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October 2018 newsletter Flipbook PDF
October 2018 newsletter
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OCTOBER 2018 NEWSLETTER ELLACOMBE C OF E ACADEMY & LITTLE STARS CHILDCARE CENTRE
Head of Academy Update Dear Parents, I hope you had a refreshing half term break last week! As we reach the end of October, I can't believe that another month has flown by and we have once again been super busy at Ellacombe, immersing ourselves in learning. This newsletter is packed with all lots of news and information that we are thrilled to share with our families. Parent partnership and sharing what we are working on as a school is important to us. Thank you for the feedback you continue to give us about how much you appreciate all of our communication with you. This term, we have been thinking about ‘What makes Ellacombe Special’ as part of our development as a Church of England Academy. You will have seen at the end of last half term, we were asking for your thoughts on this. We sent information to you and both Mrs Huish and Mrs Secker were talking with parents at parent consultations. Thank you for you contributing to this, we will be continuing these discussions with our children and wider school family members over this half term. We look forward to sharing the outcomes with you through our upcoming monthly newsletters. Thank you for the phenomenal support we received on census day (Willy Wonka Day!). We look forward to sharing some photos, quotes and the all important key statistics which have such a vital impact on our funding from the Department for education in November. In our last newsletter we introduced you to Reverend Sam, who is the new vicar at St Mary Magdalene Church. We were delighted that Reverend Sam joined us for our Harvest Festival and he has contributed a piece to this newsletter with a few words about himself and his work. We look forward to our upcoming Christmas events at St Mary Mags and at the academy. Please keep an eye out for our, now famous, Christmas booklet created by our brilliant admin team giving you all the information you need to know about what’s happening. In our last newsletter we shared the exciting news with you that our brand new Little Stars Nursery development has now opened. We have been overwhelmed by the interest in places and in just a few weeks the number of pupils at Little Stars has almost doubled! It was lovely to welcome our nursery parents to the main school for our parent consultations and again we were delighted with their lovely feedback about the feel of Ellacombe Academy. Next month we will be formally introducing you to the newly expanded nursery team. We are also thrilled by the number of parents who are keen to come and have a look around Ellacombe Academy with a view to applying for a reception place in 2019. We are currently booking tours for parents and have two coming up in November on the 6th and 16th. Please contact the academy office if you would like to book a place. I hope you enjoy reading this October newsletter and find the articles helpful in supporting you to work alongside us. We have shared with you further in this newsletter, a reminder of the many ways in which we communicate with you to ensure you are kept up to date with key events. Mrs Semmens Head of Academy
Together we empower excellence
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Dates for Your Diary 31st October Y5 swimming lessons start 31st October School Photographs 1st November EYFS applications for 2019 open 6th November Y6 Reading Workshop 6th November Y4 Beach Trip 13th November Y3 Beach Trip 14th November Maths No Problems Workshop 30th November Christmas Fayre 5th December Phonics Workshop 6th December Clubs end 7th December Y6 Dance/ Gym Festival with Spires 7th & 10th December Y1 & Y2 Nativity 11th December KS2 Carol Concert 18th & 20th December EYFS Carols Around The Tree 19th December School Christmas Dinner 21st December End of Term 15th January EYFS applications for 2019 close 11th—13th March Year 4 Heatree Residential 8th—10th July Year 6 Heatree Residential
Look out for our Christmas information booklet coming home in November packed full of information about this year’s Christmas events!
Term Dates 2018/19 Autumn Term 2018 Ends: 21 December Spring Term 2019 Start: 7 January Half Term: 18 – 22 February Ends: 4 April Summer Term 2019 Start: 23 April Bank Holiday: 6 May Half Term: 27 May – 31 May Non Pupil Days: 3 June – 7 June Ends: 23 July The Head of Academy may not grant any leave of absence during term time unless there are exceptional circumstances. All requests for a child to be absent from school during term time must be made in writing at least a half term in advance of the proposed absence by completing the absence request form obtainable from the academy office. Please call into the academy office if you would like to discuss your child’s attendance or any aspect of absences.
