School News & Events

Weekly Update Friday 17^th September 2026
 
Our Vision

We believe that our children should have the aspiration and opportunity to ‘Live life in all its fullness’ and ‘Shine like stars in the sky’.

New this week…
 
Meet the teacher
We are pleased to invite parents and carers to our classroom drop-in session on Wednesday 30th September 2026 at 3.30pm. This event offers an opportunity to meet your child's class teacher, view their new learning environment, ask any questions about the new timetables now these have been established and any general housekeeping questions regarding the transition into the new school year.

Reading Meeting for parents of Reception and Year One children
Mrs Pawson will be holding a meeting for Reception and Year One parents about how reading is taught in school and ways to help your child with reading at home on Monday 21st September at 3.45pm in the school hall.  
If you can't make this time, Mrs Pawson will be repeating the meeting at St Nicholas School at 5 pm and you are welcome to attend this meeting instead.

Forest School
This term’s Forest School sessions will take place on Friday mornings, alternating between Acorn Class one week, and then a rotation between Palm, Cedar and Oak the next week over the term. The class for the week ahead will be sent each week on the newsletter.
 
The next forest school session will be for Acorn next Friday (25th). 
Children in Acorn should come to school in their forest school kit for the day.
Please come in suitable and comfortable leggings or joggers, long sleeved top, thin layers are better than thick jumpers. Please can children bring with them their waterproof coat, all in one or trousers named please to come in a bag ready to put on when we go to Forest School. As the weather changes they will need a hat, scarf and gloves.
Children do not need to bring school uniform to change back into.
Please ensure that everything is clearly named with your child's name, many thanks.


Let’s Celebrate!
Super Running Success!
We are incredibly proud of Faith who completed the AJ Bell Junior & Mini Great North Run on Saturday, 12th September!
Faith took on the challenge along the Newcastle Quayside, crossing the iconic Millennium Bridge showing fantastic determination. What an amazing achievement—well done Faith.
Gardeners run-away success at the Kirkby Malzeard produce show
A huge congratulations to all of our talented students who took part in the annual Kirkby Malzeard and District Flower and Produce Show at the Mechanics Institute. It was wonderful to see our village tradition brought to life with such fantastic entries from growers, crafters, bakers, and makers of all ages. We are incredibly proud to share that our gardening club gang, with the help of Pippa and Mr Tibbits, won 5 prizes this year including a silver cup for most points in the “record breakers” classes i.e. biggest, tallest etc…  Please let us know if your child has any exciting news to celebrate so we can include this in our weekly newsletter.

Spotlights from Learning…

Acorn Class
This week in Acorn Class we started our phonics journey for the year, Year 1 have done a super job remembering phonemes that they have already learnt and using them in longer words. Reception have looked at their very first phonemes and are really excited to be reading them brilliantly. We have started to look at 'Rosie's Walk' mapping out the story and thinking about the different characters, we have all loved joining in with story retelling! It has been a busy week, we had our first school PE lesson, where we played different team games and learnt that looking for spaces is really important as is working together! We have been thinking a lot about what our 3B's mean to us and how we can follow them to be ready, respectful and safe. We have had so many learning adventures!
 
Oak Class
We've had another great week back at school. This week in Oak Class we have started our new Music topic - Around the World. We listened to a South African song called 'Hands, Feet, Heart' and began to sing the words with actions. We also listened to the Chinese 'Bird Song' and identified the different instruments we could hear. The music made us feel 'excited' and 'happy because we could sing along to it.' Listen to another piece of music and tell your grown-up the instruments you can hear. 

Palm Class
Palm class have been super busy this week starting lots of new learning. We have been dissecting poetry in our writing lessons, learning about etymology and morphology in our spelling, learning about different types of addition (aggregation and augmentation) in maths, electricity hunts in science, map work in geography. And in RE we have been reflecting upon our wonderful world...we have decided to keep a book full of brilliant things we notice about our world. I wonder what everyone at home would write in our book? I wonder how many things we will have noticed by the end of term - some things will be big wows and other will be tiny moments! 

Cedar Class
This week we have been contemplating life in RE with the big question - How did life begin? Analysing the creation story in the book of Genesis, looking at the structure and how it relates to a poem style, Cedar class had a fantastic week really setting the tone as great role models for all children in the school.
 
Messages from the school office:

Arbor
Thank you for your patience as we migrated our school management systems over to Arbor. The transition is now complete, and we are currently ironing out the final few technical hitches.
Please take note of the following important updates regarding your payments and upcoming trips:
Arbor Payments & Balance Adjustments

• Manual Bookings: If you booked school lunches or wrap-around care through the school office (rather than the app) last week or on Monday and Tuesday of this week, these charges will be added to your account shortly.
• Action Required: Please keep an eye on your account. These bookings will deduct from your balance, so your account may require a top-up to keep it in credit.

ParentPay Transition

• Final Balances: Any remaining credit balances or outstanding debts currently on ParentPay will be safely transferred over to Arbor next week.
• Polite reminder that all warp around care must be booked in advance so we can ensure we have the correct staffing levels.

Year 5/6 London Trip

• Payment Platform: Please note that payments for the London Trip must still be made via ParentPay, not Arbor.
• New Parents: Further information on how to book and secure a place for children new to the school will be shared next week.
• Existing Bookings: A friendly reminder to other parents that the £100 deposit was due by the start of September to secure your child's place.
• Important Notice: Please note that if this deposit has not been paid by Monday, your child’s place will unfortunately be withdrawn.

Thank you again for your continued support and understanding during this transition.
 
Reminders…
 
KS2 After School Street Dance Club
We have places available for After School Street Dance Club hosted by LA Performance Academy! In each session, students will learn a variety of cool street dance moves and combine them to create fun, high-energy routines. It’s a fantastic way to stay active, build confidence, and enjoy dancing with friends in a relaxed, upbeat environment full of music and good vibes.
 
Parents book and pay for the After-School Street Dance Club directly through La Performance Academy via their online booking link. The club is charged at £30 per month.
 
Safeguarding, Health and Wellbeing Updates

Allergens in school, lunches and snacks
To meet the requirements of Benedict’s Law, all school staff have undergone additional training in Allergy Safety and Anaphylaxis.
For more information, please see below:
Benedict's Law - Benedict Blythe Foundation
Just a reminder we have the following allergens in school and ask that these are not sent in in lunch boxes:
Nuts of any kind, peas, all types of beans, lentils, chickpeas.

Please can all small fruit (grapes, strawberries etc) be chopped up into quarters in lunch boxes.