Dear Parents and Carers,

What a fast and furious term this has been! We have been very impressed with the maturity with which both our Year 2’s and Year 6’s approached their SATs – a massive well done to all the children, they are superstars!  It was lovely to be part of the Year 6 auditions this week for their upcoming production of ‘Charlie and the chocolate factory’. The children were so brave and it looks set to be another fantastic end of year production. 

Next term is always jam packed with events, including our Key Stage Sports Days (fingers crossed for sunshine and no rain), the Year 6 residential, Year 5 Bikeability and our whole-school creative arts week. Please keep an eye on our diary dates.  We have been so lucky to enjoy such wonderful weather recently, please can you please can you ensure your children have named hats, a named drink bottle (no glass or fizzy drinks, please) and either have their sun cream applied in the morning before school or are able to apply it to themselves when in school. 

Some information from Miss Bebber regarding Key Stage 2 sports day on Thursday 8^th June:

• Gates will open 12:45pm for you to make your way to the field for a briefing.
• Years 3 and 4 will be doing their sports day from 1pm-2pm. If you are leaving straight after (have no siblings in Yr5/6), Year 3 & 4 children can be collected from their outside classroom doors at 2pm.   If Year 3 or 4 children have siblings in Year R – 2, they can go home with parents at 2pm. Infant doors will be open for 10 mins at 2pm.  
• Years 5 and 6 will be doing their sports day from 2pm-3pm. Children will then go back into school with staff and can be collected, as normal, at the end of the day.
• There will be a parent race at the end of each one.
• Children are welcome to come into school in their PE kits or wearing the colours of their country (no football kits please). Information has been sent home with your child(ren) regarding which ‘Country’ they will be representing.
• Please can I remind you that Parents are not permitted to take photographs as some children are not allowed to have their photo taken and you never know who may be in the background.  Staff will be taking pictures that will then be shared with you.

A final little request… we are looking at creating a sensory garden in memory of Mrs Phelps and need some help.  If any parents, or family members, have experience in landscaping or garden design, we could do with your advice!  Please speak to myself or Mrs Davidson.

Have a wonderful half term holiday! We look forward to seeing the children back in school on Monday 5th June.

Best wishes

Lucy Collins

The Stars of the Week for week ending 12th May:

Year 1 finally got to make their fruit salad! Last week, we got to taste different fruits and we decided which ones we’d like to include. We had to be very careful cutting with sharp knives. 

Year 3 really enjoyed their visit to Bristol Museum and Art Gallery last week. They had a fantastic introduction to life in Ancient Greece through an interactive workshop. This involved artefact handling of real and replica objects, with one of the groups being led by an expert archaeologist from Bristol University!

During the visit, the children also had the opportunity to look around the rest of the museum and saw some fantastic exhibitions on Ancient Egypt, the natural world and rocks and fossils, which all link to the Science Year 3 have been learning this year!

In April, Year 6 went to the Cheltenham Jazz Festival. One of the year 6 children wrote an account of their time there. 

We visited Cheltenham to take part in the Jazz festival. During the event, we listened to a few pieces of jazz music and had a taste of what it was like. In addition, we also had the chance to sing some of the vocals during the session (such as 'doo-ba-dee'). We also just listened and appreciated the music. The jazz band had 10 people in it and they used instruments like the trombone, the saxophone, the guitar and the drums. 

The Gardening Club has been busier than ever in this lovely weather.  

This week we had a visit from Year 4 in our “little Y2 gardening centre”. We sieved some compost and re-potted a Peace Lily together as part of Year 4 PHSE learning. The Peace Lily will help us remember the loved ones that are no longer with us. Thank you, Year 4! 

Please click on this link for more information  CLPE’s March's New Books Round-Up - Hear from our Librarian! | Centre for Literacy in Primary Education

Silver Smarties Challenge

In the last newsletter, we promised an update on the amount raised and the winning class.  I’m delighted to say that the returned smarties tubes included a total of £740 in silver coins. This is an outstanding amount and meant that an amazing £530 was raised after deducting the cost of the smarties.  There were a number of classes that raised over £60 and the winning class with £79.95 was Class 7.  The children in this class were rewarded with a treat earlier this week that included some ice lollies to enjoy.  Thank you again to everyone that took part in this fundraiser and helped to raise an amazing amount of money.  

Coronation Colouring Competition

So many beautiful pictures were submitted for this Coronation themed competition. They were all fantastic and it was very hard to choose the winners.  As there were so many great entries, we decided to choose a winner from each class to be awarded a small prize, in addition to the overall KS1 and KS2 winners.  Thank you to everyone that purchased a picture to take part.  Every participant who submitted a picture by the deadline has been given a special coronation sticker.  

Below is a selection of the pictures.  We are hoping to be able to display them all at the Summer Fair.   

Sponsored Read 

We are excited to be running a sponsored read event over half term.  A letter with more information has been emailed today and the children have brought home a reading log and sponsor form.  All the money raised from this event will be used to purchase books for the classrooms.  This event has been hugely popular in the past and we hope that it will be again this time.  There will also be a book fair after school on Thursday 8th June. 

Coronation Bookmarks

The children were gifted with a commemorative Coronation Bookmark last week to mark the special occasion. 

Summer Fair 

The Summer Fair will be held after school on Tuesday 20th June.  Please get in touch if you would like to get involved with the preparations or could help on the day.  All help welcomed, big or small.  Please email [email protected] to get in touch.  

Have a lovely half term break.

Friends of Linden