Mrs Peters and I thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Summerhill with the girls’ football team.  The team have been participating in a tournament and this week was round 2.  Both games played were very exciting and there was some great skill demonstrated. The end results were a loss and a win meaning that we are through to the finals!  The girls finished the afternoon with an impressive 8 goals! Well done to our girls’ football team.,

Our school council representatives have been helping me to establish the pupils’ views on behaviour in our school.  I am very grateful to the representatives and how sensibly and thoughtfully they have carried out this task. A particular thank you to the year 6 representatives who have supported our younger children to express their views.

This week I met with Wall Heath in Bloom.  Their plans for the village are very exciting and we are happy to be getting involved. Our Eco Committee will be getting actively involved in both school and the local area.

Huge thanks to our HSA who have held our annual sale for Mother’s Day, this afternoon.

One of our favourite visitors to Church of the Ascension, Lindsey Brown, led our assembly, on Monday.  Her clever and skilful use of art, helped us to understand the value of forgiveness.  Lindsey told us the story of creation and temptation.  She then reminded us of the significance of Easter,  and how for Christians it is a time of forgiveness, new beginnings and moving forwards.  Lindsey left us with a wonderful painting to display and remind us of how Christians believe that Jesus came to mend relationships.  Thank you for a thought provoking assembly, Lindsey.

This week, we held our termly Eucharist Service.  It was lovely to welcome visitors from the church and school communities to join us for the service and share communion, together, for those that wished to. Father Chris led us through a service that made us consider The Lord’s Prayer.  This is a prayer that we say regularly in school, and refer to as our Family Prayer.  Father Chris explained that it is called the Family Prayer as it brings all those of Christian faith together, in the unity of one prayer.  We considered what each part of the prayer means and what we are asking for when we say this prayer.  The children listened and engaged very well and as with all of Father Chris’s assemblies, very much enjoyed the musical responses and joining in with familiar and new hymns.

We have had a lovely week, enjoying the sunshine of Spring and celebrating World Book Day. We have all had a great time talking about our favourite books and book characters. The activities were a huge success and there was lots of healthy competition in the literary orienteering.  Thank you for all of the donations to the Book Swap – it was great to see so many children going home with a different book to read.  Football books were particularly popular, this year! We had some brilliant costumes – please do visit the year group pages for their photographs and updates.

I am very much looking forward to meeting with school council representatives, next week, to talk about behaviour in school and our behaviour policy.  This will complement the work that we have been doing with parents and staff to help inform our new behaviour policy, that we hope to launch before the start of next school year.  Thank you to all of those who contributed their thoughts and observations via the parent survey.

Hopefully you have all received the OFSTED report and my accompanying letter.  It is great to be able to share the report with our community.

Thank you to those of you who attended our Behaviour Coffee Morning, today.  You have provided me with lots of input when we review the Behaviour Policy.

We are very much looking forward to World Book Day, on Thursday 5th March.  Mrs Peters has planned lots of reading activities for the day and the Great Book Swap will mean that everyone will have some new reading materials for the weekend.  I look forward to seeing the creative costumes but please don’t worry if you don’t have one – children are welcome to come in comfy clothes to read in.

To start the new half term, we have focused on our core value of Forgiveness.  We considered what friendship looks like and feels like.  We acknowledged that we sometimes have ruptures in our friendships and that sometimes we fall out.  The children gave me lots of brilliant suggestions about how we can repair a friendship, including forgiveness.  Jesus’ message to Peter about forgiveness, Matthew 18:21-35, made us reflect on forgiveness in our daily lives.

