Dear Parents and Carers,
Only a week to go until half term and there is still so much to cram in prior to the 20th Oct, including Oak Class’s residential, Harvest Festival, pumpkin picking and purchasing and the school disco!
Reading and Reading Certificates
Please see the attached additional letter.
The forthcoming week
There’s a lot happening on 19th October!
Oak Class Residential
Oak Class residential trip to Beam House is meeting at the revised time of 13.00 on Sunday 15th October, with a departure at 13.20. Please ensure that you have any medication for your child, in a clearly named bag, and complete the permission to administer form, which outlines the medication, time and quantity to be administered. Copies of the form can be gained from Mrs Pike or myself.
Harvest Festival – Thursday 19th October
We will be holding a simple Harvest Festival celebration on Thursday 19th October at 8.55, to which parents are welcome to attend. Any donations, particularly of dried or canned food would be gratefully received and will be delivered to the Gillingham Food Bank for distribution to those in need within our local community. Canned, tinned, bottled and dried donations may be brought into school from Friday 13th October.
School Halloween Disco – 19th October
A reminder that that the school disco is on Thursday 19th October, running from 5.30 – 7pm. Please would all pupils bring a drinks bottle. A small snack will be provided part way through the event. We already have some Halloween models created in school by a budding creator!
Remember tickets are FREE so come along and join in the fun!
Perfect Pumpkins! On Sale on 19th October
The pumpkins the children planted last term are now ready to go! Pumpkins will be on sale – for a donation, after the Harvest Festival on the morning of 19th October. If we are not sold out then pumpkins can also be purchased, for a donation at pick up on the afternoon of the 19th Oct. Supplies are limited, so it’s a first come, first selection basis!
Pumpkin Carving Competition
Children and adults are invited to enter a photo of their creatively carved pumpkins into the Friends’ pumpkin carving competition. Each entry costs £2. All entries will be shared on the Friends’ Facebook page, with the winning entries receiving a prize for their efforts. Please email entries to: stowerprovostfriends@gmail.com . Good luck to all! Please see attached flier, for further information. www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/Pumpkinsfriendsstowerprovost
HALF TERM POSSIBILITIES
Competition Time again!
Local food links Christmas card competition
Our school food provider, Food Links, are looking for a Picasso to design their Christmas card. They will choose 2 winners, representing Foundation/Key Stage 1 & Key Stage 2/Key Stage 3. Children are encouraged to take part in this competition, perhaps creating an entry over the half term. The closing date is Tuesday 28th November, with A4 entries emailed to natasha.elliott@localfoodlinks.org.uk. Please see the attached document for further information.
Stower Vale Preschool half term coffee morning and pumpkin carve
Stower Vale Preschool are running a fun filled half term event, including colouring and pumpkin carving, along with coffee and autumn cakes for adults on 28th October, Stour Row Village Hall, 10 am – 12 noon.
Future event after half term for your diary!
Usborne Book Fair – Wednesday 8th November
We will be holding a book fair on Wednesday 8th November in school, selling Usborne books in our school library. Children will have the opportunity to visit the fair during the day and complete a wish list form with 2 or 3 books that they like.
Parents will then have the option of coming to browse the books without or with you child. The book lists will be made available to parents so you can make surprise purchases, with Christmas in mind, or browse through the books with your child and buy books that are of interest and that can be enjoyed. Orders and payments will be made at the end of the day.
Should any parent be unable to make the book fair, then a completed order form can be handed into school, over the following few days after the fair, with the appropriate payment made to the school. Completed order forms and money will be sent or collected by Miss Buxton (the Usborne representative), who will then deliver your books to school.
I hope the following timetable will be useful to see when parents are able to visit the fair, with and without children.
If you have friends or family who would also like to visit the fair, please bring them along – all are welcome.
The school will receive commission on your purchases, which will be spent on books for our now depleted library!
| Time | Class | Adult |
| 10.00 – 10.30 | Set Up | |
| 10.30 – 11.00 | Toddler Group parents | |
| 11.00 – 11.35 | Reception | LBU |
| 11.35 – 12.05 | Oak Class | LC |
| 12.00 – 12.30 | Pre School (parents / villagers) | |
| 12.00 – 12.30 | Lunch | |
| 13.10 – 13.40 | Beech Class | HW |
| 13.40 – 14.10 | Chestnut Class | LBA |
| 14.15 – 14.45 | Catch up of any pupils missed | JS / AB |
| 14.45 – 15.20 | Parent time without children (pre school, school and villagers) | |
| 15.20 – 16.00 | Parents with children time |
Children in Need Day – Friday 17th November
Pupils are welcome to come dressed in something spotty for the day.
This event is to raise awareness of children in need, however it would be really wonderful if the children would bring in a jam jar/jar filled with ‘something interesting’, rather than a financial donation. The jars will be kept safe and use on the ‘hoop and win a jar’ stall at the Christmas Bizarre.
More diary dates and Friends events!
Wreath Making – This was such a popular event last year, with much fun had by all making Christmas Wreaths. Two dates are available – 4th and 5th December, 18.30 – 20.00. Cost £25 per person, with mulled wine, mince pie, conversation and all the necessary elements to make yourself a wreath to be proud of!
