The Weekly Ebbesentials 19th October 2018

Autumn Concert

P.E. in Liffey Class

This term in PE Year 1 have been focusing on gymnastics which all the children have thoroughly enjoyed. Liffey class have learnt about different shapes including a Tuck, Pike, Star and Straddle. The children were particularly excited to perform these moves using the equipment.

A Day in the Life of Darling Class!

We have been learning all about

Autumn this week - exploring

how our environment is changing

and investigating how animals

prepare for hibernation during

Autumn. The children have lis-

tened to the story The Very Help-

ful Hedgehog and retold it using

the puppets. They have made

woodland animals using

playdough and have explored

counting by feeding Mr Wolf

conkers. The class photos are of

our dough disco - to develop our

fine motor control.

SESA News Quiz Night – 7:30pm, Friday 30

th November 2018

Thank you everyone for signing up so promptly for Quiz Night – all tables are now booked. If you have not yet given your team name, please can team captains let Andrew know their team name as soon as possi-ble via andrew.billen58@gmail.com? Thank you. We are hugely looking forward to the evening – it should be superb!

Easyfundraising

Thank you to everyone using easyfundraising.org.uk – we have raised £64 over the last month, taking our total since we started to £677.09 of free donations to SESA. We currently have 55 supporters registered; if every one of us doing online shopping used Easyfundraising, the amount we raise would be significantly higher and so much appreciated by school for the benefit of our children. To register, go to easyfundrais-ing.org.uk, pick SESA as your cause and register for ‘Donation Reminder’ as this makes using Easyfund-raising much simpler. To ensure your shopping qualifies for the retailer’s donation, either visit the Easy-fundraising website first, select your chosen retailer from their lists, and let Easyfund-raising then drop you off at your retailer be-fore you fill your online shopping bas-ket. Alternatively, use the donation remind-er: when you google the retailer you would like, google will highlight which retailers offer Easyfundraising donations and then offer you the chance to ‘Activate dona-tion’. You can use Easyfundraising with any online shopping – from Amazon, John Lewis, holidays & train travel, DIY, weekly shops, clothes, household goods, and (we whisper this again!) festive shopping! Ra-chel will be at the front of school this after-noon near the cake sale to hand out easy fundraising cards - please do come and take one!

Christmas and occasion cards

SESA is running the Christmas Card project again - your child can design their own pack of Christmas cards and tags as which can then be ordered by you in plenty of time. They don’t have to do a Christmas theme – your child can choose if they prefer a different occasion for a festival of signifi-cance to them. Children have had the chance to do the artwork in class this week and today (thank you teachers and teaching assistants!) and order sheets with the art-work will be sent home today. You can then choose to order their design and return the form to school by 2nd November so that SESA can send them off. All proceeds will help raise funds for SESA this year – thank you in advance for your support, we know the children make amazing designs!

Iris Festival of Natural History, Art, Classics & More!

This is just firstly a reminder about the Iris Festival on 27th March, 2019, 3.30 - 6pm.

There will be a large area dedicated just to classics at the festival, with a wide range of visiting museums, such as the British Museum, Ure Museum in Reading, Pitt Rivers and Ashmolean, all bringing interesting exhibits to explore and handle, as well as Re-enactors Comitatus filling a whole room with ancient Greek daily life artefacts and re-enactments, a Roman mosaics room run by KCL Classics, a Roman medical room, and a variety of other activities!

There will also be four other discovery zones: Natural History and Science, Art, Storytelling, and Anthro-pology. Each zone will contain activities, stalls, exhibitions, workshops, and a wide range of visiting muse-ums with artefacts to handle and explore. There will be shows including animatronic dinosaurs, birds of prey, fossils pits, an opportunity to make your own prints at a vintage printing press, the Story Museum's Little Shop of Stories, artists' exhibitions, as well as a cafe serving refreshments and hot and cold drinks.

Visitors will be able to follow an exciting new model Dragonfly Trail as they explore the site, with each discovery zone containing striking decorations, workshops, stalls, performances and activities themed on different aspects of museum learning.

The stalls, activities and exhibitions run from 3.30 until 6pm. It is free and caters for all ages. School groups are warmly welcome.

