Dear Parents and Carers,

I would like to start by thanking the wonderful Christ Church School PTA for their work during the last academic year to raise the significant funds needed to buy our brand-new pirate ship. Your support and generosity as a parent community and the PTA’s dedication to the school will provide many happy hours of play for hundreds of children in the coming years. The importance of play for every child is perhaps too often misunderstood and as a school, we will continue to work to provide happy and immersive play in a wide variety of forms.

As the children reach the end of their first full week of learning, they have been working hard to make the best possible start to the year. Our staff team have been introducing the children to their termly topics, setting the expectations for the year and, we hope, lighting some fires of interest in the learning journeys to come. Teachers will share much of the focus for learning with you at our welcome meetings for each year group in the next two weeks, and will also share the information via the Google classrooms. We very much hope that you can join us for these.

As we settle into the daily routines and timetables of a new year, we have been very impressed with the positive attitudes and behaviour of the children, both in their learning and towards one another. As a staff team, we have also identified some areas that we will be focussing on for improvement and I will share these with you in the coming weeks.

Finally, it has been a pleasure to see the full ‘life of the school’ begin to take shape with the important wider curriculum starting – music lessons, trips and visits booked, swimming for year five beginning and some of our volunteers supporting many children. A successful second week!

Kind regards

Mark Oldfield

Inset and Academy days for the rest of the year (these are days when school staff are in training involved in other school oepration - children are not in school on these days):

• Monday 6th January - Inset day
• Friday 23rd May - Academy day
• Monday 21st July - Inset day
• Tuesday 22nd July - Inset day

Dear Parents / Carers

Home School Agreement:

You will have received this week the Home School Agreement and corresponding Google form to fill in, acknowledging school practice and giving your consents. It is really important to gather this information from you annually; if you have not already filled in and returned the Google form (one per child) please could you do this as soon as possible. Thank you

Home School Agreement 2024-25

HSA Google Form

Voluntary Contributions:

You will also have received this week a letter regarding our voluntary contributions request for this academic year.  Schools don’t get funding for workshops, trips and other enrichment activities which we believe are essential in enabling our children to go on to the next stage of their lives with a passion for curiosity, and confidence in their world and their place in it.  The voluntary contribution can be found on your school ParentPay account:

Voluntary Contribution Letter Reception

Voluntary Contribution Letter KS1

Voluntary Contribution Letter KS2

Nits:

We have received advice of nits in some classes.  Please could you check your children's hair and treat accordingly.

School Uniform:

Our children are proud to wear our Christ Church School uniform and PE kit.  Please ensure that they have the right uniform and that PE kit (especially hoodies) are ONLY worn on PE days.  Please see below the approved school uniform.  Please see later article on PE days for each year group.

Dogs and Bikes in Playground at Drop Off and Pick Up:

Please ensure that all bikes and scooters are stored in the bike and scooter racks and that adults and children dismount at the entrance to the school playground - it is dangerous for others if you scoot or cycle through the playground.

Dogs are not allowed on school site; the only exception would be a licensed support dog. Our reason for this flows from Health and Safety advice following cases across the country where unattended animals at school entrances can be spooked by the presence of other animals and/or the exuberance of children and behave unexpectedly, leading to children being bitten.

If you bring your dog to drop off or pick up, please ensure they are tied up OUTSIDE the school grounds whilst you come into the playground.  

Car Park:

Our school car park is clearly signed that it is for use of staff and visitors only. Please do not use the car park at any time unless authorised, this includes drop off/pick up at the Shine wrap around care sessions.

Thank you for your support.

Please see below PE Timetable - please ensure your child (ren) come into school in their PE kits on these days:

What a wonderful week in Reception! We started the week in our smaller groups and loved exploring our classrooms as well as the outside spaces where we enjoyed playing with different toys and resources. We continued working on stopping and listening to our adults to understand that this is to keep us safe. We also worked on taking turns with our toys and in our games.

It was really exciting to try out the new pirate ship! We loved looking through the telescope, the portholes and steering the ship! We were able to go down the slide in twos, feet first and use our balancing skills to find our way across using the sturdy ropes as a guide.

Friday morning was a big and busy moment when the groups came together, we met all our friends old and new in our own classes and next door. We also stayed for lunch in the big dining room, we really impressed everyone with how well we listened and followed instructions.

A terrific week for all, we can’t wait for a full week of full days next week!

Wow, what an amazing week we’ve had in Year 1! The children have settled in well and are already taking the new routines in their stride. We launched our new topic of Under the Sea this week, starting with the Big Book of Blue by Yuval Zommer. In literacy we wrote fact files on blue whales and sharks. Did you know that sharks are a type of fish?

In maths we have been learning about place value to 10 by representing numbers with objects and counting numbers within a group.

In PSHE we revisited our class promise that we made together in the first week of Year 1 with a focus on our school values: kindness, aspiration, honesty, responsibility, co-operation, and respect. We discussed what each value means and gave examples of how we can show them both within our classroom and outside of it.

Keep up the great work, Year 1!

What a fantastic start we've had! All of the children have settled so well into their new classes. Last week they drew self portraits and they used watercolour paints to finish them, ready for display in the classroom. The children have enjoyed some drama linking to our new story 'Be More Bernard' by Simon Philip and Kate Hindley. They've also begun our maths topic on place value by recapping essential skills including recognising tens and ones and using manipulatives to represent numbers to 100.

Year 3 created their very own version of The River Nile. They have planted some crops along the sides of the river and  flooded the flat plains each week to see how this affects their growth.

They learnt about the benefits of living by the River Nile for the Egyptians, including; crops and food; transport and trade; building; and making papyrus.

Year 4 has hit the ground running in their first two weeks back! They've been working together through exciting teamwork activities, proving there's no "i" in team—just plenty of effort and fun.

In maths, they've tackled numbers with enthusiasm, showing they’re ready to add up to an amazing year ahead.

Over in literacy, they’ve leapt headfirst into our fairy tales unit, exploring magical stories and weaving some of their own!

Meanwhile, in RE, they’ve been learning about what makes Jesus so inspiring to Christians, showing they’re not only bright students but deep thinkers too. It’s clear this year is off to a fairy-tale beginning!

Year 5 have had a fantastic start back at school, getting down to the learning with wonderful focus and determination. We have been thoroughly impressed with their tactile spellings: making words on their spelling lists from tiles and pipe cleaners. In Art, we have been looking at how different artists capturing moving figures and have had a go at drawing different moving figures using ovals.

After learning about the International Space Station, we created space art, which was displayed proudly in our classroom this week.

In Literacy, we have been discussing the difference between different types of sentences and our writing. We have written INTERESTING simple sentences, compound sentences, and complex sentences.

In Science lessons we have learned about the planets, we are familiar with their names; their order and researched them using secondary sources. We researched their average temperature; what they are made of and how many moons they have. Some of us have created fact files about a planet of our choice.

In maths, we are looking at place value.

In art, we have looked at the work of several wire sculptors. We particularly enjoyed looking at the different wire bird sculptures by Celia Smith. We have begun preliminary drawing of a robin ready for building up sketchbook work and preparing for our own sculptures.

Playground Play

This year we are continuing to work with the children to continue to develop playground play. As part of this we are working on resourcing the playground with activities they enjoy. As part of this development we are requesting donations. We are looking for good condition resources that we can add to the outdoor provision.  These include: 

• Small cars and vehicles
• Car mats
• Dinosaurs and small world toys
• Train set and trains
• Dolls and pushchairs
• Hats, bags and dressing up clothes that fit different age children