June 2016

Issue 26

10.06.16

St John’s Primary School

Wallingford

Newsletter

Dear Parents,

We have really enjoyed our first week back of Term 6, learning about the Global Goals. We launched the week with a whole school assembly asking the children what their hopes were for the world in 2030. As staff we were very impressed with their thoughtful responses. Throughout the week children have been learning more about the goals in class and some of you may have received a poster or leaflet home. I would like to thank James Hooper, Barbara Kelly and Shane Touhey who all came in to talk to the children in con-nection with the goals. Teachers will continue to pick up on the goals through their topics and in assemblies. Please see the examples of the learning attached with this newsletter.

Year 4 have enjoyed their Residential to Court Hill this week, taking part in lots of outdoor activities—a scav-enger hunt, tree-climbing, picnic lunch and a football match included, and sleeping fairly well I’m told! Mr Chandler told the children they were an absolute pleasure to take away—and they all had a great time. Thank you very much to all of the staff who helped out over the two days—Mr Chandler, Mrs Burgess, Miss Miles, Mrs Colbourne, Mrs Brotherton, Mrs Perry and our Forest School staff, Melanie and Emily, who joined the children today. Next week it is the turn of Year 3 with their Sleepover in the hall.

We have had two sporting events this week. Year 3 took part in a Tennis Festival at Wallingford School. Miss Doman said the children were ‘amazing’! They were taught by Year 7 and 8 pupils at Wallingford School and the children told me they learnt to serve, play a backhand and forehand shot, volley and play some min-matches. They thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon. Our Year 5/6 boys swimming team took part in a comple-tion at Gillotts School and were an absolute credit to St John’s, swimming really well and showing excellent sportsmanship. Ms Beckett was very proud of them; they came 3rd out of 6 schools. Well done boys! And thank you to Mrs Fanstone for helping to transport, and for supporting the children.

I would also like to say a big thank you to Mrs Seymour who ran an Olympics Club for us in Term 5 with our Key Stage 1 children. The children had a great time and it was lovely that we were able to offer a sporting club for the younger children. Mr Earl has also run a Rugby Club for us over the past months and accompa-nied children to tournaments and I would like to thank him for his time. Along with Mr Beasley who ran our Football Club, this meant that we had a really good range of sporting clubs running last term. I am very grateful to our volunteers.

Year 2 have begun work on their contribution for the OPEN Schools Art Exhibition which will take place at the Cornerstone in Didcot in early July. The theme is ‘Britain’ and our children are working on portraits of the Queen. Thank you to Mabel’s Mum, Mrs Whitehead for coming along to help. She was very impressed with how well the children were following instructions and getting on with their printing today. We will ad-vertise more details of the exhibition nearer the time.

Finally, if anyone is able to help us to put up a blackboard, clock and alphabet in our Foundation Playground, could you please let us know. The Love your School Day team ran out of time. It requires a masonry drill!

Year 5 and 6 are holding a screening of Bugsy Malone at the Corn Exchange tonight, in order to prepare for their production and to raise some money for end of term events. Many thanks once again to the Corn Ex-change for hosting us. We look forward to seeing many of you there!

Nicky Hughes

Issue 26 Page 2

Important dates for your diaries…

Thurs 16th June - Year 3 sleepover

Friday 17th June - Year 2 Eats4Treats 3pm

Friday 24th June—Dragon’s Den Sale

Friday 24th June - PTFA School Picnic 5-9pm

Thurs 30th June - FS and Year 1 trip

Thurs 30th June - Fri 1st July - Year 5 residential

Mon - Year 6 performance

Tues - Year 6 performance

Wednesday 6th July - Year 6 Theatre Trip

Friday 8th July—Sports Day

Friday 8th July - Year 1 Eats4Treats 3pm

Tuesday 19th July - Year 6 Oxford treat

Wednesday 20th July

** End of term 6 - 1:30pm **

Term Dates 2016-2017 Term 1 05/09/2016 to Friday 21/10/16, Term 2 01/11/16 to 16/12/16, Term 3 04/01/17 to 10/02/17, Term 4 21/02/17 to 07/04/17, Term 5 24/04/17 to 26/05/17, Term 6 05/06/17 to 21/07/17

Inset Days 2016-2017

Thursday 01/09/2016, Friday 02/09/2016, Monday

31/10/2016, Tuesday 03/01/2017, Monday

20/02/2017

Value of the fortnight

Our value of the fortnight is Hope

School Dinners

This is advance notice that the price of a school dinner will go up to £2.15 from September 2016

PTFA Summer Picnic

Friday 24th June

5—9pm , School Field

Queen’s 90th Birthday

theme

BBQ and bar

Games on t he field

Cake making competi-

tion

Decorations

Children singing

Cooking Club Request …..