Welcome to our academy! A warm welcome to the following children who have joined us in October! Georgia, Kaitlin, Kyra, Sienna, Oscar, Maisie, Tia, Reece, Ruby, Eleanor, Alaya, Ewan, Tilly-Hope, Rashi, Jasper, Sienna, Marley, Harper and Frankie.
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Harvest Festival On Tuesday 16th October we celebrated our annual Harvest Festival, which tied in beautifully with our school value this term of Generosity. We would like to thank everyone for all the generous donations that were brought in. Yet again we were absolutely blown away by the amount of food collected for two charities based within Torbay; The Storehouse and The Haven. The Storehouse is an initiative to help support families and individuals in need by supplying emergency food as well as other essentials and The Haven provides a safe and welcoming space for all homeless and vulnerable people regardless of background, faith, race, gender or age. We feel very privileged as a school that we are able to support such amazing charities in our local area. During our Harvest celebration the children also read out prayers to thank God and sang hymns to celebrate the harvest season. It was wonderful to hear the children read their prayers so confidently and sing so beautifully.
We spent time in family groups thinking about messages to leave on our harvest donations.
A big thank you to Reverend Sam who joined us for our service.
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OCTOBER 2018 NEWSLETTER
World Mental Health Day Thank you to everyone for helping us to support World Mental Health Day earlier this month. We were thrilled to see so many children wearing something yellow. Mental health problems can affect anyone, any day of the year, World Mental Health day was a day to show support for better mental health and start looking after our own wellbeing.
Unicorns used an apple to explore how feelings could be bruised on the inside but yet we look healthy on the outside!
Special Author Visit What an exciting November awaits us! Because of our love for reading across the school, we have a very special visitor coming to work with us on Wednesday 14th November. David Lawrence Jones is a local author with a thirst for storytelling. As a child, his older brother would pester him to make up stories before they went to sleep. The children’s books David has since written and had published, follow the exploits of the young Bradley Baker and his time in the parallel world of Pathylon. David said: “The idea for Bradley Baker’s character and the plots were extracted from original stories I wrote as a child and narrated to my brother.” Now it’s time for Ellacombe Academy to discover the new boy hero, created by this Devon based author – a character called Bradley Baker. Prepare yourselves for some good old fashioned courage and adventure mixed with a touch of magic and bucket loads of mystery. David welcomes the opportunity to meet and greet his young fans during school visits and will be offering a chance to purchase some of his books and join him on Friday 16th November to have them signed in person too. An opportunity not to be missed!
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OCTOBER 2018 NEWSLETTER
Lifelong Learners At Ellacombe, we love to celebrate and share the achievements of our children both inside and outside of our academy. We have been thrilled that our families have been sharing with us news of their children’s successes from outside of school already this term. We are discovering that our children are busy getting involved in such a wide range of activities in the community as well! In the last few weeks alone, we have been celebrating a numbers of children who took part and completed the Summer Reading Challenge with Torbay Libraries. This entailed the children reading six books over the summer holiday-that’s over one book per week...amazing! We’ve also been keeping up to date with our Chess Champions Bailey and Cameron who are now having regular success at regional competitions. In the latest event, the boys, together with Balthasar who joined for his debut event, took part in a chess tournament held at Churston Grammar School. Bailey ‘played up’ a year group, competing against children several years older than him and showed great resilience and talent! The boys, who are all regulars at our very own, Ellacombe Chess Club, continue to learn and be inspired by Mr Cross, who has been involved with coaching the England Youth Team! We’ve also been thrilled to hear that one of our Year Three children has been awarded her very own Blue Peter Badge! Showing great independence, she wrote a letter and sent it, along with a drawing to Blue Peter. After a long wait of six weeks, she was delighted to receive her badge and wear it proudly to school!
If your child has any achievements or successes outside of school please let us know, we would love to hear about them.
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What We Invested In Last Year Thank you for supporting us on census day (Willy Wonka Day) this term. This national census day is vital for the school in securing the correct funding per pupil from the Department for Education. At a recent Parent Ambassador meeting, it was suggested that we feed back to you some of the ways in which we invest our money for your child’s education.
