NEXT WEEK’S DIARY:

Monday Lunchtime: NETBALL

Staff Curriculum Meeting

TENNIS, BASKETBALL, Y1 SPEECH AND DRAMA

Tuesday

Lunchtime: CHOIR

SWIM SQUAD, CHESS, Y3 MAKING GAMES, STORY CLUB, Y1 FOOTBALL, REC SPEECH AND DRAMA

NO Y2 HOCKEY

Wednesday SCIENCE CLUB, Y2/3 ANIMATION CLUB, Y2/3 SEWING, CHESS,Y2 ART, Y2 FOOTBALL, Y1 KARATE, Y1 K’NEX

Thursday

2S Assembly

Y3 TAG RUGBY, Y3 STREET DANCE. Y2 NATURE CLUB, Y2 ATHLETICS, Y2 SPEECH & DRAMA, Y1/Y2 BALLET, Y1 LEGO

Friday

Y3 FOOTBALL, Y2/3 MATHS CHALLENGE, MUSIC BOX, Y1 SPORTS CLUB

Saturday, 28th September

10.00—12.00 noon

OPEN MORNING

Visitors welcome!

On Monday, Miss Beadle led our school assembly, describing her experiences

teaching in Sri Lanka over the summer. This was an inspiring and emotional

assembly for both the children and staff. Thank you Miss B for sharing these

memories with us. We will post the photos on our website/facebook page soon

for all to share.

On Tuesday, the Year 2 children had a wonderful trip to York Minster as part of

their theme ‘Let’s conquer York’ and Year 3 had an opportunity to visit ‘The

Lowther’, a bar owned by Mr & Mrs Binns. The Y3s told me they were

investigating the flood defences, however, they all ended up having a pub

lunch…..! These types of trips didn’t happen when I was at school. Thank you

to Mr & Mrs Binns for their hospitality and to all the parents and staff who

accompanied each of these trips.

In conjunction with the Music department at St Peter’s and Mr Paul Miles-

Kingston, the Director of Music, our Year 3s have been introduced to classical

musical instruments. Each week the children will be acquainted with trombones,

cornets, flutes, clarinets and violins! These are taught by specialist music

teachers. This initiative is aimed at developing an interest in music which the

children will want to continue after these sessions have ended. Thank you to Mr

Miles-Kingston for providing the wonderful instruments and to Mr Tidswell and

Mrs Robertson for organising the lessons. Look out for some fabulous photos

to follow!

The finishing touches of our re-development are coming together—you will have

noticed new flower beds being filled and each day the school is looking better

and better. I have been assured that by the end of next week our new library

will be complete on the first floor. This is very exciting and we all can’t wait!

The creation of a library area at Clifton is the catalyst for nurturing reading in

school. Obviously, the children are taught how to read through an important

process of teaching phonics and then building on this throughout their time in

school. All children will be able to read by the time they leave Clifton and it is

important that we, as parents and educators don’t regard this as a race! The

children should work at their own pace with a wide variety of reading genres

which generate a love of reading and a love of books. Here is a link to a great

article about how parents play a key role in this - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/

education-24116088. Ten minutes a day reading with your child, taking turns

reading, asking questions and enjoying the book really do help your child develop

these important skills. We are planning a reading workshop later in the year to

share ideas and best practice.

This term I have been working with the girl’s hockey players at St Peter’s. This

is a super experience and one that I am thoroughly enjoying. It is wonderful to

see over 45 girls from the 5th to Upper Sixth forms thoroughly engaged playing

hockey at this age, displaying wonderful values and qualities—they are a credit to

the school! It has also been great to see our children taking part in hockey,

netball, football, basketball, rugby, athletics, tennis, swimming, karate, street

dance, ballet, art, animation club, lego, k’nex, chess, choir, music box, sewing,

speech and drama, making games, science club, nature club and maths challenge

in our co-curricular programme. This is a small part of all the fabulous

opportunities on offer at St Peter’s (3-18) - our children are very lucky!

This weekend, I am heading to London with Mr Falconer, Master of St Olave’s

for the IAPS Annual Conference. I will be away on Monday and Tuesday but will

return inspired by the seminars and speakers! Have a lovely weekend.

Best wishes,

CoMPasS You can follow us ...….. Newsletter No: 3

Friday, 20th September 2013

Registered Charity No: 1141329

Please do not bring your dogs into

school as some of our children are

allergic to animals and/or scared

of dogs. Dogs are allowed onto

the school campus as long as they

remain under control on a lead.

Thank you.

This week 1G have been finding out about England. We have located

some of the places that we visited in the Summer holidays on a map of the United Kingdom. We have also been learning all about our capital city of London and have been sketching and painting some of its famous landmarks.

To finish off our work on rivers and waterfalls

we have built our very own waterfall on 3M’s

balcony (with help from Mr Gibb!).

Please come and take a look!

Year 3 visited ‘The Lowther’ pub this week to look at the flood defences.

Thank you very much Mr and Mrs Binns for telling us all about it and for our delicious lunch.

Housepoints’

winner

Walmgate

Mathletics Silver Awards

Benedict, Jack, Nitika, Harrison, Narmeen, Alex, Harriet, Elliott, George,

Oliver and Lily

It has been a very wet week in 1B! You can’t learn about Great Britain

without focusing on good old rain! We have measured the rain daily,

marbled raindrops, weaved a river, written descriptive poems and

even been singing about the rain!

It has been

difficult to

choose what

to put in the

newsletter

for RS this

week!!

