Registered Charity No: 1141329
St Peter’s 2-8 has had a distinctly wild feel this week leading up to World Wildlife Day today! There was huge excitement in Year 2 and Reception with the arrival of duck eggs followed very soon after by very cute ducklings hatching. The children have enjoyed learning how to look after the ducklings and even been building play parks to keep the ducklings entertained. The Reception children also had a fabulous trip to the birds of prey centre which you can read about later in the newsletter. Many thanks to the Reception team for their organisation and the parent volunteers who supported the trip. Children are always fascinated to learn about the natural world, and it provides an excellent theme to engage them in learning. A big thank you to Mrs Bromley who arranged for the children to have a special recorded message from the RSPCA’s Lead Wildlife Inspector in assembly to inspire them to care and protect our wildlife.
Each child from Nursery to Year 3 has taken inspiration from wildlife to produce a unique piece of artwork. You will be able to view these pieces of artwork in our Wildlife Exhibition on Tuesday 5 and Wednesday 6 March. The art gallery will be open from 7:45am – 8:25am and from 3:20 - 7:45pm, so you can view the artwork with your child. Each child will bring home their artwork after the exhibition, and donations to our school charity, The Yorkshire Children’s Charity, will be greatly appreciated.
On Monday the choir and some
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instrumentalists joined pupils from 8-13 and 13 -18 for the Whole School Foundation Concert in the Minster. The choir sang two pieces to open the concert and then joined the combined choirs to close the concert. Some children who play instruments also played in a combined orchestra performing Holst’s Mars from The Planets. The whole school events are very special, particularly seeing pupils who are now at 13-18 that came to 2-8 performing and reminds us just how quickly they grow up as that will be our current children in just a few years' time!
Many thanks to Mrs Hayden for all of her hard work in preparing the children and instrumentalists, to Miss Cunold for helping with choir and to all of the staff who came along to look after the children for the evening.
7th March is World Book Day which began in 1995 and was created by UNSECO. You may have seen some posters appearing around school with lots of information and activities for your children to get involved in. Reading is such a vital skill for accessing the curriculum and key to learning, but reading for pleasure and the joy of getting lost in a book and being transported to far off places real or imagined is equally as important. Research show that less and less children read so promoting reading is crucial. The benefits of reading and being read to are wide ranging but have particular value for children’s wellbeing and mental health. On Monday I’ll be showing the children my favourite and most treasured book which is an almost 50 years olda slightly dog-eared copy of Winnie the Pooh. When I was little,
my dad used to read it to me with a different voice for each character and I could hear the same stories over and over again and still love them. All children enjoy being read to and modelling reading is one way to encourage them to read for pleasure.
I attended the FOSP meeting this week and we had a surprise visit from some Reception children with a thank you card to the balance bikes and helmets which are now in use and the Forest School overalls that the children from Nursery to Year 3 are benefitting from. As always huge thanks to the Friends for enhancing the experience for the children. Tonight is the annual quiz which we are all looking forward to. Many thanks to Mrs Woolf, Mrs Dolan-Bent and the Friends for organising the quiz and to Mr Hardy for writing the quiz and being the quiz mater extraordinaire! Also thanks to Stuart and Connor for catering.
I’ve been away from school on Thursday and Friday at the IAPS (Independent Association of Prep Schools) New Heads conference. The IAPS does a huge amount to support the more than 660 schools who are members in a wide range of areas. There have been some excellent speakers, and it has been valuable to meet new Heads from up and down the country to share the joys and challenges of Headship. Wishing you all a lovely weekend.
Best wishes,
Newsletter No: 20
Friday 1 March 2024
DIARY FOR WEEK COMMENCING
4 March 2024
Year 1 & 2 Fascinating Facts
Year 1 Cricket*
Year 2 & 3 Football*
Year 3 Virtual Reality
Year 1 Lets Get Moving
Year 1 Wellbeing
Year 2 STEM
Year 2 & 3 French
Year 3 Swimming
Year 3 Tennis*
Year 2 & 3 Dance Club*
Year 1 Football Skills*
Year 1 Yoga*
Year 2 & 3 Choir (CANCELLED)
School Council
Year 1 Board Games
Year 1 Outdoor Games
Year 2 Tennis*
Year 2 Art
Year 2 & 3 European Cultures
Year 3 Netball
Year 3 Cookery
Year 3 Sewing
Year 1 Lexia
Year 1 Street Dance*
Year 2 Quiz
Year 2 & 3 Lioness Football*
Year 2 & 3 Running Club
Year 2 & 3 Cricket*
Year 3 STEM
M O N D A Y
T U E S D A Y
W E D N E S D A Y
T H U R S D A Y
F R I D A Y
IMPORTANT NOTICES
UPDATE - Proposed Sports Pitches and Improved Parking at St Peter’s School
We have decided to withdraw our planning application for new artificial pitches, access road and car park. Despite good progress being made to resolve outstanding concerns, the sudden timing of the decision for the application to be determined by the Planning Committee did not give our team sufficient time to resolve the outstanding matters. Withdrawing the application will allow us further time to continue our discussions with the Council, consultees and other stakeholders to address these concerns. We hope that this will allow us to resubmit the application and have a smooth path through the planning process when the time comes. Thank you all of you who have helped and supported the process so far.
Parking at St Peter’s School
Please could we remind parents that the school does not have facilities for parents to leave cars at school. Outside of drop off and pick up times, if you need to park at school for a meeting with a member of staff or for other school related matters, please ensure that you note your registration when you sign in. We will of course make separate parking arrangements for events involving parents during the school
Music
A huge congratulations to our amazing 2-8 choir and instrumentalists who took part in the Whole School Foundation Concert at York Minster on Monday evening. The choir sang Touch and Sky and We are Unstoppable to open the concert to a packed Minster filled with family and friends. The children sang really clearly and did a great job of filling such a huge space. We then listened to lots of different performances by the pupils from 8-13 and 13-18, we particularly enjoyed watching the different orchestral pieces, spotting lots of instruments we usually just get to listen to in our music lessons. It's so good for the children to be able to hear live music. Our amazing Year 3 instrumentalists then joined the whole school orchestra for a performance of Mars from the Planet Suite by Gustav Holst. What an incredible experience for our children to play with a full sized symphony orchestra at such a young age. My thanks to all our visiting music teachers who prepared the children so well so they could have this opportunity. Finally the whole school came together to sing The Spacious Firmament by Richard Shepherd. Once again our choir rose to this special occasion by singing some incredibly tricky words very clearly, hitting all the high notes along the way. Thank you to all the teachers and teaching assistants who accompanied the children to this special concert. Without their support giving up their evening, trips like this would not be possible.
