Christmas Activity Day has proved to be a hugely successful event. The children

were divided up in vertical groups with children from Reception, Year 1, Year 2

and Year 3 in each group. This enabled the Year 3 children to act as role models

and look after the younger children, so forming friendship bonds across the

school. The activities included printing, making reindeer hot chocolate and

snowman jars, party games and preparing reindeer food and light up reindeers.

My thanks to the amazing staff at Clifton for organising the activities, Clifton

School Friends for all their support and for the Christmas gifts and the army of

parents who came to help. Our amazing Chef Sarah prepared a delicious

Christmas lunch for all the children, staff and parent helpers. Thank you to

everyone for making the day so special for the children and huge thanks in

particular to Mrs Clarke for all her hard work in coordinating this event.

On Wednesday 1S presented their assembly, based on their themes this term.

They spoke clearly as they performed their re-enactment of Scott’s journey to

Antarctica. They also sang two songs beautifully. Well done to all of the children

and to Miss Seymour and Mrs Greenall for preparing them.

All our Reception children travelled to Xscape for a trip to the slopes. The

children had a fabulous day sledging and having great fun. A huge thank you to

Miss O’Sullivan, Mrs Loftus, Mrs Brunton and Mrs Bateson and all of the parent

helpers accompanying the trip. What a great day—please see the photos here

on Facebook.

Today we say goodbye to Lisa and Jana, our two German students, who have

been working in school with us this term. They have been a great support to the

children and staff and we wish them both well in the future. My sincere thanks to

both of them for all of their amazing work in school.

Last Friday Year 2 had a visit from Margaret Bateson-Hill, author of the Firebird.

She gave a reading from her book that has inspired the children’s learning and she

was very impressed with the children’s work this term. My thanks to Mrs Hall

and Mrs Spencer for organising such a wonderful visit.

Finally, I have been coaching the girls’ U18 hockey 2nd team this year. The girls

have been excellent and so far have had an unbeaten season. Tomorrow is our

last game of the season, against Pocklington which will be a tough final game. The

girls have worked hard all season for each other and had so much fun—our

children have so much to look forward to as they move through St Olave’s and

St Peter’s. To help the girls Alex Danson, the GB Olympic ladies hockey gold

medallist, coached a session at school and spoke to the girls about her journey in

the sport she loves. At break time we borrowed Alex to come and talk to our

children, answer questions and show the children her Olympic gold medal. My

thanks to Alex for giving her time and to the staff at St Peter’s for organising her

visit.

We have a tradition of rowing at St Peter’s and St Olave’s, made possible by the

good fortune of having a river running past the school. St Peter’s Boat Club

Supporters Group are currently organising the boat club’s annual dinner dance at

the Merchant Adventurers Hall on 4 February 2017. This year’s speakers are the

Yorkshire Rows (Atlantic mums). If you would like to join them for a fun and

well attended Dinner Dance, please see the flyer in this newsletter for further

information. Wishing you a wonderful weekend.

CoMPasS You can follow us ...….. Newsletter No: 11

Friday 2nd December 2016 Registered Charity No: 1141329

WEEK COMMENCING 5th DEC

DIARY:

Mon Y3 Badminton Club (lunchtime)

Y1 Ball Skills

Y2 Maths Club

Y1/Y2/Y3 Forest School Club

Y2/3 Yoga

Y3 Netball

Y3 Tennis

Reception Speech & Drama

Tues

Y2/3 Choir (lunchtime)

Y1 Lego

Y1/2/3 Ballet

Y2 Gym Club

Y2/3 Karate

Y3 Speech & Drama

Y2/3 Chess

Y3 Swimming Club

Wed 2:30-3:30pm Christmas Pop Up Shop, Memorial Hall, St Peter’s School

Y1 and Rec Yoga Bunnies (lunchtime)

No Co-Curricular Activities

ASC as normal

Thurs

Y3 Ukulele Club

(lunchtimes)

Y2/3 Multi Sports

Y2/3 Street Dance

Y2/3 Travellers Club

Y2 Library Club/Book Club

NO SWIMMING Fri Y2 Football

Y2/3 Jewellery Club

Y3 Football

Reception Get Messy

Christmas Pop Up Shop

Wed 7th December

2:30 pm to 3:30 pm

Please come along to our

Christmas Pop Up Shop next

Wednesday in the Memorial

Hall at St Peter’s School—all

welcome!

DIARY FOR THE FINAL WEEK OF TERM (Monday 12th December to Friday 16th December)

Music Lessons will also continue as normally as possible!

For all Christmas Performances, please park on the St Peter’s campus only. Disabled parking is available at St

Olave’s, please speak to Mrs Fattorini or Mrs Hulmes.

Monday 12th

December

Y3 Badminton Club (lunchtime) as normal

No Co-Curricular Activities, After School Care as normal

1.30 pm Nursery Christmas Performance in Nursery, followed by refreshments for parents in

the Dining Room.

