Lane End Primary School

March - Newsletter 18 (30th March 2017)

Dear Parents/Carers,

We’re having a great week celebrating our 50^th anniversary and thinking about school and life 50 years ago, in the present day and what it might be like in 50 years’ time.

On Monday the children found out about the history of the school using our physical timeline and then this theme continued in a special assembly on Tuesday morning. It was lovely to be able to welcome some of our past staff and pupils to school on Tuesday and they joined us for the assembly and then stayed to talk to the children in class about their memories of Lane End – we were even joined by two past pupils from the very first intake to Lane End in April 1967!

The children looked fantastic in their 1960s outfits and costumes on Monday – thank you for all of your support with this; it got the week off to a great start.

  The presentation I used in assembly which is full of photos from the history of the school is available on our VLE at the top of the Parents/Whole School section if you’d like to have a look. We will also put the physical timeline out again on Friday 23^rd June – that date marks the day of the official opening of the school in 1967 and is the day we are going to bury our time capsule (which will be filled with some of the children’s work from this week) to be opened in 50 years’ time. Thank you to parents/carers who work for/run companies/businesses which have already agreed to sponsor our time capsule – please do let us know if your company/business would like to support school in this way; all business names will be put on a plaque/sign for everyone to see. Thank you as well to Shaun Holdom from CSL Digital and Rob Titterington from Think Ink Solutions for kindly donating the fantastic 50^th anniversary banners you can see outside and in school.

Whole School Photo – We managed to get the whole school photo taken today in between light showers! The photographers were full of praise for how sensible the children were and it promises to be a lovely memento from our 50^th anniversary. The photos will be on sale after the Easter holidays.

50^th anniversary celebrations to come in June - On 23^rd June we will also hold our sponsored jog, street party and PTA picnic! You are all invited to the assembly that morning at 9:30am which will be outside (weather permitting!), to cheer the children along during their sponsored jog and then to the PTA picnic that evening.

Parent Governor Election Result – thank you very much to both Stephanie Carrey and Adam Wilson for their nominations; it is great that we are able to have two people willing to put themselves forward and support school. We received a lot of votes for each candidate – Stephanie Carrey received 41 votes and Adam Wilson received 82 votes and so Adam Wilson was elected to the role to start after the Easter holidays.

Mad Science – We’ve had a number of responses to the Mad Science club but not enough to hold both a KS1 and a KS2 club. Mad Science have said they can hold one club for both age groups starting on Monday 15^th May. We will assume this is ok with everyone who has replied unless you let us know otherwise. Thank you.

Red Nose Day – Very well done to Noah and Timothy Ruddick and all of their helpers who organised our Red Nose Day bake sale. Thank you to everyone, both children and adults, who supported by both making and buying the cakes! The sale looked fantastic and the children were queuing around the playground to make sure they got a cake! It raised a brilliant £180.20 for Comic Relief.

Our Red Nose Day PTA Disco was also a great success raising more money for Comic Relief and all of the children seemed to have a good time! Thank you very much to the PTA for their excellent organisation once again.

Staff News – Miss Rainey finishes for her maternity leave this week and we wish her all the best at this exciting time. Miss Joseph has been in school and met the class and has also been in to plan with Miss Rainey and so is all ready to start teaching Year 2 after the holidays – we will all make her feel very welcome again.

School Sport – Well done to our cross country runners: both the boys and girls team came third overall in the school competition. Two of our Year 6 runners did particularly well in the individual competition: Dylan came second out of all of the boys (coming 2^nd or 3^rd in every race) and Ava came 5^th out of all of the girls.  Thank you to Mrs Li for taking the training and organising the competitions. Now the schools’ competition is over for the year the club will still continue after Easter but in a new guise for the summer - as a fitness club focusing on exercise and running. Existing cross country members can continue and there is space for new members to join – the club letter for applications will come home after the holidays.

Country Dance – our Country Dance club went to the Town Hall with Mrs Chamberlain on 13^th March for the Country Dance Festival. They performed brilliantly and are carrying on a tradition from the school’s history as you will see in the 50^th Anniversary presentation on the VLE!

Football – our footballers also did us proud at the Powerleague Tournament with Mr Toyne. Both the Y5 and Y6 football teams played well and Y6 got to the semi-finals out of 30 teams!

Choir – Our choir are sounding beautiful in their weekly practices with Mrs Stutfield and Mrs Toyne and are looking forward to performing at the Choir Festival tonight at Stockport Town Hall. There is a lovely video on our Twitter account of choir’s first rehearsal of the song which Mrs Stutfield has written for Lane End – ‘Tomorrow Relies on You’.

Sainsbury’s Active Kids Vouchers – we are still collecting the vouchers which can be used to buy sports equipment and other resources for school. Please do send these in to school if you have any. Thank you.

Walk of Light  - One of our families is raising money for Andy’s Man Club, a male suicide prevention group and a club aimed at getting men to open up about their mental health problems which gives a space to talk about problems without judgement or feeling like a burden. You can find out more about their cause on this website: www.patchpower.co.uk    On the 23 April 2017 they will be walking 5k to raise money for this cause in a ‘Walk of Light’ and wanted parents/carers to know so that you can support if you are able to.

We break up for the Easter holidays after school on Friday (31^st March) and the children are due back in school on Tuesday 18^th April.

Have a lovely Easter break everybody.

Yours sincerely,  

James Twigg