The following talks will also take place throughout the afternoon and evening:

3.30 - 4pm - Professor Richard Fortey, Natural Historian and Palaeontologist

4.15 - 4.45pm - Professor Helen King, 'Ancient Greek Magic and Medicine'

5.15 - 5.45pm - Peter Randall-Page, Artist and Sculptor, Royal Academician

6 - 6.45pm - Will Gompertz, BBC Chief Arts Correspondent

The festival itself does not require booking unless you are visiting with a school group. Talks do need to be booked, and can be done so by emailing info@irisproject.org.uk

For more information, please visit http://rumblemuseum.org.uk/index.php/what-s-on/183-iris-festival-of-natural-history-and-art-27-march-2019

2. Digital Collection Afternoon: 2nd November, 2 - 5pm

Do you have a story and/or photographs or other items connected to women in your family or community who have done something pioneering in their lives? The Rumble Museum is holding a digital collection afternoon to preserve these stories, memories, and ob-jects. We are also looking for World War One and World War Two artefacts and stories. We will record your story or photograph any objects and these will be uploaded to a national online database. The website will be freely available to anyone to use and will preserve these objects and documents. Please come along to the school Library with your objects between 2 and 5pm on Friday 2nd November, 2018. We will have experts on hand to help to give you more information on the items. There will also be artefact-handling, refreshments and an opportunity to talk to members from the wider community. For more information contact lorna@irisproject.org.uk This is part of a national project called ‘Lest We Forget’ co-ordinated by the University of Oxford – see https://www.facebook.com/OxfordLWF/’ Please contact us in advance with rough details of what you will be bringing along. Details at https://rumblemuseumsuffrage.wordpress.com/2018/08/01/womens-suffrage-and-ww1-collection-afternoon-2nd-november/

School Dinners

Mountaineer Visit

Thursday 8th November

7pm—8pm

School Vision Evening for Parents & Carers

With new HT Tina Farr

What is the purpose of education?

Where next for St. Ebbe’s?

Followed by the SESA (our PTA) AGM

8pm—8:30pm

Save the date

On Tuesday, Year 6 were lucky enough to have a visit from Mr Turnbull (dad of Abigail- Limpopo and

Anna- Swan). The children have spent the whole term learning about mountain exploration so were excit-

ed to hear all about Mr Turnbull's own experiences. He fascinated the children with his treacherous tale

and all who listened were on the edge of their seat. As he took us back to his teenage years, he told us all

about his near-death experience. We learnt about 40 ft cliffs, crevasses (deep cracks found in glaciers),

hypothermia and all about mountain rescue teams. We won't ruin the story for you but with all of these

things included, it is well worth hearing! A big thank you to Mr Turnbull for taking the time to come to

speak to Haro and Ob classes!

As many of you will know, each year I lift the turf off the top of the mound in SOAP before

having the fireworks night bonfire there, then afterwards replace the turf again. This has

been very successful and allows us to have an impressive bonfire AND to continue to use

the mound for a children’s play space all year round. Lifting and replacing all that turf is a

substantial job though and this year I have torn a ligament in my elbow and doubt that I’ll

be able to do it all

on my own.

PLEASE could I

have some fit and

healthy volunteers

from 10am on Sat-

urday 3rd and

again from 10am

on Sunday 4th to

help lift and re-

place the turf. It is

about a six hour

job for just me but

could be done in

three hours or less

with some help

Please help!

Thanks

Ben

(if you can help,

please contact

Ben, Imogen,

Tamar, John or

any Fireworks or-

ganisers -

Thanks!).

Fireworks

Red Carpet Sharing Assembly

Good Learner Kindness

Birthdays

Thank you to Thames Class

Dear Parents and Carers,

Well here we are at the end of Term 1! I can’t quite believe it but what a great term it’s been. Thank you

for your lovely feedback about our newsletter in particular; we are enjoying sharing photos and articles to

give you an insight into the sorts of things that go on between 9am and 3pm! If you have any ideas for our

newsletter, please do email the school office.

This term has obviously brought a lot of ‘firsts’ for me as your new HT, not least the Autumn Concert ear-

lier this week (see front page). What a joy to witness the children’s confidence in standing up in front of a

packed school hall to sing or to play an instrument. Thank you to all involved, to all of you who were able

to come and watch and particularly to Mrs Howard for putting together such a magnificent piece from our

orchestra. We all loved it!

As previously mentioned, St. Ebbe’s is a priority school for the Local Authority for improving attendance

this year. You may receive a letter notifying you of your child’s current attendance if it has fallen below

95%. Obviously at this early point in the year, this may not be of significance as your child may have had

an unavoidable illness. However, I would rather keep you informed of children’s overall attendance figure

as parents are often surprised at the end of the year when it is published on school reports. Thank you for

working with us on this and for arriving at school before 8:55am. It is much appreciated.

Our annual quiz is coming up on 30th November. I am looking forward to this experience as I have heard

lots about it. There will definitely be some staff teams to compete against! Do have a look at the SESA

page in here to find out more information.

You may have seen that we are currently advertising for a School Business Manager to start as soon as

possible. A SBM will help to ensure that our school runs smoothly as well as give us extra capacity on our

Admin team. Details can be found on the County Council website at https://oxfordshire.education-

jobs.org.uk/Vacancy/Details/67310/

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Our Parent Carer Survey closes today after three weeks. Thank you so much for the 126 responses. I will

respond after half term!

Thank you once again for your warm wel-

come to this wonderful community.

Have a great weekend. See you bright and

early on Monday 29th October.

Warm wishes,

Tina Farr

Mrs Farr’s Page