Good Health week has been fabulous!  We have learnt so much about keeping ourselves physically and emotionally healthy.  Years 3,4,5 and 6 learnt all about first aid, including CPR.  Year 5 and 6 learnt about the importance of getting a good nights sleep.  Reception learnt how to keep their hands clean.  They also learnt about how to keep themselves safe near the roads.  Year 1 and 2 made healthy smoothies!  All of our classes have thought about our mental health and wellbeing.  This afternoon, all pupils have chosen an activity to have a go at they may not have tried before.  It has been a very informative and active week to finish a great half term. “I have particularly enjoyed doing the outdoor activities – we played some really fun team games,” Georgia 5/6M.  Even the rain couldn’t dampen spirits, during Good Health Week. Thank you to all of the children for their enthusiasm and commitment, this week.  It has been a pleasure to see the children engage so positively and respectfully with so  many visitors to school.

Year 4 went to Church, this week, to Experience Lent.  They had a very thoughtful afternoon, writing ambitions on prayer rocks and posting prayers in the post box. “We had a lot of fun moving around church, drawing on rocks, asking God for guidance for our future ambitions,” said Annabelle and Paisley, 4C.  “We also planted sunflower seeds to bring home – we are looking forward to seeing them grow!”

We had a brilliant time at the discos, last night.  Thank you to all of the HSA volunteers who hosted such a great evening.

I can now confirm that school will be closed to children on May 7th as the school will be used as a polling station.

I have had a number of parents enquire about World Book Day on 5th March.  In case anyone is planning to have a sort out over half term, I wanted to give you the heads up that we will be doing our Church of Ascension Grand Book Swap, again this year.  Children were so enthusiastic about the swap last year.  We will also be taking the opportunity to dress up, this year.  Children are welcome to come dressed as a character from their favourite book, or wear their own clothes and be ready to talk about their favourite book.

Wishing you all a lovely half term holiday.

It’s not fair!  How often do we say and hear this?  The Open the Book team led our act of worship on Monday, this week and with the help of some of our year 4 pupils, acted out The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard Matthew 20:1-16.  All of the workers were paid the same, despite the fact that some workers did not start work until much later in the day.  The workers who had worked all day complained that it was not fair that they had all been paid the same.  The message that we considered was that to Christians, we are all equally loved and valued.  Thank you to the Open the Book team and our year 4 volunteers.

It has been a very busy week, here at Church of the Ascension. We have thoroughly enjoyed learning new songs and dances with iSing Pop, today.  The school was full of music and we have had a great time!

Thank you to Miss Naylor and the year 3 and 4 maths team who represented the school brilliantly in the Local Authority Maths Championships.  There was some very deep and critical thinking going on and the children really did rise to the challenge.

Our Worship Leaders attended the Unity Service at St James’s Church, Wollaston, this week.  Lots of local schools came together to sing, dance, perform poems and prayers.  Our Worship Leaders contributed poems, prayers and readings about gratitude and the importance of gratitude in our daily life.  Thank you Worship Leaders, Mrs Moore and all those involved – it was a reflective and thought provoking service that was enjoyed by all who attended.

Thank you to all of the year 5 and 6 pupils who have participated so sensibly in Bike Ability, over the last few weeks. You have listened carefully and been very sensible and the course leaders report that you were a pleasure to work with.

As per the post in last week’s newsletter, thank you for all of the birthday cards for Amelia.  We can still collect next week, if anyone would still like to send one.

We look forward to our school discos next week, on Thursday 12th February at 530 – 615 and 630 – 730pm.  We will be asking children to enter via the door by year 5 and 6, at the bottom of the steps.  This will allow us to get the children into the disco, more quickly.  On collection, please can parents enter school via the main school office and then exit via the hall.  Hopefully the new point of entry will prevent too much congestion.

Father Chris led our act of worship, this week.  Father Chris encouraged us to think about our own personal confidence and how we can speak to ourselves positively.  Sometimes we are hard on ourselves and speak to ourselves in a way that we wouldn’t speak to others.   He reminded us that we can cheer ourselves on and how Christians believe that God is always there to cheer you on, in good times and in bad.  We really enjoyed singing along with Father Chris and his electric guitar.  Thank you, Father Chris.

New Life church visited us on Thursday and taught us about healthy choices – this fits well with our plans for Good Health Week, next week!