on Wednesday 23^rd July at 9:30am.

Junior Production – Let Loose!   The children in Years 3, 4, and 5 have started learning the songs and the Year 6 are doing well with their parts and songs in preparation for the junior production on Tuesday 15^th and Wednesday 16^th July. Please help by making sure that all junior children are available on these evenings. A letter will come home soon with information about tickets etc.

Open Evening – a reminder that our open evening is on Wednesday 23^rd July from 6 – 8pm. We hope to see you all there.

Maths visits – I have been really pleased that each class has been able to invite parents in to see some of their maths teaching this year. It has been great to see parents in class to experience what the children and teachers do and helping out too. I hope that everyone who has been able to come in found it a useful experience.

Community Herb Garden – We have started a community herb garden within our school garden. Herbs have been planted which, when established, you will be able to pick a sprig from and take home to cook with (there will be an honesty box for donations). If anyone has any more herbs they’d be willing to donate for us to plant then please bring them in. The garden should be ready to pick from in September.

Message from Lane End Young Entrepreneurs –This year we have named our business ‘Healthy Heroes’. We want to sell healthy food to the pupils of Lane End. We have decided to dress up as Super Heroes as part of our marketing and were wondering if anyone could kindly lend us some junior sized super hero outfits. Please let us know if you can (via Mr Vallance). Our first sale is next Tuesday (1^st July) and everything costs less than 50p. Thank you – Lane End Entrepreneurs.

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