PirehillFirstSchool
Newsletter
30.09.11
Dear All,
As we keep our fingers crossed for a few more days of glorious sunshine, here’s to the latest news from Pirehill!
WE ARE STONE IN BLOOM CHAMPIONS FOR THE SECOND YEAR RUNNING!!!!!
WE CAN NOW OFFICIALLY TELL YOU THAT WE HAVE ALSO HELPED THE TOWN OF STONE TO REACH THE NATIONAL FINALS OF THE BRITAIN IN BLOOM CHAMPIONSHIPS FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER!!!!!
ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT NEWS!
Many congratulations first and foremost to Mrs Rachel Cheadle and her fabulous Eco Warriors and School Gardeners, to her lovely husband, Mr Peter Cheadle, who helps us out no end, to Mrs Liz Jones and her Governor husband Peter, to Vic and Julie (Rio’s mum and amazing Granddad) and to all our fabulous families and friends, who have supported us throughout the year. Gardening is a huge task and continually, a huge ask. For all of us at Pirehill, we are thoroughly indebted to every single one who has helped to make our school grounds and allotment, so beautiful.
Grandparent’s Lunch Triumph!
May we say a great big thank you to all our wonderful grandparents, who joined us on one of our special Grandparents Lunch days this week. The children thoroughly enjoyed sharing their school day with you all and I can say that over the course of the week we managed to feed approximately 750 children and adults. What a fantastic success and a huge credit to our brilliant catering and lunchtime supervisory team, led by Mrs Kerry Smith our top chef in the kitchen. Many, many thanks to all involved and to Mrs Ecclestone for managing the extra cash collections.
Special Educational Needs at Pirehill.
As we hope you already know PirehillFirstSchool celebrates the fact that we are constantly commended for recognising that every child is unique. For us, every child really does matter and every single child is special. This ethos is a fundamental part of all we do and makes our school the happy place it is. However, the biggest success story for us is that we really do work in partnership with you as parents and consequently, we like to remind you all that you should never feel alone. If you are experiencing difficulties with your child, please, please feel free to pop in and chat to us. We really are happy to help out and support wherever we can.
A very warm welcome is extended to Mrs Lynne Barber, who has recently been appointed to the Special Educational Needs Team (SENSS) for our Stone area. Mrs Barber will be supporting Mrs Karen Williamson-Smith our Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator, along with Mrs Caroline Gilliland, our Educational Psychologist, as we move into a new year of learning.
Throughout the year we will work alongside many other agencies, whether they are the Speech and Language Team, The Physiotherapy Units, the School Nurse, The Autism Outreach Team, along with a wide range of others. It is quite simply part and parcel of what we do well, here at Pirehill. If any of you have any queries or concerns relating to special educational needs, whether that is with issues relating to any medical concerns, any particular dietary issues, worries or simply worries with general educational performance, please, please do not struggle alone. We are here to listen, to offer help and support and are more than happy to either work with you if we can or signpost you to the best advice and support agencies available. Similarly, for all our families who are already involved with us, either with individual programmes of support (IEP’s) again, our door is always open should you need us.
Supporting the Creative Curriculum at Pirehill
The Creative Curriculum is well established here at Pirehill and we are always looking for ways to enrich the curriculum and support children’s learning in exciting and innovative new ways! We do like to go the ‘extra mile!’
This termalready, our Year 3 and Year 4 children are soon to spend the day with a Roman Soldier at HanleyMuseum and Mr Walmsley's children have quite by chance, discovered a mysterious tent that appeared in our woodlands. This was afantastic mystery for our Year 3 children to solve and the writing our woodland detectives produced was phenomenal.
Miss Proctor and her team of artists will be decorating the Advent window again as part of the Countdown to Christmas Celebrations in the High Street. This year we will be decorating the shop window of Wikijum – the fair trade outlet n the High Street.
Mrs Soni Hayer and her dancers extraordinaire willalso be participating in a Dance Extravaganza at the Gatehouse Theatre later on in the year.
In November, we will be hosting a special Author visit for our Year 3 and Year 4 children and again, we will be focussing on the joy of reading.
The school is a tremendously vibrant place to be and as you can imagine, there is never a quiet moment! Just as we like it!
Friends of Pirehill AGM
The date for the final AGM of FOPS is Tuesday 18th October. Everyone is welcome to attend to finalise all the commitments of the retiring committee and to help think about the way forward. Any ideas for supporting in-houseevents for enriching school activities at Pirehill are always very gratefully received.
This year we have an awful lot to thank our FOPS team for and really do need to convey special thanks to Mrs Renshaw and her team for her friendship, loyalty and support of PirehillFirstSchool.
So, as we close the door on another year of fantastic fundraising, we are extremely excited to announce that in December all of our children will be able to enjoy a Pantomime Show at the Regent Theatre. This year Joe Swash is appearing as Aladdin and thanks to the PTA we will all be able to enjoy yet another fabulous school trip. The PTA intends to heavily subsidise the costs of tickets coaches and insurances, so many, many thanks indeed. More information is to follow, along with forthcoming events. Please remember that anyone who would like to help out at school Discos or other events please contact Sharon, Ann or myself and we will gladly welcome you on board!