School Nativity
The school nativity will have two performances, 5th December at 14.00 and 6th December at 16.00. On the 6th December, children will be given a refreshment after school and then change into costume ready for the final performance. Please contact Mrs Pike to reserve your seats for both events. Beech and Hazel classes will be performing on stage, with older year groups singing.
The EYFS and KS1 children have been sent home with a letter regarding the nativity. If they have a script, please would you start to practise their lines with them. After half term we will be practising in school, and teachers have asked for scripts to be in school every day.
Christmas Jumper Day
National Christmas jumper day is on 7th December. Children are welcome to wear a Christmas jumper all day.
Friends Christmas Bizarre
The Bizarre is back with a wealth of stalls to be enjoyed by all. Come and join in the festive fun between 15.30 – 17.00!
Christmas Disco
The Friends will be running a Christmas Disco for all school pupils in the hall on Thursday 14th December, 15.30 – 17.00. Children are welcome to bring in a change of clothes. At the end of the school day pupils will change and then enjoy the disco fun! Ticket cost £2 a child.
Class news
Oak
This week we have been throwing paper around in order to confirm our result from last week’s science. We didn’t have a good degree of trust from our friction and air resistance experiments, so we repeated and improved them. We had a greater degree of trust for the second set – hurrah! In maths we have been using reasoning stem sentences to explain our learning but have decided as a class to make our own reasoning hats to wear too to help our learning. Next week we are looking forward to becoming more independent, climbing, sliding, falling over, laughing too much, getting extremely muddy and making deeper friendships with activities we will remember forever – we are going on our residential.
Chestnut
This week, the class have been learning about their new topic in maths exploring addition and subtraction. In science, they carried out an experiment to demonstrate the importance of bones using straws and string. During topic, the class explored Cheddar Man in more depth and drew on the knowledge that they had acquired doing their homework on the same topic – thank you all for your hard work and support with this! The class have finished their work on Cave Baby this week and they will begin reading The Stolen Spear next week.
Beech
This week, Beech class have been finishing off their biographies about Mary Anning. Although some of them are quite sad to not be looking at Mary Anning again next week, they are all excited to be doing some Harvest Festival related English Lessons. This week, the children have also been looking at how we can be hygienic and when is appropriate to complete tasks such as washing hands and brushing teeth.
In maths, the pupils have been looking at different styles of addition such as adding to the nearest ten and adding 3 numbers together at the same time. The enthusiasm of the children has been great and lots of children have been so proud of themselves that they have wanted to show all of the teachers their amazing work. In history this week, the children have been looking in more detail about explorers and what it takes to be an explorer. In geography, Beech class expanded on their learning about the equator and focussed on the weather around the world in relation to the equator.
Hazel
This week the children have been learning about Hinduism and puja plates, with the children making their own plates. The children have talked about important events in their lives, using lots of time vocabulary. As part of our Science, the children have learnt about sensory losses, and the technology available to support sensory loss. In an experiment, the children had to cover one eye and pick up a pom-pom and put it in a pot.
EYFS children have been creating repeating patterns with items, themselves and actions. Year 1 have been ordering groups of items or numbers.
Diary dates (dates in red have been added this week)
| 13th Oct | 14.40 – 14.55 | Book sale in the hall |
| 13th Oct | All day | Dried, bottled, tinned and canned donations for our Harvest Festival can be dropped off from the 13th. |
| 15th – 18th Oct | PGL Trip (Oak Class) | |
| 19th Oct | 08.55 | Harvest Festival |
| 19th Oct | 09.30 | School Pumpkins for sale – planted by the children! |
| 19th Oct | 15.00 | School Pumpkins for sale – planted by the children! |
| 19th Oct | 17.30 – 19.00 | School Disco – free of charge! Please bring a named bottle of drink. |
| 20th Oct | 14.40 – 14.55 | Book sale in the hall |
| HALF TERM Activity
28th Oct |
Half term
10 – 12 |
Friends Pumpkin carving competition
Local Food Bank Christmas Card competition Preschool fun activity morning at Stour Row Village Hall |
| 8th Nov | 12 – 12.30 &
14.45 – 16.00 |
Usborne Book Fair in the school library |
| 17th Nov | All day | Children in Need – come dressed in spots! Please bring a jar filled with something interesting e.g. sweets, soaps, cotton wool balls, bouncy balls etc. |
| 4th Dec | 18.30 – 20.00 | Friends Event – Wreath Making |
| 5th Dec | 14.00 | School nativity – KS1 and Reception on stage, KS2 singing |
| 5th Dec | 18.30 – 20.00 | Friends Event – Wreath Making |
| 6th Dec | 16.00 | School nativity – KS1 and Reception on stage, KS2 singing |
| 7th Dec | All Day | Christmas jumper day |
| 8th Dec | 15.30 – 17.00 | Christmas Bizarre |
| 14th Dec | 15.30 – 17.00 | Christmas Disco |
| 22nd July 2024 | INSET DAY | |
| 23rd July 2024 | INSET DAY |
Best wishes,