No 13 for week ending 12 December 2014 Dear Parents and Carers Our lovely Christmas Prayer tree in the main lobby is now filled with the children s prayers of love. The tree is a visual reminder of all that we try to do to prepare ourselves throughout this Advent season. Always Breakfast Other exciting events this week included the Always Children Breakfast which took place on Tuesday morning. A big well done to Alex, Daniel, Beth, Maddie, Patrick, Rhianna, Philip and Lexie who have been invited to attend because they always work hard and always show kindness and respect to others and we think it s really important that this is acknowledged. Cello Concert On Monday of this week we were treated to a lovely concert from our five cellists. We are very proud of our musicians, who have worked so hard under the excellent tuition of Mr Merrick from the West Sussex Music Service. All five leave us at the end of this year to move on to their secondary schools and we hope that other pupils will be encouraged to take up the instrument. Information regarding cello lessons (and other music lessons from the Music Service) is available from the school office. Well done to George, Harvey, Luc, Santiago and Philip! Great Sporting news! A huge well done to all the members of the St Wilfrids Cross country team who ran so brilliantly in last Saturday s meeting at Warden Park. The children performed with great courage and determination and Mrs Peart informs me that they were ALL a credit to their school. A special well done and congratulations must go to No 13 for week ending Friday 12 December 2014 Page 1 of 5
Haiden in year 6 who came first out of well over a hundred and sixty runners and also to Jack C who came in a very impressive seventh! This means that the two boys now go forward to the regional races. Well done Leonie, Rebecca, Katie, Ellie, Grace, Jemima, Natasha, Gemma, Edie, Alicia, Ethan, Terance -Joseph, Adam, Harry G, Ryan, Herbie, William and Harry R. Thank you to all the parents who came along to support on the morning and also to coach Mrs Peart and assistant coach Ms Boulton. Letters have already gone out about next term s club which is open to year 3 upwards. We have also been awarded the Silver Standard under Sainsbury s sponsored School Games Awards scheme. Well done to all the pupils at St. Wilfrid s and especially our team players, Sports Captains and Sports Leaders. Thank you and well done also to Mrs Barton, our PE Subject leader. This is a great achievement which acknowledges the progress made in sport across the school. are delighted with the results, which show the school to be performing exceptionally well. This week we received a congratulatory letter from the Commissioner for Learning at the Local Authority following their data analysis, an extract of which is set out below: Our review showed many strengths and no significant weaknesses. In Early Years, the percentage of children achieving a good level of development was above the national average. In Key Stage 1, analysis of data shows that the percentage of pupils achieving [expected] or higher in reading was in line with the national average. In writing, the equivalent percentage was significantly above the national average and in maths was significantly above the national average. In Key Stage 2, the level of attainment in combined reading, writing and mathematics (RWM) was 85% [87% on validated DfE website] which was above the national average of 79% and above the government set floor standard of 65%. It was noted that the attainment of Year 6 children exceeded [that achieved by similar schools]. Congratulations to our school on academic performance The performance data has now been uploaded to our website, with a link to the DfE performance tables for our school and others. Once again we Progress in reading, writing and maths was above the national average. Examining the data, it was noted that Year 6 pupils exceeded [that achieved by similar schools] for progress in all subjects. Thank you for the excellent work you are doing and providing such a good education for your children. Please pass on my congratulations to all concerned. VLE and Code Club update The Parent Portal is now available for parents and guardians to access the St Wilfrid's Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). No 13 for week ending Friday 12 December 2014 Page 2 of 5
Parents will be given a login and a password so that they can set up an account (Each parent/guardian can have their own individual login). Once set up, parents can access all the items their child can access, together with any public items that they have viewed. Go to www.stwilfrids.myvle.co.uk If any help is needed, there are instructions posted in the course "Parent Portal" parents will need to login with their child's login initially to access this. A blog in the Parent Portal course has now been set up where parents can post any questions or comments they may have. Thank you to Mr James and Mrs Crowhurst for getting all this organised. Code Club finishes this week and the new members will start after the Christmas break on Thursday 8th January. Code club runs from 3.15pm until 4.15pm Finally, parents might wish to view the flu factsheet posted on our website. Many of you will know that the flu vaccine is being made available for young children (including four year olds) as well as those children with vulnerable medical conditions. Have a lovely weekend. Angela O Hara Costumes will be provided! Hope to see you there! The Children's Liturgy Team Snow: Please remember that the website is your first port of call should we need to post