23^rd February 2024

Welcome back to the second half of the spring term, I hope you had a restful break. 

The parent consultations this week have given you the opportunity to find out how your children are progressing in their learning. Hopefully you found the meetings useful and that you have a good idea of your child's next steps and how to support them at home. Please do let me know if you have any queries about the information provided. I enjoyed seeing everyone in school for the consultations, it was a lovely atmosphere!

On Tuesday, Reverend Dave was in school to lead collective worship. He talked to the children about Shrove Tuesday and the beginning of Lent. There was great excitement when he started to cook a pancake for me because I was very hungry. The children learned about the importance of being patient and about Jesus' journey through the desert for 40 days without any food. The pancake was delicious by the way! If you want to find out about our school's collective worship programme, you can find details here.

We will be visiting All Saints this weekend for Sandygate Sunday, please do come along if you can. Details are below.

Mrs Reynolds

Next Week's 'Learning at a Glance'

As a school we’re supporting the Once a Week, Take a Peek campaign aimed at helping parents spot, treat, and prevent the spread of head lice.

Head lice are a normal part of childhood and by checking for them regularly and using an appropriate treatment, they can be dealt with quickly and easily.

The guidance has been produced by Hedrin in association with the Medical Entomology Centre, a world-leading authority on head lice.

Download the step-by-step guide that tells you everything you need to know about checking for and treating head lice.

Sandygate Sunday – Whole school

This Sunday will be one of our regular 'Sandygate Sundays' at All Saints Church. We will be taking part in their 10.59 service with some children reading prayers, and we will sing one of our worship songs. 

We would love to see as many red jumpers in the congregation as possible to identify them as Sandygate pupils. They should sit with their family during the service and the school staff in church will invite them up at the appropriate times. Please indicate below if you will attend the service. It is likely to finish at 12 noon.

Please let us know if you will attend by clicking here.

Geography: Walk to the River – Year 2

On Wednesday 6^th March, Year 2 will be walking to the river on a geographical field trip. Thank you to those parents who have volunteered. We are still looking for 3 more volunteers to walk with the children down to the river and support their learning along the way. We will leave school at 9.15am and return by 11am. If you are able to help, please sign up here.

Parent Helpers – Year 1

Year 1 need some helpers for a couple of things this half term!

Javanese food

On Thursday 21^st March we will need some parents in the morning to help us to prepare some Javanese food for a Java performance in the afternoon. The children will also help to prepare this. Please let the office know if you are able to help.

Rookery Court

On Wednesday 27^th March Year 1 will be walking to Rookery Court as part of their Science learning, and we will need 12 parents to help us with this. If you are able to help, please sign up here. We will leave school at 9.30am and return by 11.15am.

Science Week – Whole school

The theme for Science Week this year is ‘Time’ and during the 26^th February – 1^st March the children will be experimenting with time during their science lessons and activities.

The week will start with a Science themed school worship led by Mrs Browning, our science subject lead, and then throughout the week all year groups will have some specially planned lessons.

We have some parents who have very kindly offered to come in and share their science knowledge with us throughout the week.

World Water Day – Whole school

This World Water Day is about accelerating change to solve the water and sanitation crisis. You and your family, school and community can make a difference by changing the way we use, consume and manage water in our lives. This is a once-in-a-generation moment for the world to unite around water. 

On Friday 22^nd March we would like to invite the children to come to school wearing something blue. We don't want you to buy anything special, so this could be blue socks, blue ribbons, blue jeans, blue leggings, blue shoes etc along with the rest of their school uniform. We kindly ask for no football kits to be worn.

In return, we are asking for a donation of  £1 which should either be brought into school on the day or paid through JustGiving. The school councillors will be collecting the donations or the link to the World Water Day JustGiving page is here.

Google Classroom & Class Home Pages – Whole School

Home learning on Google Classrooms is now live. Please log in to your child’s class page to view what your teacher has set. Home Learning for each week will go live on each Friday.

