Shepeau Stow Primary School

A new school year…lots that’s new, and lots much the same!

We all extend a warm welcome to everyone that’s new, including our new head teacher Mrs Rayner. One thing that we can be sure of: you’ll have an exciting and friendly time at our fantastic school.

Classes have been rearranged a bit over the break to equalise the numbers, so we have:

Class 1: Foundation stage and Year 1 (Mrs Hall)

Class 2: Year 2 and 3 (Mrs Stott)

Class 3: Years 4, 5 and 6 (Mrs Rayner and Mrs Cleland)

Keep a watch on the class blogs (see links at the side)- as the classes get going there’s sure to be lots of news and information to share with you.

In a farewell assembly this morning old friends, staff and governors said goodbye to Mr O’Brien (the children will do that tomorrow). There is a selection of pictures from the event at http://www.flickr.com/photos./24581279@N06/

Finding ourselves in the middle of June, I think all the staff are amazed at how the year has flown!

We are looking forward to quite a few events in the coming weeks -from the Summer Fair to several Concerts which the children have been invited to attend.

Class 4 had an excellent residential trip to Derbyshire in May and will be presenting an evening to their parents very soon to show the books that they have made about their visit.

Years 4, 5 and 6 have taken part in a year long Singing Project offered to us by Ely Cathedral which culminated in a joint concert last Tuesday when all the schools involved got together to perform a cantata called Miracle Man in the Octagon at the Cathedral. It was a delightful occasion at which the children behaved wonderfully.

Class 2 have been on a trip to Wisbech Museum today to add to their studies about Ancient Egypt. Year 5 were invited to a Food and Farming Day organised by Ouldershaws and the children had a wonderful time sampling fresh foods and learning about farming and growing.

Next week we are taking the whole school to Gedney Church on Wednesday morning to hear members of the London Mozart Players performing a Schools Concert.

We are also having a performance by the nationally acclaimed folk duo Belshazzar’s Feast next Friday afternoon, when again the whole school will attend.

So with less than two months to go we have lots to look forward to and plenty to be busy with!

Hopefully, you will have already noticed some extra blogs that are very active on this site. We invited some of our older children to run their own blogs and we are very excited by the way they are already taking off.

Writing a blog is an excellent way to explore ideas and to share interests with all kinds of people.

 The children in years 4, 5 and 6 who have already started to develop their blogs are having great fun and are already getting interest and responses from far and wide!

 Do take a bit of time to see what they have to say and maybe leave them a comment if you feel like it.They will be delighted to hear from you!

We had a really happy successful day last Thursday, when we regrouped the school into four family groups so that older children and younger ones were working together throughout the day to explore some of our favourite books.

Mrs Hall and her team read “Commotion in the Ocean” and then each group took part in various watery activities linked to the book and contributed to a beautiful seascape which you can now see displayed in her classroom.

Mrs Bycroft’s activities were based round Eric Carle’s all time favourite “The Hungry Caterpillar”. A larger than life model can now be seen in pride of place in the library!

 Mrs Stott’s activities were all based around Janet and Allan Alberg’s classic  “The Jolly Postman”. She had to buy a new copy of the book specially because her own family’s copy was almost worn out! You can read some of the letters and postcards we wrote on the display  in Class 3.

Miss Moulis read “Where’s the dragon?” with the groups as they visited her. Then everybody had the chance to contribute to the construction of a beautiful chicken wire and fabric sculpted dragon who looks absolutely stunning!

Our celebrations of World Book Day were rounded off with a visit from the MultiStory theatre who came all the way from Devon to be with us for the day(for which we were VERY grateful-especially as they had to be back in Devon the very next day!) They performed a traditional Romany Story “Poor Jack” which was excellent. Have a look at their website when you have a chance.

Throughout the week we ran a successful bookfair and as a result of all the books sold Shepeau Stow was able to gain a pile of brand new books (in commission) for each class.

We are all getting ready for World Book Day next Thursday March 6th when we will be looking forward to some exciting group activities throughout the day. For the last part of the day we have a professional Theatre Company performing for the children. MultiStory Theatre company are travelling all the way from Devon to perform for us!

They have provided two wonderful shows previously for Rural Touring and now the whole school will have the opportunity to enjoy one of their stories.

We hope to see you in school quite a bit next week, with a football match on Monday, parents evenings on Monday and Tuesday (so don’t forget to sign up for your appointments) and the Book Fair on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

See you there!

With only one week left before we break for a week’s holiday we seem to have covered a lot of ground since Christmas!

This coming week we have a real treat on Tuesday evening, when we host Riccardo Tesi and Maurizio Geri for an evocative evening of traditional Italian music and song. This is part of the Rural Touring initiative and there is more information on the Village Touring pages. If you are free why not come along and enjoy a wonderful evening of professional music?

The football squad are starting to prepare for several fixtures next term,  with extra practices run by Mr Harris, to whom we are very grateful.

Watch out for a new set of pages coming soon when Shepeau Stow Preschool Group joins our blogging community! They meet every week and we wanted you to see what fun they have in their sessions.

Don’t forget that all our pages offer the chance for you to make your own comments which we all welcome!

We have been back at school for three weeks already! Judging by the lovely work we have seen in our Friday “Work Assemblies” all the classes are working very hard. A lot seems to be going on every week.

We have a new Samba specialist who has joined the peripatetic music team to develop our Samba “grooves”.

   Years Five and Six  have had their French Trip with Francoise and Miss Moulis helping them to speak French and use Euros all day! It all went very well.We look forward to some interesting reports about their adventures on our class websites next week.

Our latest visit from Rebecca Duckworth (Ely Cathedral’s singing ‘animateur’ ) was received enthusiastically by the whole of Years 4, 5 and 6 last Wednesday when we learned a couple of new very jazzy songs.

 Last week I saw some wonderful clay tiles being produced in Miss Moulis’s Art Club- where a really happy atmosphere weekly produces lovely creative work.

Year 4 and 5 are enthusiastically throwing themselves into Tag-Rugby with an outside expert, Simon coming to coach them this term.

There is some wonderful work based on the great Fire of London displayed in Class 2 at the moment and if you make a  visit to  Class 1 you’ll see princes and princesses and a wonderful big castle to play in!

 All in all the New year has got off to a flying start at Shepeau Stow!

Well having been back for a week and a half it seems as if we have been back for ages!

The children have settled into the new term very well and we have many exciting events to look forward to!

Years Five and Six are soon to go on a trip to London to practise their French, with Francoise and Miss Moulis.

We soon have our next Village Touring event when we welcome Ricardo Tesi and Maurizio Geri on February 5th.

See the Vllage Touring blog for more details.

The term is quite short so we are working hard to pack in as much work as we can in quite a brief period of time!

Football club starts next Tuesday.

Rebecca Duckworth, from Ely Cathedral, will be visiting us next Wednesday for another singing session, and some of our woodwind students have today inaugurated a new Flute Club!

Watch this space for more events!

Hello and welcome back for a new term!

There’s lots going on this term (as usual!).

Then there’s a Village Touring event- Pinocchio this evening at Gedney Hill- have a look at the Village Touring site for more details- and why not leave us a comment while you are there?