Headteacher Message
Dear Parents,
What a World Book Week we have had at school! It has been a truly fantastic week, filled with enthusiasm, creativity, and a shared love for reading.
Throughout the week, we have seen an incredible level of participation from everyone. The short story competition alone received around 80 entries, showcasing the impressive writing talents of our young authors. It has been fantastic to see such an amazing response from our children, and the care, attention and hard work and effort that had gone into them was brilliant. A huge well done to everyone who put the effort in to entering a story of their own!
Our pupils’ enthusiasm for reading was further fueled by visits from real-life authors and storytellers this week. These sessions were not only informative but also inspiring, as the authors shared their experiences and insights into the world of writing. The children were captivated by their stories has hopefully left them with a renewed passion for books.
One of the highlights of the week was undoubtedly the character costume day. The creativity and effort put into the costumes were truly remarkable. From classic literary characters to modern-day heroes, the school was transformed into a vibrant parade of book-inspired outfits. It’s always a favourite day for me – any excuse for a bit of fancy dress!
Thank to everyone who has helped to make this year’s Book Week a success, and thank you to all you parents and carers for continuing the passion for books and reading at home!
Have a super weekend, everyone!
Tom Larkham
Headteacher
What’s on Next Week?
Monday– Veg Power Visit
Wednesday -Peter Pan Rehearsal for pupils to watch
Thursday -Class Photographs (Uniform please for everyone)
Thursday & Friday– Peter Pan Production @ 6.30pm
Parent Survey
Please complete The 3-18 Education Trust annual Parent/Carer Survey. We genuinely want to hear your valuable feedback and insights about our school and the education we provide.
PLEASE COMPLETE THE SURVEY HERE
The survey runs until Friday 14th March 2025.
Class Photographs – Thursday 13th March
School photographers, Active Photographic, will be in school on the morning of Thursday 13th March to take class group photographs of our pupils. If time permits, we will ask them to take individual photographs of those children who were absent when they visited in the Autumn.
If you DO NOT want your child to have their photograph taken on the day, please click on the link below and complete an OPT OUT form:
https://forms.office.com/e/nrJgK5eEyd
Please ensure your child comes to school wearing their school uniform so they look smart for the class photograph. If your child is timetabled to do PE, they will do it in their school uniform so please have them come in in their school uniform and bring in their pumps/trainers to change in to.
Note: Your child/ren will automatically be included in their class photograph if we do not hear from you otherwise by Wednesday 12th March.
Veg Power Visit
We are taking part in BBC national campaign ‘Eat them to Defeat them’ to boost ‘veg power’ in pupil’s diets and encourage children to enjoy vegetables.
Some exciting news! Veg Power who created the campaign with ITV are travelling from Brighton to visit us on Monday! They will be announcing the campaign to the children in assembly, filming some vegetable Green Screen antics with Year 2 and staying around to make lunchtime fun!
Your child will come home with a campaign sticker pack and reward chart on Monday so you can encourage your child to try new vegetables at home and we’ll be promoting different vegetables over the next few weeks at lunchtimes to try on our tasting table.
World Book Day 2025!
We’ve been celebrating reading all week but the real fun always happens on World Book Day!
Thanks to our Music Teacher Mrs Porrett for teaching us the World Book Day song!
Weebert’s World
Thank you to Weebert’s World for visiting Year 3 and inspiring us with their scrap robot sculptures and reading us Weebert’s Adventure story. Weebert’s World combine a love of STEM with reading and have high animation hopes for Weebert going global.
Book Fair
We enjoyed our after school Book fair selling some bargain pre-loved books and Hungry Caterpiller sweets. Thanks to Cath from Usborne Books and Weeberts World for joining us!
Short Story Competition Winners
The children had a very exciting start to World Book Week this week with author Katie May Green announcing the winners of the short story competition. Children across the school handed in dozens of short stories before half term, including stories about frogs, wizards and spies to name a few!
Local author and illustrator Katie May Green read and judged the entries. She commented today about how much time, effort and creativity had gone into the pieces. Well done to everyone involved!
Due to the number of entries we had some finalists for the competition:
All of the finalists received feedback from Katie about their short stories. Our 4 winners, Sam, Fern, Reuben and Olive, will visit Waterstones with Miss Othen soon to purchase a book as their prize.
With 24 entries, Darwin House were awarded the House Cup for this competition!
A huge thank you to Katie May Green for all of your time helping us with this competition and inspiring the children to write more short stories! All of the short stories are available to read in the school library.
A Storyteller visits
As a final flourish to World Book day we had a visit from local Storyteller Jake Evans. KS2 were immersed in a folk story, a true story and one story that made up together! Tales of whales, witches and mountaineering Thank you Jake!
World Book Day 2025 Costumes
Thank you for all your fantastic effort with World Book Day Costumes! Which character is your favourite?
World Book Day Pop Up Shop
Every year World Book Day publish a series of Children’s books that can be purchased for £1 or with a World Book Day voucher. These are available from participating stores but we’ve ordered our own to save children from missing out and are running our own World Book Day Pop Up Shop in the school library. The children loved their visits and will be bringing a new book home.