The Class Home Pages for this half-term have also gone live – these pages can be found on the school website. Parents/carers must use their login for this. The Class Home pages provide information about the areas of learning that each class will be covering over the next 5 weeks.

Parent/carer regular helpers – Whole school

Mums, dads, carers and grandparents are all very welcome in school as helpers. We already have volunteers working on a variety of activities including listening to children read, mounting and displaying work and helping with sewing and craft activities – the possibilities are endless. The school operates a policy whereby parents need to attend a short training session before helping out in class. This training will be held in the school hall.

If you are interested in becoming a regular helper, please click here to read the Confidentiality Policy and here to read the Child Protection Policy. Then click here to complete the form and let us know what date/s you can attend the training session.

The Marlow Schools' Eco conference – Whole school

Competition time

We would like to remind you about the competition the Eco conference are running. Children need to choose an aspect of environmental work that they are most interested in (eg. looking after wildlife, improving habitats for pollinators, solar energy, recycling, litter picking...). They then enter the competition by creating any of the following: poster, model, collage, creative writing, fact file.

The entry should be returned to Mrs Reynolds at school by 4^th March. All entries must have the child's name and age on them.

Book Week – Whole school

This year between 4^th – 8^th March, we have lots of events planned around World Book Day. Details of these are below:

• All week there will be a Virtual Book Fair for the children and parents to order books
• After school, throughout the week, children will be able to visit the library and exchange their book
• Every day during school worship, a different teacher will share their favourite book with the school
• On World Book Day itself (Thursday 7^th March), we are inviting children to come to school dressed as their favourite book character. The costume does not have to be elaborate or expensive and there are ideas for simple homemade costumes here. We love seeing which books the children are enjoying, and it's a great way to get reading ideas from your friends by looking at their costumes.
• At the end of every day, teachers will go to different classrooms to read the children a book
• We will have a box of recommended books from the teachers in the hall for children to look through

Footsteps Training Programme – Year 2

Footsteps is a practical pedestrian training scheme for children up to the age of 7, developed by Buckinghamshire Council. It involves taking children to the roadside and teaching them how to behave around traffic, what to look for, how to find safe places to cross the road and how to cross roads safely with an adult.

We are looking for 1 more Year 2 parents to help with this programme one afternoon for 4 weeks over the summer term.

If you would like to help, please contact the office.

Class-led worship – Whole school

We will be holding the last two class-led worships over the next couple of weeks. Each class will be basing their worship on their class value, and we would like to invite parents/carers to join in with the worship. Each class worship will be from 9am-9.30am. We are limiting 2 tickets per family. To book your tickets, please complete the Google form here.

• Ant Class: Kindness – Thursday 29^th February
• Bee Class: Thankfulness – Thursday 14^th March

It's the start of another half term and we have lots of fun events coming up before Easter. We are, as always extremely grateful for the contributions we receive and we thought you might like a quick reminder of where all the money raised will go this year.

The next PFA meeting will be held on Thursday February 29th at 8pm in school and via zoom. Everyone is welcome, we love seeing new faces and hearing new ideas.

Readathon

Readathon forms have already started to make their way back to school and we were super impressed to see how much reading the Sandygate children have been doing over half term, really well done everyone! There is still time to return your sponsorship form to the office, either with cash in a sealed envelope or make a payment on Parentpay. Please make payment and return all forms by Thursday 29^th February.

Wine & Cheese Tasting Night 

We are so lucky to have bona fide wine and cheese experts selecting 8 wines and a variety of speciality cheeses to tickle our taste buds on Saturday 16^th March at 8pm in the school hall. Please do join us for an entertaining evening learning a little and having a lot of fun. Tickets are £25pp and non-school family/friends are welcome to join (adults only). 

Dates for your diary

• School Disco: Saturday 2^nd March 2pm & 4pm
• Bag2School: Tuesday 5^th March
• Wine & Cheese Tasting evening: Saturday 16^th March
• Golf Day: Friday 26^th April
• May Fayre: Saturday 11^th May
• Parents Summer Ball: Saturday 22^nd June
• School Camp Night: Saturday & Sunday 13-14^th July