Books for our library
Scooters and balance bikes for EYFS
Delivering RWInc phonics
I N V E S T M E N T Swimming for Year 5/6 children
School based assault prevention programme
Maths resources
Science resources
Life Education mobile classroom
Year 6 PGL residential weekend pre SATs
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OCTOBER 2018 NEWSLETTER
How We Communicate To Our Parents Monthly Newsletters
Weekly Newsletters
Facebook
Twitter
Website
C O M M U N I C A T I O N
Text Message
Email
Letters
Notice Boards
Just a reminder of all the ways in which we communicate with you. Please ensure your contact details are up to date so that we can continue to keep you informed.
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Christian Values We are now entering our third full year as a Church of England School and we have been reflecting upon our journey so far and considering our future developments. Many of our families will remember our wonderful Church Service in September 2016 at the gorgeous Ellacombe Christchurch with the children's heart-warming prayers and singing. During this service, I had the privilege of reciting the poem ‘Footsteps’ and many of you fed back afterwards how much this had touched you.
Our Vision To explore this, we’re considering three key questions: Who are we as a school? Why are we here (what do we believe our role as a school is)? How do we live our lives (how do we shape our school and all that we do to meet the needs of our pupils and community)? The whole team at school have been investing time in working together on these. The ideas were so heart-warming, we wanted, at this stage to share some of the discussions with you. “Be the best you can be. Be a successful human being”.
“Like the parts in a watch- if just one piece is missing, it affects the working…We are all equal and important”.
“Our actions and emotions influence everyone we work with”.
“We are welcoming and accepting of who join us”.
“We have pride in who we are and what we do”.
“We leave our own comfort zones, overcome our own barriers, to continue to learn to be the best we can be, for the children”.
Our Values As a school community, we are exploring our Values. The current values of ‘Friendship, Respect and Responsibility’ were mapped out over six years ago with the children. As the majority of these children have now passed through the school and have left, we feel it is right to open this discussion again. We will be opening up discussions later this half term, thank you for sharing your thoughts with us so far.
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Welcome Reverend Sam Hi, my name is Sam Leach and I am the new Vicar at St Mary Magdalene Church round the corner from the library. My family and I moved down to Devon in August from my last post in Wednesfield, Wolverhampton where we had been for seven years. I am a parent of two children at Ellacombe. Over the years I have worked as a primary teacher, in various churches, in a Drug and Alcohol rehabilitation centre, in safe houses with victims of domestic abuse and also been a self employed gardener. I love family time, walking our dog 'Dibley,' star wars, Chinese food, photography and playing guitar. My wife Jo and I also love 80's rock ballad's! My role, as well as leading the brilliant bunch of people at St Mags, is to help develop the church's relationships within the larger community of Torbay, working with other partners to enable people's lives to be transformed for the better and to see our town flourish. Ellacombe school has a similar vision and I look forward to working with the school community over the years to come. I will be coming in to lead some assemblies, working on the 'ethos and community committee' and hosting festival celebrations down at St Mags. St. Mags is an amazing group of people from every walk of life. The church is very active, in particular running the play room on Monday and Tuesday mornings for parents and little ones from 10.00 am-12.00 noon (term time). Then on Wednesdays and Fridays we run the living room where we serve free hot drinks and bacon sandwiches between 11.00 am and 2.00 pm to a fantastic mix of people. On Sundays there is a quiet, more traditional service at 9 am and a lively 11 am service for families which is very relaxed! We are not very religious; instead we really do want to follow Jesus and love people as he did. Come and say hello.
Rev. Sam
Worship This half term, we are exploring our vision and how our footprints have impact on those around us. We are learning from key bible stories and talking in worship and family groups.
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OCTOBER 2018 NEWSLETTER
Attendance What an incredible start to the new school year! We have had an excellent half term of attendance - thank you for continuing to support this. We have had so many exciting things happen with attendance. We were delighted to welcome Willy Wonka and one of his Oompa-Loompa's into school and share some delicious treats. They were so impressed with our attitude to attendance at Ellacombe, that they had to come and meet us. Every class with 100% that day was awarded a Golden Ticket to gain access to the Chocolate Factory. Due to our fabulous attitudes and perseverance, every class had a Golden Ticket - well done! The Warriors class managed to win the Celebration Breakfast for the half term. They had an excellent start to the year and have said that they will win the next one!