If you have any spare tea towels, can you

please donate them to Cooking club. Ours

seem to go missing…

Many thanks!

Page 3 Issue 26

Shane Touhey visiting from Sustainable Wallingford

as part of our Global Goals Week

Year 6 Dragon’s Den

Year 6 would like donations of clean tin cans, jam jars, plastic drink bottles, plastic bottle

tops, pillow cases and cup cake cases please!

They have started work on their Dragon’s Den topic and are aiming to re-use materials

when making their products to sell on 24th June.

Thank you.

Issue 26

Wow launch - Year 5 are learning about the Olympics this term and are discussing some of the issues around the world such as pov-erty. On the first day of the term we found a bundle on one of the tables which we un-wrapped about thought about where the items might have come from and who they might have belonged to. We also found a book called Trash which we are using to learn about ragpicking.

Balloons - In Year 5 we have been learning about how to punctuate speech correctly and remem-bering that it is only the actual words that are be-ing spoken which go inside the inverted commas. So, to help us remember this we put words which were being said inside balloons, blew the bal-loons up and popped them. The burst parts of the balloons became the inverted commas.

Year 6 started their ‘Come Dine with Me’ competition this

week. The children designed the menu, cooked and

served the food all independently and were scored by the

judges!

We look forward to other groups preparing and serving

their meals in future weeks—and the announcement of

the winners at the end of term!

Issue 26

Global Goals Week News

From Ferne, Martha and Scarlett in Year 3…

There are 17 goals by the United Nations

It has to be completed by 2030

You need to spread the news to your friends and family

Make sure you don’t waste food or litter

Some of us are very lucky so we have to appreciate our education, please help!

Oxfam

The first Oxfam was in Oxford

They found the name Oxfam from Oxford and Famine

Oxfam is a charity that helps people in danger

Oxfam give people a cow for producing milk and a chicken for laying eggs

Oxfam also teach people new skills like how to fish

From Evie and Meera in Year 6 …

Dear Miss Hughes,

We are writing to tell you about our visit from Mr Hooper. He came in to talk to the

class about the Nasio Trust. They are a group of volunteers who raise money for

poor families in Kenya. Every year they take some Year 11’s (the Year 11’s have to

raise about £3,000 each) and together they help build new houses for families who

can’t afford it.

Many people in Kenya suffer from jiggers, (a disease of the feet). Luckily, the Nasio

Trust help people get rid of them then provide shoes to stop adults and children

getting them again. The Nasio Trust make a huge difference to people’s lives.

Yours sincerely,

Meera and Evie

Page 4 Issue 26

Other things happening locally which may be of interest to parents

2015 was the inaugural Wallingford Festival of Cycling, and along with a great day of bike

racing and filming Midsomer Murders we had 90 primary school children from the Wall-

ingford cluster race on our closed road circuit. It was a great success and we’re back for

a second year on Sunday 26th June.

This year we’re a bigger, and better, festival and have a separate festival just for children.

We would like to have 400 children racing. There will be a morning of coaching and

heats and the finals throughout the afternoon on our closed road circuit.

More information are available on our website:

http://www.wallingfordfestivalofcycling.co.uk/.

Watch the England Games on the biggest screen in Wallingford!

We hope you can join us as at the Baptist Church, Thames Street to watch England’s

European Championship games and enjoy the ‘big match atmosphere’ for free this

year. There will be an unsupervised room open with games for young people. Peo-

ple are welcome to bring their own drinks, with soft drinks, snacks and food availa-

ble on the night. Tickets can be booked by email on tickets@wallingford.org.uk or by

phoning 01491 832346. Feel free to invite friends, work-mates and neighbours.

Any donations will go to the Nasio Trust and Women’s Aid. We hope to see you

there!

Games :

v Russia, Saturday 11th June at 20:00

v Wales, Thursday 16th June at 14:00

v Slovenia, Monday 20th June at 20:00