Newsletter No.33 3rd November 2010

3rd November 2010
Newsletter No.33

I would like to welcome you all back and we are all very excited about the term ahead. It was great to see everyone dressed so smartly in their uniforms yesterday which gives us all a real sense of pride in our school. The term ahead will be another busy one with many events taking place across the school so please make sure that you take a few moments to read these weekly newsletters so that you don’t miss any important information and dates.

International Evening It was wonderful to see so many of you coming along to the International Evening at the end of last half-term which was a big success. The Mayor came along to give us his support and it was great for him to see our school and the amazing talents of many of our pupils who took part. Thankyou to all of you who donated your time and food to the event and a special thank you to Junaida who organised not only the evening but many different workshops and activities for the children throughout our ‘Diversity’ week.

Beijing Visit This week sees the return of Helen, Mark (year 2) and Samina (year 4) from their weeks visit to Beijing as part of our international links. They are already sharing their exciting experiences with us all. The week was spent in a school, meeting other teachers and children and setting up links with them which we will be able to develop over the coming year. They also spent time teaching in the school which proved to be quite different to teaching at Cranbrook! Their Chinese hosts were wonderful throughout the week and we have passed on our thanks to them for looking after them so well. Watch out for a display of their visit and watch this space as this will be an ongoing relationship!

Rainbow Arts Festival You will remember that a number of our children performed at the ‘Rainbow Arts Festival’ arranged with the Gants Hill Extended Partnership of which we are a member. Apologies to Naval Agraval in year 5 who stunned us all with his drumming schools but got missed of last terms newsletter…sorry Naval, you were great!

PTA Hallowe’en Event On Thursday we will be having the PTA Hallowe’en event taking place in school. This will mean there will be no clubs running after school on Thursday. Missed sessions will be rearranged by the club leader. If you have bought your child a ticket for the event then they will be able to come to school in their fancy dress and there will be a prize for the best Hallowe’en costume. Please make sure you collect your children promptly after the events if they have a ticket for the events:
Nursery and Reception at the normal time (3.15)
Year 1 and 2 at 4.45pm
Years 3,4,5 and 6 at 5pm
If you haven’t bought a ticket but wish to come in fancy dress/ non-school uniform on Thursday your child can do so with a £1 donation. Thank you to the PTA members for all of their time and work in preparing for the event and raising money to be spent on our children.

Year 6 Meeting A reminder to the parents of our Year 6 children of the meeting on Monday at 2.30pm to hear more about the year ahead, SATs, the residential trip and the curriculum. The meeting will take place in the dance studio. Please come to the main office entrance to sign in.

Book Fair The Book Fair was a big success and it was wonderful to see so many of our children buying books to enjoy at home. You bought so many that the Book Fair company will also be donating lots of books to add to our school library. Thank you to Oriel for organising these events.
Children’s author Hannah Shaw visit We will also be having a visit from the well known children’s author Hannah Shaw. She will be in school on Friday 12th November and will be signing and selling copies of her books in the small hall from 3.10pm.

Collection from After School Club If you are collecting your child from an after school club, could you please make sure that you come into the school to collect them rather than staying in your car in the car park. The teachers running the clubs need to make sure they are handing over your children safely to you at the end of the session.

Diwali We would like to wish all of you celebrating Diwali later this week a happy time. Please let the school know if your child will be absent on Friday for this. This day will be authorised.

Attendance Please keep up the good work on attendance but we are noticing that a lot of children have been arriving late on a regular basis which gives an interrupted start to their school day. The class with the highest percentage were 4 Red with 99.3%! Well done! The overall percentage for the whole school was 93.8% .

Percentages for other classes were as follows:R Blue 95.3% R Green 89.3% R Red 93.0% R Yellow 82.7%
Yr 1 Blue 94.3% Yr 1 Green 91.7% Yr1 Red 96.2% Yr 1 Yellow 94.8%
Yr 2 Blue 92.7% Yr 2 Green 98.6% Yr 2 Red 95.3% Yr 2 Yellow 95.9%
Yr 3 Blue 91.4% Yr 3 Green 96.3% Yr 3 Red 95.0% Yr 3 Yellow 95.2%
Yr 4 Green 91.4% Yr 4 Red 99.3%
Yr 5 Blue 89.7% Yr 5 Yellow 96.7%
Yr 6 Red 96.0%

Poppy Appeal Poppies will be on sale in school over the next couple of weeks raising money for the Royal British Legion poppy appeal. There is no fixed cost for a poppy so please give what you feel is appropriate.

Shoe Box Appeal Thank you to all of you who so kindly donated items for the Shoe Box Appeal. Claire from the Nursery has worked over half-term to create over 60 boxes that will make a lot of children very happy when they receive them. The staff are raising more money between them to help raise the additional money needed to transport these to the countries.

Councillor Visit On the 9th November, Councillor Weinberg will be visiting the school to see what is happening here and to visit classes. We look forward to him coming and sharing some of the ‘Cranbrook spirit’.


Dates for your diary:PTA Hallowe’en Entertainment 4th November
Year 6 Parents Information Session 8th November
Councillor Weinberg visit 9th November
Author Hannah Shaw visit 12th November
Parents Evenings w/c 15th November
Eid Assembly 15th November
Christmas Performances 7th (Nursery), 8th (Reception) and 10th (Year 3) December
Last day of term 20th December, finish at 2pm
Christmas Break 21st December to 3rd January
School re-opens for pupils 4th January