And we can only

mention just one

thing…! So, on

Wednesday

we went on a

fabulous

number hunt!!

We all

ventured down

to the bottom

of the school

grounds in

search of

some very

‘Sleeping Numbers’. Each child was

armed with a clipboard labelled with

numbers, marking where each number

was. The children had to hunt around the

trees, amongst the hedges and under the

branches searching for the lost numbers!

It was such a popular activity that when

we were finished they asked… ‘CAN WE

DO IT AGAIN!!’

Year 2 had a fantastic time on Tuesday learning about the history of York Minster. The children saw a great picture presentation, took part in activities in the education centre and had a guided tour of The Minster itself. Many thanks to the mums and to our three students from Germany who came along to help.

This Week’s Superstars

Harry, Charlie, Halle, Millie, Harry, Collin, Tristan,

Isabelle and Elvie

2H have been following up from our visit to York Minster on

Tuesday by doing some super art work! We looked at the

Choir Screen and talked about how to paint the stone statues

in stone coloured watercolour paint. Then we added gold

crowns (party hats!), just like the real Choir Screen.

Please come and look at both Year 2 displays - we

are very proud of them!

The children in Nursery found a nest…

but couldn’t decide what was making it!

They could see something grey moving at

the top of the nest,

but it was sooo high

up in the tree that

they decided they

needed binoculars

to get a better view!

After much

watching from

inside the quiet

room and under the

tree, the children

worked out that it was a bird not a

squirrel (or an elephant!!) and then

saw that the bird

was a pigeon.

One child even

thought they

could see some

eggs at the bottom of the nest!

This week in

RJ we have

been talking

about class

pets. The children have been

helping to look after Brownie and

Buttons our guinea pigs and we

have set up a pet

shop in the role

play. We read a

story called

‘Don’t eat the

Teacher!’ about a

shark starting

school who just

can’t help eating

everything when

he gets over

excited, including his teacher!

This got us thinking of wild and

wacky ideas for class pets. The

children had to design a box for

their chosen pet and think about

what it would eat and how to look

after it. Then

they made a price

tag for their box

and counted out

the correct amount

of coins to pay

for their pet. So

far no one’s eaten

Mrs Johnson…yet.

Good Conduct

Callum, Narmeen, Isobel, Tom, Nell, Taras,

Harriet, Sam and Harry

Clifton School Friends

Clifton School friends would like to introduce you to our new committee!

Co-chairs

Lou Harrand—Mum of Harrison in 3C, Raya in RS and Bo who will hopefully join Clifton Nursery next year.

Melanie Young—Mum of Liam in 1G and Aidan who will join Clifton in Nursery next year.

Secretary

Shelley Morton—Mum of Ruby in 3C, Finlay in 3M and Joseph in St Olave’s.

Treasurer

Lucy Fernandes—Mum of David in RJ

Our doors are always welcome to new committee members and/or willing helpers!

We will keep you all well informed of upcoming meetings through the newsletter so please come along if you can! Alternatively please feel free to email us on:

louharrand@gmail.com or melanie@melomood.com

Events we are planning for this coming year!

Parents night out! Friday 11th October - Tickets will be on sale shortly in the school main entrance.

Christmas Activity Day

Fat Chilli - Christmas cards and great gift ideas.

Bags 2 School - get your cupboards cleared out for the week of the 11th of November.

Grow a £ - let’s find the entrepreneurs amongst our children!

January Breakfast Brunch

Race/Quiz Night

Mother’s Day Breakfast

Book & Bake Sale

Kid’s Cook Book

Summer Fayre

Any ideas are more than welcome!

We hope to see some new and old faces at our next meeting on Wednesday 9th October at 2.15pm in the dining room!

Feather Ball

Saturday 30th November 2013

York Racecourse

This event is being organised by the St Olaves PTA on behalf of both St Olaves AND

Clifton School & Nursery and the Committee very much hope that the Ball will be well

supported by both schools. Proceeds from the evening are divided between the schools

in support of their chosen charities with any remaining funds allocated to their

respective PTAs.

All parents will be receiving an email from St Olaves regarding table/ticket booking forms

and on Wednesday 18th September committee members from Clifton School Friends will

be manning a table in the reception area at morning drop off to answer any queries and

hopefully take some table bookings! Parents are invited to organise their own tables of 10

or alternatively please feel free to order individual tickets clearly stating which school year

your children are in and the Ball Committee will be happy to organise tables based on year

groups. In this way it is hoped that the event will appeal to both new and existing parents

of the Schools alike. Tickets are £60 each to include a 3 course meal, live band and DJ.

Cheques should be made payable to St Olaves PTA.

Entries have opened for the 2014 Great North Swim to be held at Lake

Windermere on Sunday 15th June 2014.

This will be our 3rd year taking part and following this years success with

26 pupils, staff and parents completing the 1 mile swim we hope to take a

larger party next year. If you are looking for a challenge, this could be the one for you.

Once again we are limited on wave times as we can only enter the Sunday events. The selected wave is

10.30am on Sunday 15th. This is likely to be a very popular wave therefore it is most important that you get your

entries in as quickly as possible.

Entrants must be 16 years of age on the day.

To enter visit; greatswim.org and select ‘enter now’. Select ‘1 mile’ and complete registration or log in. Fill in

questionnaire and select SUNDAY 10.30am WAVE (It is important that we all swim in the same wave) The event

must be swum in a wetsuit.