What a busy week we’ve had at Church of Ascension Primary School! Our Year 2 students had a meaningful experience visiting the church to Experience Advent, which I’m sure will have been both educational and spiritually enriching. Feedback from the church community who led the experience for us were very impressed by our children’s engagement and responses – well done, year 2!  I’m particularly proud of our girls’ football team, who represented our school magnificently during their recent matches.

A huge thank you to everyone who supported our non-uniform day and made generous donations for the Christmas Fayre. Your continued support makes such a difference to our school community. We’ve also enjoyed fantastic school discos this week, which brought so much excitement to our students!  It also raised very much appreciated funds for the school.  These events are always a highlight in our school calendar.

I would also like to share an important staffing update. Mrs Walley, who is a very valuable and long-serving member of our team will be leaving at Christmas, to pursue further career opportunities and personal interests at another school. While we will miss her significant and hugely valuable contributions to school life at Church of the Ascension, we wish Mrs Walley every success in her future endeavours.

While I am aware that we are a little early, this week we began our focus on Advent.  We thought about how we feel when we are made to feel welcome and how we know that we are welcome somewhere.  Children gave some very thoughtful responses about a time when they have been made to feel welcome.  We thought about how we are getting ready for a very special time, both in and out of school.  For Christians, this is a particularly important time and we thought about the significance of Mary welcoming the news from the angel Gabriel that she would be having a very special baby.  Lighting our advent candle, while we held Mary in our thoughts, is always a special occasion for us, at Church of the Ascension and I am very grateful to the children for their sensible and thoughtful reflections.

Next week, will be our termly Eucharist Service.  Members of the church community are very welcome to join us, in taking communion, at school.

Well done to all of our children who have been so sensible and helpful on such a wet and windy day!

It has been a very busy week, with children representing the school in football and gymnastics.  As always, the children represented our school brilliantly  – thank you to all of those who took part.

It was a privilege to be invited to lay the wreath at the Wall Heath Cenotaph, on Sunday.  I was so proud to see so many of our children there in their uniforms to participate in the parade.

Staff and pupil feedback to the change to the start of the day arrangements has been positive.  Please ensure that you are still supervising children in reception and years 1 to 4 into the school grounds and to the relevant doors.  The prompt start to school day at 0850 provides very valuable learning time, in the classrooms.  It has provided us with time to practise maths fluency as well as spellings. Your assistance with ensuring that your child is in school on time, is very much appreciated so that they do not miss this valuable learning time.

We look forward to next week, when we have non-uniform day and school discos to look forward to!

Our thanks to Father Chris who led our act of worship, this week. Father Chris taught us a new hymn, which he led us in with his electric guitar.  We then learnt about Joseph, The Dreamer.   We thought about Joseph’s capacity to forgive his brothers and how he was able to show the value of generosity, despite having been treated so badly, by them.  Father Chris asked us to reflect on the story throughout the week, and think about how we can show patience, forgiveness and generosity in our thoughts, words and actions.

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.