Friday 25th September 2020 Dear Parents and Carers,
Thank you for reading our latest newsletter and I hope all’s well with you and your families.
COVID Updates
Another week another flow chart! This one is designed to help parents and carers decide whether they should send their child to school, if they’re feeling under the weather. We’re also sending home a letter from the NHS entitled “Test and Trace” – I hope you find both documents helpful.
Dropping off and collection arrangements – update
Following some minor adjustments and further reminders to certain groups of children, arrangements are working well, thank you for your continued support.
Applying for Free School Meals – an important reminder
In addition to this message, we will also be sending out a poster regarding free school meals. The school receives a significant amount of additional funding for every child who is registered to receive a free school meal, so it’s really, really important to us that every child who is eligible, is in the
system. This includes children in Robins and Kingfishers who are still eligible for a “universal” free school meal but if they aren’t registered, the school does not receive the additional funding – a bit complicated I know, so please contact me if you’re unsure.
If you are in receipt of certain benefits, your child may be eligible – for further details, please refer to the attached poster – thank you.
NHS Childhood Nasal Flu Vaccination Programme
A letter will be sent home shortly, providing you with further information about this. Medical professionals will be administering the vaccinations in school on Thursday 22nd October but parents must provide consent or decline the offer of a flu vaccination for their child by Monday 19th
October – thank you.
Autumn Term Parents’ Evenings – An update of last week’s message
Sadly, because of current COVID guidelines, we will not be able to hold our usual face to face
meetings on the school premises. Therefore, these important discussions will have to take place over the telephone at a pre-arranged date and time, soon after the half term break. A letter, providing you with all the necessary information will be sent out once all the arrangements have been finalised.
Harvest Festival - a repeat of last week’s message
Another casualty of the current situation is our usual Harvest Festival celebration at Gretton
Church, along with our collection of non-perishable food items, that we pass on to our local foodbank.
However, if you would like to make a personal donation the address of the Winchcombe Food Bank Centre is; Encounter Church, 9 Gretton Road, GL54 5EE or there’s a bigger Food Bank at Unit 2, Glebe Farm Buildings, Guiting Power, GL54 5TZ – please refer to their website for opening hours.
Forest School Equipment – an update!
Many thanks to those parents who have kindly donated items of Forest School equipment. We have had messages from parents who would like to support the school but are unsure what equipment to buy and others who would prefer to make a donation to Forest School funds. Therefore, from next week parents will be able to make a donation to the school via ParentPay to help us purchase
appropriate Forest School equipment. For example, a donation of £10 would allow us to buy ten new bug pots with a magnifying lid! Outdoor education has always been an important part of the
curriculum at Gretton but has become even more so because of the current situation. Your donations will help us to invest in this important area of learning.
House Point Trophy
Congratulations to everyone in Sudeley as they were the winners this week.
House Name Previous Total Number of Discs
This Week’s Result Current Total Number of Discs
Current Position
Cleeve 7 3rd = 2 discs 9 3rd
Langley 9 2nd = 3 discs 12 =1st
Stanley 6 4th = 1 disc 7 4th
Sudeley 8 1st = 4 discs 12 =1st
News from around the classes Robins
Robins have been enjoying one of my all-time favourite books this week- ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’
by Michael Rosen. Surprisingly it turns out that none of the children had gone on a bear hunt with their families last weekend but they did share lots of other interesting news. Some of the children made binoculars to help them spot bears and bravely explored the dark, gloomy cave we have created in the classroom. Having visited the majestic horse chestnut tree in the centre of Gretton, the children practised careful counting to find out who had collected the largest number. We ‘squelched and squerched’ our way to Forest School on Friday and recited the story as we made our way through long wavy grass, thick oozy mud and deep cold puddles!
Best wishes from Mrs Netting
Kingfishers
It was a real help this week to have the children changed already for PE on Tuesday – it made it so much easier – and no-one lost their clothes! Thank you for being organised for us – same again next week!
We have continued writing our ‘Harry and the Dinosaur’ stories in English and in History we have been learning a little about Mary Anning – the famous ‘fossil lady’ from 200 years ago. We will continue to find out a little bit more about her next week.
Our RE sessions are focused on ‘Belonging to Groups’, this week we were sorting Christian and Jewish symbols – the Year 2 children have remembered a lot from last year, which helped them with their work on Tuesday. They worked together with the Y1s – it is always lovely to see how well they help each other.
Here are some of the ‘fossil’ pictures we have made – that are on the wall in the classroom.
Best wishes from Mrs Fisher and Mrs Eliot
Owls
Mrs Fowler and I were left trembling in their seats this week as Owls have been using extended noun phrases to describe their terrifying monsters. We discussed how adding interesting adjectives added to the effect and how we could extend the description using the word ‘with’. As a class, we improved Mr Bridges’ boring sentence, ‘I saw a big dog.’ to ‘Only a few metres ahead of me was a huge,
demented hound with teeth like icicles, gnashing away.’ The children then wrote their own passages which were all very gruesome and scary!
Forest School was rather damp this week but instead of shying away from the rain we actively encouraged it with our rain chant! When the rains did come, we had great fun slipping and sliding down our improvised water slide! Even Mrs Wycherley and Mr Bridges had a go!
Elsewhere, Year 4s have been practising rounding in Maths whilst Year 3s have worked on adding 10s and 100s to numbers. In our topic work we studied different place names and how the Anglo Saxons gave us these names. It was exciting to find out that Gretton’s name is of an Anglo-Saxon origin.
Fun at Forest School - George, helped by Finley, experiencing walking without use of his sight!
Best wishes from Mr Bridges
Eagles
Did you know that Leo's initials spell his first name? This is just one of the many fascinating facts the Eagles have found out about each other during our biographical research in English. Many children were born outside of the county, and even abroad! In Maths we've been learning card games to help us with our times tables knowledge. We used lots of different media in our second lesson on Peter Thorpe - oil pastels, watercolours, collage, felt tips and pencil crayons - to experiment with different abstract backgrounds. It was very interesting to see the varying effects the children achieved. An on-off rainy day on Thursday meant indoor PE: the perennial favourite, dodgeball. Isabel was a
valuable team member with her consistent catching ability, while George changed the whole course of the final with a well-judged catch.
Best wishes from Mrs Holt
Gold Book Nominations (25.09.20) Robins
Penelope for being so keen to have a go at all activities and Walker for really careful conker counting.
Kingfishers
Nuala for having a good go at reading with expression and Blake for being thoughtful and helpful in the classroom.
Owls
Josiah for some excellent descriptive writing of a monster including using a simile. Amelia for working hard on rounding numbers to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000.
Eagles
Mckenzii for being kind to others on the playground (nomination from Mrs Fowler), Jemimah for an exemplary Reading Record, Monty for his consistently high standard of homework
Birthday Bulletin
Forthcoming Birthdays……
Will A and Finley!
Congratulations!
And finally ……….
Autumn seems to have arrived with quite a flourish, so please ensure that your child has a suitable coat with them in school to keep them warm and dry, especially as we still intend to go outside for play and lunch times, even if it’s a bit damp! In line with current guidance we will be keeping as many windows and doors open as possible, so it might be a bit cooler than normal in school over the coming weeks – time to dig out the thermal vests?
Best wishes to all members of the school community and I hope you enjoy the weekend.
Mr R Woolston (Headteacher)
