Winter certainly has set in but we have had a lovely week in school. Here are some highlights:
Year 3 – Stone Age Project
Year 3 had a great time in Computing this week bringing their Stone Age stories to life using IMotion to create a short animation.
Netball Tournament at CNS
Some Year 5 & 6 children represented our school at a Netball tournament at CNS – Mrs Hornsby was very proud and said that they represented our school beautifully.
Piper and Theo presented a report to Assembly this morning ‘It was really fun to take part in the tournament. We all played brilliantly and showed great team work & communication. It was a fantastic opportunity.’
EYFS – Castle Role Play
EYFS have been enjoying castle role play this week and dressing up in some wonderful costumes.
Poppy Appeal
Thank you to everyone that supported the Poppy Appeal in school, we raised £242.78 for the Royal British Legion.
t’s been an extremely warm week for us all but thank you to everyone for equipping their child with a hat, sun cream and a water bottle. This weather is set to continue next week so please continue with these protective measures.
School uniform
We have noticed that some children are wearing colourful trainers. We appreciate that little feet grow – especially at this time of year and families do not want to purchase new school shoes so although we have noticed, we have not asked any family to purchase the correct footwear. However, when your child returns in September, the expectation will be to have the correct shoes. Also, we have noticed that there are girls wearing thick grey tights with summer dresses. Please ensure white socks are worn with the school dress. I had two children with tights and leggings underneath a summer dress the other day and they were very uncomfortable.
Y6 Winchcombe visit
The children experienced an amazing trip to Winchombe railway yesterday. Although warm, they had an excellent time and the public were witness to the war songs they all sang on the train. I was also given a sneak preview of a beautiful song for the Year 6 upcoming show – just beautiful! Tickets for the theatre will be on sale soon.
Reception and All Things Wild
The children in Reception had an amazing day out this week to All Things Wild. They saw lots of animals and had a wonderful experience riding on a tractor round the dinosaur field! They cooled down in the afternoon with an ice cream.
New classes for September 2025-2026
Headteacher
Mrs McQueen
Deputy headteacher
Mrs Taylor
EYFS team
Mrs English (teacher Monday and Tuesday) Mrs Keyzor (teacher Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) EYFS practitioners to be confirmed
Year 1
Mrs Brunt (teacher) Mrs Austin (TA)
Year 2
Mrs Townsend (teacher) Miss MacDonald (TA)
Year 3
Mrs Eaglestone and Miss Thorsby (teachers) Mrs Hicks (TA)
Thank you to everyone who contributed to our celebration last week. We raised a fantastic £2,432.00.
The children have already told us what they would like to do with the money. Thank you to the PTA for organising the tombola and raffle.
We had a fantastic afternoon. Our school neighbours wrote us letters and email to state how much they also enjoyed the singing and general feeling over their garden fences!
Multiplication and Maths End of Term Reward
Do you want your child to enjoy ice-cream and a bouncy castle treat for learning their multiplication tables? An afternoon of fun is on offer at St Mary’s.
By the end of next term, your child will receive this reward if they:
Reception – know doubles to 10 (1+1, 2+2, 3+3 etc)
Y1 – can count in 2s, 5s and 10s
Y2 – can multiply by 2, 5 and 10
Y3 – know their 2,3,4,5,8 x tables in under 6 seconds
Y4, Y5 and Y6 – know ALL of their tables to 12 x 12 in under 6 seconds
If your child has already received a certificate, their name will already be on the treat list. If you are concerned that your child has SEN but you have been trying hard at home regularly, this will also be recognised by the class teacher as they will have had the data for TTRockstars across the year.
St Mary’s Unplugged – 24 hours
Next week you will find a sponsorship form for our St Mary’s Unplugged. The School Council decided that on Friday 27June 2025 from 8.00am until Saturday 28June at 8.00am, that your child has NO access to any technology – TV, Ipads, Xbox, phones etc. Your child will be sponsored from people they know for giving up this technology for 24 hours. The school council would like to raise money for some outdoor equipment.
Ponding dipping in reception
Acorn Class have been pond-dipping. They found lots of creatures living in and around the pond but were delighted to find at least 8 newts. This shows that our pond is a very healthy environment. Acorn Class have done lots of fact finding about newts and are loving this week’s text ‘Bog Baby’. We are so lucky to have such a fantastic resource within our school grounds.