important school information concerning unplanned school closures such as those caused by snow. In such an event the website will be updated before 7am. The local radio stations will also be informed. Fingers crossed that we won t need this emergency procedure this winter! Parking: Please remember you can t park at the Brow Clinic. We have had several complaints that parents have been parking during school drop off and pick up on the road/pavement opposite the clinic where there is a parking restriction between 8.00am-6.00pm. The problem seems to be getting worse and we must remember the most important thing is the children s safety in all of this. Furthermore, if the road is blocked emergencies vehicles would struggle to get through. If this continues the Police Road Safety Team will have to patrol the areas again. We highly recommend that parents walk with the children to and from school where possible. ST WILFRID'S CHURCH NATIVITY PLAY SWIMMING SPRING 2015 Do you think your child would like to take part? The children's Nativity will take place during the Carol Service at 4pm on Sunday 21st December. Rehearsals take place Saturday 13th 2-3.30pm and Saturday 20th 9.30-11am. As we finish our swimming for this year, I would like to thank all the parent helpers in year 1 and 2 for their great support in supervising the changing rooms. I would also like to thank Mr Wright and Mrs Melling for the help they have given in and around the pool. Unfortunately, Mr Wright will be leaving us at the end No 13 for week ending Friday 12 December 2014 Page 3 of 5
of the term to train as a ski instructor in France. We wish him well in his new career. Well done to all the children who were so enthusiastic about starting swimming again. It has been great to see that they haven t lost their desire to learn! The Timetable for the next term has been printed and will be sent home with your children. Please keep it in a safe place. PLEASE NOTE: SWIMMING HATS: many children are arriving at lessons hoping to borrow a swimming hat, however, each swimmer must have their own hat, as that is a condition of swimming in our pool. The hats I have will be kept for swimmers whose hats break in class. NO HAT, NO SWIM! GOGGLES: for hygienic reasons I do not allow children to borrow goggles! I do have a few which swimmers have left behind, so pop down to the pool if your child is missing their goggles. A Stocking filler suggestion: a swimming hat and goggles. JEWELLERY: NO JEWELLERY WILL BE ALLOWED IN THE SWIMMING POOL so please leave all jewellery at home on a swimming day. Many girls are still arriving for lessons with stud earrings in. These must be taken out at home or be removed before the lesson and left in class! Swimming Assistant/Helper in the water 7.88 per hour We are looking a swimming assistant/helper, to support our swimming teacher in all aspects of swimming, helping to dress/undress as necessary. *Presently the times the help is required is Tuesday and Wednesday during term time from 1.00pm 2.15pm. This position could be divided as some of the time help is required in the water and some of the time the help is poolside only. If this position interests you please apply in writing to Mrs Angela O Hara by Wednesday 17 th December. Interviews will be arranged for either Thursday 18 th or Friday 19 th December. *If the pool is closed for ANY reason there will be no payment made. Additionally the hours of work may change although notice of at least 1 month will be given. Thank you. Private swimming lessons: I have spaces for 4 swimmers in my after school beginners class on Tuesdays at 4.30pm. If you are interested in the taking up a space, could you please leave your details with the office and I will contact you. Many thanks. Mrs W Searle Christmas Disco There is still time to buy tickets for the Christmas discos on Thursday 18 th December. Tickets are available online on our website http://www.ptaevents.co.uk/st-wilfrids. We still need 10 more volunteers for the KS1 Disco so please contact stwilfridsfriends@gmail.com if you can spare some time to help. Coffee Morning We wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who came to the Coffee Morning last Saturday. We raised 150! No 13 for week ending Friday 12 December 2014 Page 4 of 5
Easyfundraising We wanted to let you know how much was raised for The Friends of St Wilfrids School last week through easyfundraising: 17.74 Raised last week (Still time to raise more if you're doing last minute Christmas Shopping online) 144.37 Raised so far this year 2 New supporters last week 39 Supporters so far this year 6 Supporters using the easyfundraising toolbar If you re planning on shopping online for bargains in the January sales and you think you might forget to shop each time via easyfundraising then the Donation Reminder will help you. It provides a little reminder every time you shop online. Supporters that use it raise on average 5x more. It s free with no annoying ads. To install the donation reminder, go to http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/ /donati /too lbar-install/ Happy fundraising! Secret Gift Room In last week s newsletter we mentioned we would be doing another gift room this term. However this was incorrect as we are very low on stock following the very successful Secret Gift Room before and during the Xmas Fayre. It will be back next term where children can buy their gifts for Mother s Day. Finally, we wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very Merry Xmas and a restful holiday. Thank you for all your support this term. No 13 for week ending Friday 12 December 2014 Page 5 of 5