Nurturing the infinite worth of every person through love, respect, perseverance, honesty and forgiveness
This term has seen some wonderful times in school! The new Music Teacher, David Hole, has really captured the children's interest across the whole school. Children have been utterly enjoying their music lessons and have thrown themselves in wholeheartedly and enthusiastically. It's a pleasure to hear the school alive with the sound of music! The preparations for Isham’s first ever (and hopefully last) virtual Nativity have begun... the children have been having a joyous time, and sometimes very loud! The Nativity will be led, as always, by our fabulous Year 2s and supported by our Year 1 and Reception children. They have been brilliant so far and are enjoying learning some movement for our Christmas songs. We look forward to sharing the finished product with you all at some point in December! It will be posted on the video sharing tab on our new website...
Thank you everyone for respecting our Covid19 rules and regulations – life continues to run very smoothly in school; behaviour is great and early indications from our recent data drop indicate the vast majority of our children are attaining well and making good progress. Christmas data reports will be out to you before the end of term.
Covid has also brought some positive changes to school life. Please could you complete this short survey regarding some of the changes you may – or may not – wish to keep. It will be useful to know which changes you may like to see carried forward once we begin to return to some form of normality. Please follow the link below:
Please do take a look at our new Website - there is lots of great info on there!
Year 6 Maths Booster Group
Normally, we run a series of six 'booster' sessions, (predominantly maths), to go over any misconceptions or revisit areas that the children are struggling with. However, because of being out of school for so long, we have had to do a lot of revisiting to bring the children back up to speed. Because of this, we would like to offer booster sessions starting on a much earlier date (Wednesday 13th January) after school from 3:15pm - 4:15pm. Please could parents email me (Miss Harrison) to let me know whether your child/children will attend, or not, by the end of term, 18th Dec. (The sessions are free of charge). It is not compulsory but it is in the children's best interest to attend. Many thanks, Miss Harrison.
Reading for Pleasure
As you are all aware, reading is a fundamental part of everyday life and an important part of a child’s education. Children learn to read from the very start of primary school and continue that journey throughout primary school and beyond. We want all children to see the benefits of reading, but we also want it to be something that they choose to do because they love it! In school, we regularly try to promote reading for pleasure through story time, author studies and book talk, to name a few. Obviously, reading for pleasure does not end once the children leave the school grounds and much of the children’s enjoyment will come through the books they choose to read at home. To help with a few ideas of how you can support your child at home, and help to develop lifelong readers, we have attached a handy poster with some great hints and tips, below. Happy Reading.
Online Safety
National Online Safety release a weekly guide, every Wednesday, #WakeupWednesday, for parents which aims to help empower parents with the knowledge to protect their children from the dangers of the internet and and aim to cover all major social media platforms, apps and issues that children encounter online - please see our school website for weekly guides, this can be found under the Safeguarding tab, Online Safety: https://www.ishamprimary.org.uk/online-safety-safeguarding/
Please follow us on Twitter @IshamPrimary for latest updates on online safety and school news & info.
Year 5/6 Letter
Written by Olivia & Elsie
'Save the Children' Christmas Jumper Day - Friday 11th December
We will be taking part in Christmas Jumper Day on Friday 11th December, for 'Save the Children'. All children can come to school in their festive/silliest jumpers, (along with school uniform underneath, polo shirt, trousers/skirts), donations of £1.00 to Save the Children.
You don't even need a new jumper, you can dig out last year's, or take a boring old jumper and add some tinsel or sequins! Go wild!
There is still time to join in with the Virtual Balloon Race which starts on 1st December, follow the link: https://ecoracing.co/user/page/1025
£2.40 of every balloon sale goes towards enriching and improving the learning environment of our children.
Reminder: Online shopping – as most of us will be online shopping this season, we are encouraging you all to sign up to 'easy fundraising' and 'Amazon Smile'. These are fabulous incentives that cost you nothing but the companies that you buy from online will donate to FOIS. For more information please look at our Facebook page or email us and please get involved.
Please 'like' our Facebook page as this will keep you up to date on all events: https://www.facebook.com/FOIS-Friends-of-Isham-School-176690376296486/ Thank you for your ongoing support - The FOIS team.
Polite Reminder to Parents - Holiday Absences, Medical, Illness
Please could we politely remind parents to always notify the school office via email: admin@ishamprimary.org.uk if your child has a medical or dental appointment. Parents are required to phone the school office on 01536 723956 to report illness. For holidays during term time, we do not authorise any holiday absence, but we do need to know where your children are. Please contact the school office to notify us of any holiday absence, via email, and you will then be required to complete and return a 'Leave of Absence' form. Thank you.
Values Families
For those of you new to the school, the whole school is divided into four groups known as ‘Values Families’. Each family is represented by a family tree – Oak, Willow, Beech and Sycamore. The children work together in their families to earn Value Tokens in a bid to win the ‘Values’ Trophy. The tokens are normally placed in our whole school token collector but, due to Covid restrictions, each class now has their own, newly built, mini token collector. The children earn value tokens by displaying the Christian Values that form the foundations of the ethos of our school.
Normally, the children would spend time with their families each half term and this is something we have really missed under the new regulations. Some of the activities the children have participated in with their families are an Easter bonnet fashion show, treasure hunts, sports day, street parties with cake decorating, reading, outside natural art morning and many more. It was always great to watch the older children nurture and support the younger ones and we are really looking forward to the return of these sessions when we return to a bit more normality.
In school this term, we have focussed on our school value of love, particularly focussing on 1 John 3 16-18 ‘let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth’. This gospel is about a positive and proactive disposition to promote transformational love and kindness, towards even the unlovely and the most peripheral. The former Anglican priest who founded Methodism, John Wesley, once said: “Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.” If we encourage and enable all children and adults in our school community to embrace this imperative, we will undoubtedly transform our families, our school and our community for the better.
Finally, on that same theme of love, those of you watching The Voice on Saturday night will know this national competition was won by Blessing Chitapa, an 18 year old Christian young lady, who was just 17 when the competition began a year ago. Before thanking Olly Murs, her coach, she said: 'Thank you to everyone that has voted for me. Thank you to the church for backing me all the time. It's just been amazing...' Her final song of the competition and first single will be a cover version of Robbie Williams’ song ‘Angels’ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdrRV8y7DXk, which is worth a listen if you get a moment this week and need reminding that you are loved unconditionally.
Isham St Peter's Church Service
Cupcakes and Fizz
As we are currently unable to attend church, the children’s Isham church service called 'Cupcakes and Fizz' has been moved online. Each month the Cupcakes and Fizz team will make a children friendly service with activities, or organise an outdoor event, (parents will be notified).
Please click on the link for the November service of 'Cupcakes and Fizz', for you and your children to watch, enjoy and participate in together: https://youtu.be/FedObeTA0rE
As always, many thanks for your continued support. Please do not hesitate to contact me, should you need.
Yours, Kirstin Howarth
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Dates for your diary
Dates for the term
- Friday 4th December - Whole School Photos
- Friday 11th December - Christmas Jumper Day!
- Wednesday 16th December - School Christmas Lunch (bookings via ParentPay)
- Friday 18th December - Midday - Close for Christmas Holiday
- Monday 4th and Tuesday 5th January 2021 - Teacher Training Days (closed to pupils)
- Wednesday 6th January 2021 - Re-open to pupils
- Monday 11th - Thursday 14th January - Year 5 & 6 Bikeability Course
Credits:
Created with images by Pexels - "hot air balloons adventure balloons" • rawpixel - "untitled image"