We Held Our Nativity Service in Church on Wednesday 14Th December. This Was Attended By

Nativity

We held our nativity service in church on Wednesday 14th December. This was attended by parents and grandparents.Our readers were from years 4,5, and 6 while Class 1 and Year 3 performed the nativity story.

Christmas Party

During the last week of term we had our annual Christmas party, Year 6 organised and ran the party games, they did an excellent job with a good variety of games. At the end of the afternoon the children had a visit from Father Christmas who brought lots of lovely presents for the children.

Crib Service

We were invited to St. Hilda’s church to share a crib service with the children from Egton School. The service was very interactive and lots of fun. After the service we went back into Egton School and played together and shared drinks and biscuits. Year 5 and 6 contributed to the service by reading with Egton school children.

Attendance

This half term the following pupils had 100% attendance; Isobel, Grace, Ella, Rhona, William, Robert, Rhys, Charlie, Archie, Layton, Poppy, Ethan and Josh.

And the following had 100% for the whole of the autumn term: Grace, Rhona, William, Robert, Rhys, Charlie, Archie, Poppy, Ethan and Josh.

House Points

The half term totals are: Kingfishers – 1963, Keestrels – 1850, Lapwings – 1720, Barn Owls - 1672

Congratulations to Kingfishers – Ewan, Alfie, Isobel, Sophie, Thomas, Archie and Rhona.

Friends of St. Hedda’s - Bingo

Friends of St. Hedda’s held their annual Christmas Bingo evening. We would like to thank all the parents who generously donated some wonderful hampers for prizes and lovely refreshments for this event. Once again it proved to be a fun evening which was supported by parents and the local community. A grand total of £483.50 was raised. A big thank you to everyone especially the ‘Friends of St. Hedda’s for organising and running this event which funded a trip to see the pantomime ‘Aladdin’ performed at the Scarborough Spa.

Earlier in the year during the summer holidays members from ‘Friends of St. Hedda’s’ provided teas and cakes at the Annual Gooseberry Show, this was very much appreciated by the committee. They made a marvellous array of delicious cakes, scones, brownies and flapjack and raised a wonderful total of £494.50.

Notice Board

In the last week of term we became the proud owners of a new school notice board so we will be able to advertise our forthcoming events. A great big thank you goes to Godbolds for using their special talents to make this for us.

HOLIDAYS

Training day: Tues3rd January ‘17

Return:Wed4th January ‘17

Half Term:Mon 20th – Fri 24th Feb

Easter:Break up Fri 7th April

Return:Tues 25th April

May Day: Mon 1st May

Half Term: Mon 29th – Fri 2ndJune

Break up: Fri 21stJuly

We would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

Esk Valley Community Library

As you may already know theEsk Valley Community Library was set up in the Parish Rooms at the rear of school. Over the last few months it has not been open due to the lack of volunteers to run the library. This is a great resource to have on our door step for both the community and school that it would be such a shame to lose it! Therefore we are appealing for any volunteers who could spare a few hours to run the library.

The opening times would be:

3.15 – 5.15 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays

10.00 – 12.00 noon Saturdays

Please let us know if you are interested in volunteering.

December ‘16 / St. Hedda’sR.C.Primary School
Autumn Term Newsletter - 58

In our last newsletter we forgot to mention that we had had a visit from Bishop Terrence Drainey, on Wednesday 28th September. Arriving just after the bell went for the start of the day he spent the morning delivering assembly, meeting the children, parents, governors and staff and blessing the canteen and classroom which were built in 2014. Mrs Olive Braithwaite, the former school cook, officially opened the building and revealed the commemorative plaque.

After our half term break it was back to a busy half term leading up to Christmas!

Topic

This half term Class One have been busy re-enacting events from history. We acted out and freeze framed scenes from the story of Guy Fawkes and used this as a basis for our writing.

Having learned about Captain Cook’s life, we were then sent on a secret mission to discover what lies in the Southern hemisphere on our ship, The Endeavour. We had to navigate the seas using compass directions and at last we reached land. Clues including pictures and some letters from the alphabet were found which we used, along with our atlases, to find we had discovered Australia!

Christmas is coming and Class One made and iced their own individual Christmas cakes! We had to weigh ingredients carefully and even used the measurements of our cakes to design the icing decor! They are truly a great success and we are very proud of them – watch out Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood!!

This half term Class 2 have continued to look at Kensuke’s Kingdom, firstly by writing news reports to report Michael’s disappearance to the world. We then began to think about how Michael would have survived on the island and invented our own story ideas based on this. We then practiced our performance skills by each reading out a section of our story to the class. In DT, we went out of school to find materials that Michael would have had access to in order to build a model shelter for himself and his dog to live in. It was very messy, but a lot of fun! To complete this term’s science, we have also made Christmas tree shadow puppets, to investigate how shadows can be changed.

R.E.