Attendance Update
Attendance has significantly improved across all classes lately. In fact, the children who are frequently late or absent in Year 6 showed that they could attend on time last week so please ensure your child does so until the end of term.
You are all aware that term-time holidays are now not allowed. If you do intend to take a holiday, please make sure you have completed a form. It is unlikely to be authorised unless there are extenuating circumstances, but we do appreciate families who support us and follow school procedures.
Thank you to everyone who has attended events, bought a raffle ticket, donated cakes in the last two years because everything you have contributed has gone to pay for our new outdoor classroom.
I will admit, that last year, we did try to Bag a Book Bus for £1000 but unfortunately we could not get it down the back lane outside school – it was too big! I didn’t want to tell you at the time but now we have bagged ourselves an amazing outdoor classroom so that the children can read, draw, play games with their friends at lunch and play. All being well it should be installed by the end of April.
TTRockstars
The children were excited last week to receive their certificates for knowing their multiplication tables. A lot of children made the effort to complete their 10 minutes a day. Please support your child to do this. It’s easy to log on. Contact your child’s teacher if you are unable to do this. Your child’s class teacher will be checking on this every week. Let’s reach for the stars and have all our children reciting their multiplication quickly.
Numbots
EYFS and Year 1 will be completing work on Numbots and will receive their logins next week. We will be holding a parental workshop on this after half term – more information to follow.
Our EYFS in action
What fun they have in Acorn class every week from outdoor play to construction and even ordering food from the Acorn class Chinese kitchen – delicious!
We have been working on our school attendance for two years and have made such improvements. In that time, we have raised our school attendance rate to over 95% from 90%, which is phenomenal.
However, we are seeing signs that this is slipping. Children are taking odd days off here and there. We have also noticed that whole families are absent on a Friday without a significant reason for this.
Your child will have received a certificate today if their attendance since September has been above 96%. We are now classing any absence between 90% and 95% a cause for concern and you will have received a letter regarding this. If your child’s absence is below 90%, your child will now be classed as a persistent absentee. This is in-line with local and government initiatives. An appointment will be made to discuss how we can support you and your child to attend regularly and see the importance of regular attendance.
Lateness = Lost Learning (Figures below are calculated over a school year)
5 minutes late each day
3 days lost
10 minutes late each day
6.5 days lost
15 minutes late each day
10 days lost
20 minutes late each day
13 days lost
30 minutes late each day
19 days lost
We regularly have children turning up late to school. We are setting our children up to fail if we allow this to happen regularly. In the workplace, this would not be tolerated. Imagine if the staff turned up late several times a week. This would not be a good example to set your children and if you found the gates closed when you needed to attend work, imagine the complaints I would receive. If you find mornings difficult, we need to discuss how we will make them better.
Attendance this week
Class with overall best attendance
97.57% Year 4 – Miss Philpott
Overall school attendance
93.78%
Lates
44 lates / 25 children
Unauthorised attendance
1.80%
Maths monitoring
Mr. Nelson, our Maths Governor, took time out of his day to come into classes, look at books and speak to children today. We were very impressed with some of the children we spoke to. The children were able to tell us what they have been learning recently; what they do when they find concepts tricky and what they do to move their learning forward. One child even stated, ‘Did you look at my book? I think my writing could be better’. Your child will have received a letter today that states which multiplication tables they need to learn. Please support us by reading the letter and ensuring that your child completes TTRockstars regularly. Some children received our new award this week. Please speak to your child about this.
Year 4 Corinium Museum
Year 4 visited the Corinium Museum on Wednesday and had a fantastic time! They took part in games, dressed up and experienced a great Roman workshop run by some amazing educationalists. Thank you for supporting us so that your children can have these wonderful experiences that will be memories forever.
EYFS visit from our Governor Jon Carter
It is the first time that one our new governors has made a visit to see the children of EYFS in action. Jon was impressed by our provision, which you know includes three classrooms and a large outdoor area. I was relieved today to see that Pip the Penguin had been returned to his cold land in EYFS as Lisa Bridge, our school cook found the penguin in her freezer when looking for our fish fingers. What a naughty penguin, looking for an early lunch! Thank you, Jon, for visiting and we look forward to welcoming you back soon.