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PTFA
We have a Christmas Fayre PTFA meeting on Tuesday 6th November at 9am. Any help or contributions towards the Christmas Fayre this year would be gratefully appreciated. We would love anyone to come along to talk about the fayre, we will be providing refreshments and little ones are welcome! The Christmas Fayre takes place on 30th November. Santa's grotto tickets will be available to purchase very soon so keep your eyes peeled!
PTFA Christmas Fayre meeting 6th November 9am - all welcome!
A huge thank you to all those of you who supported the disco this month. It was a massive success and we raised £693!
We’re not sure who had more fun at he disco—the children or the staff!!
Please note that Panto tickets are no longer available to purchase through the PTFA.
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OCTOBER 2018 NEWSLETTER
A Chat With Our Team Mrs Huish - Assistant Head of Academy Hello, I am Mrs Huish and hopefully you have all seen me on the gate welcoming you in in the mornings this year! I have been based at Ellacombe for over 7 years, teaching across years 1-6, but over that time my role has evolved. I am Assistant Head of Academy as well as a Specialist Leader Education within literacy for our teaching school. This gives me a golden opportunity to work closely with other schools across the nation sharing our brilliance at Ellacombe with others and bringing back new initiatives to improve teaching and learning here too. At Ellacombe, we pride ourselves on our partnership with parents, so please introduce yourselves, if you see me on the gate, I am always happy to help!
Visitors Feedback
Mrs Guntrip - Assistant Head of Academy Hello, my name is Mrs Guntrip. I am currently working at Ellacombe as a Year 6 teacher and also as Assistant Head of Academy. In addition to my role within Ellacombe, I also work as a Specialist Leader of Education for Religious Education with the All Saints Teaching School Alliance. This allows me to work very closely with other schools within the Learning Academy Partnership and also across Devon and Torbay. Please do come and say hello if you see me, it would be lovely to meet you all!
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OCTOBER 2018 NEWSLETTER
Where Are They Now? My name is Natasha and I left Ellacombe school as a pupil in 2004. I went onto study at Westlands Secondary School (now known as The Spires College.) After I had finished secondary school I decided to continue in education and went onto study childcare at South Devon College. I became more and more interested and passionate about working with Children and Young People. I then began working overseas within various holiday destinations as a Children's representative. During my time studying within the college and working overseas I found a real love for working with children and their families.
We are thrilled that Natasha is now part of our Ellacombe team. Many of you will know her as Miss Davidson who works at our Little Stars Nursery.
If you are or know of a former pupil of the academy and would like to share a journey, we would love to hear from you.
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OCTOBER 2018 NEWSLETTER
OCTOBER 2018 NEWSLETTER
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OFFICE OPENING HOURS 8am—3.30pm Monday—Friday. Closed for lunch daily 12.45-1.15pm. Closed Mondays 10.30-11.30am for staff training.
A reminder that we need to be mindful of our neighbours in Garden Lane. We have had several groups of both children and parents entering peoples driveways and paths whilst they wait at the start and end of day. Please can we all work to show respect and courtesy to our neighbours. Thank you.
We’re taking part in the Scholastic Book Fair! We are delighted to announce that we have the book fair coming our way to sprinkle a little reading magic, just in time for Christmas! From the 28th of November to the 5th of December the book fair will be available for you to view and purchase books and accessories at bargain prices! It is a superb chance to grab a little treat, buy some Christmas presents or simply see, touch and fall in love with the latest titles. Come and see us in the canteen from 2:45pm each day!
Over the next couple of weeks some of our Year 6 children will be around the school selling poppies and other small poppy related items for Remembrance Day. Please can children bring a small donation into school if they wish to purchase any items.
Ellacombe C of E Academy Ellacombe Church Road Torquay TQ1 1TG 01803 293040
[email protected] www.ellacombe.co.uk