Our R.E. lessons this half term have pointed us to that first Christmas and the greatest story ever told, the coming of Christ, God’s son to the stable in Bethlehem. The themes of our lessons have each been an interpretation of an aspect of Christmas. For Y5/6 is has been ‘Expectations’. For Y3/4 the theme has been ‘Gifts’ while Class 1 has thought about ‘Waiting’ – little people don’t find waiting easy!

Advent began in November this year that was when our Advent wreath was introduced. Three candles so far have been lit – Hope, Love, Joy, these are lit each day during Assembly.

In the first week of Advent we attended our Christingle service in church, this proved to be a popular event again, with many parents and grandparents attending to see their children take part in the service. The readings and prayers were delivered by Class 2 and the whole school sang carols and held their ‘lit’ Christingles (this reminds us that Jesus is the Light of the World) in front of the altar steps whilst Fr Guiver delivered his message about the important work that De Paul Uk does for young people.

Thanks to the generosity of everyone their St. Hedda’s raised £44.51 for the charity.

Our Christmas play this year also pointed to the great event in the stable, ‘Straw and Order’, every child took part and it was enjoyed by all.

In the last week of term we have our Carol Service. Here we tell the story of Christmas through carols and readings and we act out that first Christmas in Bethlehem.

Sport

Cross Country–On 2nd November Class 2 travelled to Caedmon College to take part in the Primary School's Cross Country competition. Y3/4 ran a shorter route than Y5/6 and although it proved to be a challenging endurance run for everyone they all ran to the best of their ability finishing the course in an excellent time. They were all pleased that they achieved their goal and it proved to be a great experience, well done.

Netball –This term St. Hedda’s has played in the high five netball tournament which took place over 2 afternoons at Goathland and Glaisdale Schools. All five of the teams attended the event and the matches were played as a round robin. At Goathland we played in 3 matches and the children enjoyed the experience greatly.

At Glaisdale we played 2 matches swapping team members and positions every quarter. Our playing got better and better and although we lost the first match against Castleton we won our final match 3-1 against Danby. All our team members played well and were a credit to the school.

Athletics –Class 2 took part in a sports hall athletics competition at Whitby Leisure Centre. They worked extremely well as a team, competing inseveral athletic track and field events such as high jump, speed bounce and relay races. Although we weren’t the winners overall, we achieved quite a few ‘first-place’ wins in some events, and did particularly well with the relays.

Straw & Order

This year our annual Christmas production was “Straw and Order”. This was a ‘fun’ twist to the Christmas Story. There were lots of livelysongs, a particular favourite of the children was the ‘Sheep Shimmy’!

All the children were involved and performed two shows on Wednesday 7th December, afternoon and evening. At the performances we held a Chocolate Raffle which raised £136.00 for school funds, winners were; Mrs Gaskin, Mrs Hutchinson, Miss Robertson and Mrs Sanderson.

Trip to Panto

On Monday 12th December the whole school travelled to Scarborough Spa to watch the panto ‘Aladdin’. This whole trip, tickets, transport and ice cream was totally funded by the Friends of St. Hedda’s. Here are some of our thoughts:

“It was really exciting! My favourite part was when Officers Ping and Pong drew themselves!” –Harry

“It was really funny!” – Archie

“The pantomime was fun! My favourite character was Abanazer” – George

“It was good. I liked the ghost bit best because it was behind them” – Jay-Jay

“I liked the Policemen Ping and Pong” – Rhona

“The monkeys were funny” – William

“I liked all of it” – Layton

“It was ok” – Robert

“It was very good” – Grace

“It was very funny” – Ella

“I enjoyed it” - Thomas

“I was nervous when I went on stage” – Noah

“It made me feel happy” – Sophie

“I liked the genie best” – Rhys

“Wishy Washy and Widow Twanky were very funny” – Poppy

“It was really good, I liked the genie best” – Josh

“I liked the Policemen Ping and Pong” – Isobel

“It was fantastic” - Ethan

“I liked how they used up to date characters such as Honey G” – Amy

“It was excellent” - Charlie

“It was really exciting and funny” –Alfie

“My favourite part was when Aladdin and Jasmine were sitting on a magic carpet singing” – Beth

“The best bit was when Wishy Washy went through the mangle” – Amelia

“It was funny the whole way through!” – Chloe

“It was awesome” – Lara

“I liked it when Wishy threw sweets into the audience” – Ewan

“My favourite character was Wishy because he was so funny!” –Matty

We would all like to say a big thank you to the Friends of St. Hedda’s, we all loved it!

Christmas Jumper Day

During the last week of term we held a Christmas Jumper Day raising money for Save the Children which we raised £34.65 many thanks for all the contributions.

We were all dressed ready for our Christmas Lunch!

Christmas Lunch

On Tuesday 13th December we all enjoyed a delicious Christmas Lunch of Roast Turkey and all the trimmings followed by Chocolate Coated Ice Cream Christmas Tree. Lunch ended with the customary rendition of “The Twelve Days of Christmas”.