Volunteer Helpers
Again, please could we convey our sincere thanksto our most brilliant team of Parent, Friends and Grandparent Volunteers? We really are extremely lucky to have such a fantastic group of people who give of their time and energy so freely.For our new families, if your child mentions a person’sname that you may be unsure of they are probably part of our wonderful support team.
Special thanks already extend to: Sharon Green, Emma Leaback, Amanda McBain, Ben James, Pat Milner, Amanda Clegg, Alison Wilson, Kath Tunstall, Dot Frost, Sharon Ecclestone, Wendy Fox, Emily Baker, Ella Reay, Catherine Bell, Kelly Burton, Jim Irving, Denise Irving, Becky Heath, Jayne Ship, Pam Palmer, Pam Bradley, Peter Cheadle and Helen Ellison.
Click Photography Day
On Saturday 12th November, we will be holding a day of photo shoot sessions. The photos are really beautiful and if any of you are looking for a nice Christmas gift, this is an ideal offer. For anyone wishing to book a place, please return the slip at the foot of the letter as soon as possible, as from previous years experiences, we know this is a very popular school event.
Lost Property and Label Uniform
Please could we kindly ask that you label your Child’s school uniform. We are doing our best to return all labelled items to their rightful owners, but we are starting to see a number of garments in our Lost Property bins already.
Website update
Please could we remind you that all latestnewsletters and updates are always put on the school website. If your child arrives home without a letter or you are unsure about something, please feel free to check the website, ( as we hope it will be there, or feel free to contact us at school.
Vouchers
Special thanks to everyone for sending in the many, many vouchers. This year we have collected enough to purchase a Visualiser, courtesy of Tesco and our Foundation Stage have had some lovely additional equipment including light and dark boxes for science from Sainsbury’s.
IntraSchool Sports Day
Many thanks to Mrs Soni-Hayer and Miss Atherton the Stafford and Stone Sports Co-ordinator, for organising the first of our intra school sports days. All the children who took part, thoroughly enjoyed themselves and were very well supported by the Sports Leaders from WaltonPrioryMiddle School. Another good Sporting event – well done!
Good luck also to Mrs Taylor’s Bucket ball team and Mr Walmsley’s Football team who look forward to competing in their first matches of the season at TittensorFirstSchool and St Michaels First School over the next two weeks.
Open Day for Prospective new parents
Could we kindly invite all prospective parents for our 2 Reception classes for September 2012, to join us on our annual Open Day on Saturday 15th October.
If we could ask that all our families and friends register an interest with us and put your names on our waiting lists as soon as possible, as again, this year we are ‘filling up fast!
Parents Consultation Evening
Many thanks to all our families who attended Parents Evening last week. We managed to achieve 95% attendance, which is tremendous, especially as we know how difficult it is for many of you to arrange child care and to be able to attend due to work commitments. We really do appreciate your support and feel that it is invaluable at this early point of the academic year to build on our excellent partnerships with your child’s new class teacher.
Wet weather books/magazines
It seems unusual to ask for this given the current weather we are enjoying, but please could we encourage all children to bring in a magazine or well loved story book ready for when the weather turns. We do have lots of lovely resources available at break and lunchtimes, but we do find that some children prefer to enjoy their indoor breaks more if they have their own special reading materials.
Samaritans Purse Shoe Box Appeal
As always, in theautumnterm, we start to look forward to the Season of Goodwill.!!!! I know – Christmas cards were out in Tesco at the end of August this year!! So, as part of our consideration of what the true meaning of Christmas is – we look forward to sharing in the joy of giving as well as receiving.
All our children are exceptionally fortunate and at this special time of year we do like to remember those children for whom Christmas time will sadly be a very different experience. Every year we support the Samaritans Purse Charity and we collect items to be packed into a festive shoe box that will be sent to little children all over the world to try to help make their Christmas a little more bearable. If you are able to support this event, please could we ask that you send your boxes in as soon as possible as we will be sending them off straight after half term.
The children will bring home a leaflet next week which will explain all about this much loved project and exactly what goodies and surprises you are able to pack. Many thanks.
Autumn Term Extra Curricular Clubs and Activities
Lunchtime / After SchoolMonday / Choir / Web Club
Tuesday / SCFC in the Community
Progressive Sports
Wednesday / Year 3 Guitars
Year 4 guitars
Thursday
Friday / Arts Club
Diary Dates
19.10.119.30am – New date for Harvest Festival Service
20.10.11School closed for POLLING DAY
21.10.11INSET Day
SCHOOL CLOSED FOR OCTOBER HALF TERM
31.10.11School re-opens
16.11.11School choir sing at Bromfield Court 2.00pm
17.11.11Dyslexia Friendly Verification
Switch on of the StoneTown lights – Choir to perform
06.12.11Dress Rehearsal – 2pm
07.12.11Christmas Production – 2pm
08.12.11Christmas Production – 2pm
14.12.11KS1 Party Day
15.12.11 KS2 Party Day
16.12.11Christmas Dinner Day
20.12.11School closes for Christmas break - 3.30pm
03.01.12INSET Day
04.01.12School re-opens for children
Once again, many thanks for all your support and commitment of our lovely school. Have a fabulous sunny weekend everyone!
With our best wishes
Debbie and the Team at Pirehill