It has been a great start to what will be a very busy half term.  It was lovely to welcome the children back to school, on Tuesday and we have had a very settled and productive first week back.  I hope that you all received the letter sent yesterday regarding dates and times of the festive events that we have coming up.  The letter can be found in the parents’ area of the website and we have now updated the calendar.

If your child belongs to any of the uniformed groups, such as brownies, scouts etc, they are able to wear their representative uniform to school for remembrance on Tuesday 11th November.  All other children will attend in school uniform, as usual.

Thank you all for your support with the new start to the day arrangements.  We have certainly felt the benefits in school, with a much calmer and more settled start to the morning.

Well done to our tag rugby team who took part in a tournament, on Tuesday.  You represented our school brilliantly and we are very proud of your performance and behaviour.  Thank you.

I am sure that you will be as delighted as we were, to hear that Miss Slater’s baby girl arrived safely, on Monday evening.

This week, we have been thinking about our core value of generosity.  Generosity is certainly a value that we are very confident with, here at Church of the Ascension.  It is the value that we celebrate most in praise assembly every week, with lots of examples of how children have been generous with their time, friendship and talents.  We thought about the story of the Generous Widow Mark 12:41 – 44.  Jesus noticed the offerings of the rich and then noticed the poor widow who had very little, but gave everything that she had.  Jesus used the example of the generous widow to his disciples.  We then read the wonderful story of the Rainbow Fish and reflected on how positive Rainbow Fish felt when he finally learnt the value of generosity.

What a busy half term, this has been!  It has concluded with many of our year 6 pupils going on their residential visit to London and PGL.  I have had daily updates about how brilliantly the children have represented our school and how much fun they have had.  We very much look forward to welcoming them home, this evening.

AIP will be hosting a bonfire themed lunch on 5th November. The menu will consist of hot dogs and burgers (including vegetarian) and baked potatoes with chilli or cheese and beans.

Thank you all very much for your generous donations to the Food Bank, for our Harvest collection.  The Black Country Food Bank were very pleased to collect our donation and are grateful to us for our continuing support.  Thank you to some of our year 6 pupils who helped with the collection of the items.

As we break up for half term, I am sure that you will join with me in wishing Miss Slater all the very best as she commences her maternity leave.  Miss Slater, we wish you all the very best and thank you for all of your energy and enthusiasm – right up until the end of your last day!

I hope that you all have a lovely and safe half term and look forward to seeing you all when the children return on Tuesday 4th November. We have spoken to the children about the new arrangements for the start of the day and we look forward to what will be a smoother and more settled start to the school day.

This week, we have learnt about the Hindu Festival of Light, Diwali, which was celebrated on Monday.  We thought about the significance of light in many religions and what light symbolises and represents.  We then considered how we could be the light in someone’s day.

Later in the week, we concluded our Black History Month celebrations.  The children spoke with confidence about significant people that they had been learning about, in classes.  We then finished the week with a focus on Maya Angelou and her wonderful words of wisdom.  Maya’s life and work are an inspiration.  We learnt that Maya was the first African American woman to work as a street car conductor and the difficulty and hardship that she had to endure in order to be able to achieve that position.  We also read some of her poetry.  We finished with a reflection on Maya’s wonderful quote, “If you’re always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.”

Our Worship Leaders led very thought provoking services for us, this week.  We really enjoy opportunities to visit church and carry out our acts of worship there.  The services made us consider the journey that food takes from the farm to our forks.  We were shocked to learn how little of the profits go to the farmers who work so hard to ensure the quality of the produce.  Father Chris then led a Harvest blessing for us.  Thank you Worship Leaders, Mrs Moore and Sian Morgan for all of your hard work in putting together the services for us. Thank you to all of our families for your very generous Harvest contributions.  We currently have a library full of donations for the Black Country Food Bank.  Thank you, we know that they will be very gratefully received. The donations will be collected from school on Tuesday morning so we would be very happy to accept any further items, until then.

Thank you very much to the HSA for organising such fabulous discos, this week.  The children had a fantastic time and behaved brilliantly.  We are very grateful for the time and effort put into these events which raise vital funds for school – thank you, HSA and all the children who attended! The HSA will be meeting on Monday 20th October at 6.30pm, at school, to start plans for Christmas celebrations – all are very welcome.

Due to many of our year 6 pupils and some of our staff being on residential next week, we have made the decision to postpone our half termly praise assembly until after half term, Friday 7th November.  Families of those receiving a certificate will receive a separate message and invitation.

Thank you very much to our school volunteers and the Open the Book team, who hosted this week’s collective worship.  We were able to watch a re-enactment of a story that Jesus told to his followers – the greedy farmer.  The greedy farmer spent a lot of time and energy focusing on how he could make more and more money, but never got the chance to enjoy the rewards.  The assembly was thought provoking and enabled us to reflect on what we truly value and what really matters to us.

It was great to see so many of you at parents’ evening, this week.  Thank you for bearing with us, as we ran over timings in many classes. There is so much to talk about, already and so early in the school year!

Having launched Black History Month, last week, it was great to spend an afternoon with our year 5 pupils, talking about and celebrating diversity.  I was amazed by the thought and sensitivity that went into to the children’s responses and thoroughly enjoyed my time with class 5CS.  Mr Bradley and I are very much looking forward to hearing about the work going on in all of our other year groups.

We are very much looking forward to the school discos, on Tuesday 14th October.  Thank you to the HSA for organising the event which will really help to raise money for school funds.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend.

This week, we were treated to one of Lindsey Brown’s special painting assemblies.  Lindsey told us the story of Ruth Naomi and Boaz.  As she told the story, the painting came to life.  In our weekly reflections, we considered ways in which we can be sharing and caring towards each other.  Many of the children reflected that giving someone your time and attention is a good way to show how much you care.

It has been another very busy and productive week, here in school.  On Wednesday, I spent the afternoon with our reception children and their families at the wonderful welcome service.  It was such a treat to welcome our new reception children to the school and church communities and for each of them to have a go at ringing the church bell, in celebration. Thank you to the Home School Association who funded the beautiful bibles that were gifted to each child. The children’s singing was phenomenal and we are all very impressed by how confident our youngest children already are, so early in the school year. Well done, reception!

All of our Pupil Voice groups have now been elected and are ready to help support the school’s progress and development.  The first job for our School Council and Worship Committee will be to organise and communicate our Harvest Festival Celebrations, which will take place on 16th October. School Council will be in touch soon, with further details.

I thoroughly enjoyed my afternoon with year 6, this afternoon, talking all things Nepal.  The children listened very carefully and made some very thoughtful responses about daily life in Nepal, as well as the risks and dangers of tourism in the mountain areas.  Thank you for having me, year 6.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend.  Sounds like it will be a weekend for avoiding Storm Amy!

This week we have focused on another of the key elements of our School Vision and Curriculum Driver – Independence.  We thought about what it means to be alone and explored the quote, “Independence isn’t doing your own thing; it’s doing the right thing on your own”. We read the story, ‘Gary’ and learned about how Gary the racing pigeon who couldn’t fly, had to think creatively and act independently to find his way home.  This week, children have focused on what and who give them strength and independence.