2.15 pm Reception Christmas Performance in the Rayson Room, refreshments for parents

available before and after the performance in the Dining Room.

Children may be taken home after the performances.

5.30 pm Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3 Christmas Performances in the Shepherd Hall at St Olave’s

School. Children may stay at school once the school day has finished as we will provide

activities in their classrooms, followed by a packed tea (please advise the school office if you

would like your child to opt out of this).

Year 1 will perform first and parents of Year 1 children may collect their child following their

performance from St Olave’s, if they so wish.

Year 2 and Year 3 will perform and Year 2 will wait in classrooms at St Olave’s until Year 3

have finished their performance. Year 2 and Year 3 children will be taken back to Clifton

School following their performances. Please can parents collect their children from Clifton

School.

Refreshments available for parents in the Dining Room at St Olave’s following the last

Tuesday 13th

December

Y2/3 Choir (lunchtime) as normal

Co-Curricular Activities as normal, After School Care as normal

7.00 pm Public Lecture: Science Christmas Lecture

Wednesday

14th December

Reception/Yoga Bunnies (lunchtime) as normal

No Co-Curricular Activities, After School Care as normal

1.30 pm Years 1, 2 and 3 Christmas Performances in the Shepherd Hall at St Olave’s.

Refreshments available for parents in the Dining Room at St Olave’s following the last

performance.

All children will be taken back to Clifton School following the performances. Please can

parents collect their children from Clifton School.

Thursday 15th

December

No Co-curricular activities, No After School Care

No curriculum swimming

2.45 pm seasonal refreshments available in the Memorial Hall at St Peter’s School.

3.45 pm Christingle Service in the School Chapel

This is a wonderful opportunity for your family to enjoy a Festive Celebration together in the

School Chapel. All children are expected to attend this service and to be taken home directly

after the service.

Friday 16th

December

12.00 noon End of Term

No Co-Curricular activities, No After School Care

Torben Woolf has lost his school hat—it is

named. Please look out for it! Thank you.

Silver

Jinyi, Theo, Helena, Thomas, Ansh, Emelia,

Pietro, Margherita, Joshua, Diya, Kobe and

Elizabeth

Gold Class Winners

Some Charity Ambassadors visited Mrs Hobbs and Mrs Johnson in the finance office to deliver the donations received for our Children in Need day. We raised a staggering £382.42(in addition to the £1

donation added to your fee account which is amazing.

This week in 1M we have

been beavering away making

things for our pop-up stall in

the Memorial Hall next Wednesday!

We have had all hands on deck and

have thoroughly enjoyed working

collaboratively to create our FABULOUS

items! Along with the making of our

secret products, we have been making

posters, bunting and discussing in-

depth pricing structures! We have

been looking at how much things cost,

profits and offers. It’s been a fantastic

learning experience and we are looking

forward to selling our limited edition

merchandise!

Roll up, roll up!

On Monday RS

started the week in the

school Chapel. The

children searched

around the chapel for

carefully placed

Christmas objects.

This sparked a

conversation ‘What is

Christmas?’ The

children shared their family customs and traditions, discussed the importance of

giving and receiving presents as well as their knowledge of the fantastic Father Christmas.

In small groups the children created mind maps illustrating their thoughts and sharing their

perceptions. Thanks to Reverend Jones who visited the children during the morning also. It

definitely feels like the beginning of the Christmas season now!

This week 3C went to St Olave’s to visit the Cosmodome. We were inspired with the wonders of space in the inflatable planetarium. We flew through the Solar System looking at the planets. We watched the Sun move across the sky and discovered what happens to the stars during the day time and finally watched a short animation about space exploration. A very exciting afternoon!

This week Reception learnt about a

favourite French puppet show

called Guignol. We talked about

how puppets shows are very popular

in France, looked at different

types of puppets, watched clips of

a very funny Guignol show and got

our very own spoon puppets to

dance to a French song!

Christmas Pop Up Shop

Wednesday 7th December

2:30 pm to 3:30 pm Please come along to our Christmas Pop Up

Shop next Wednesday in the Memorial Hall at St

Peter’s School—all welcome!

Each class has been provided with a small amount

of money to increase for charity. Each class are

creating something to sell at our Christmas ‘Pop

up Shop’. All profits will go to our school charity

‘Small Steps Project’ and there will be class prizes

for the most original products and the most prof-

it raised. This type of enterprise education is at-

tempting to create an awareness of the value of

money and will involve mathematics. literacy, de-

sign, art, creativity and use all of our super pow-

ers of collaboration, reflection, resourcefulness

and resilience.

Last week we

designed snakes. They

were all very different and

had

wonderful colours.

This week we began the

festive mood by making pictures of santa and

decorating christmas trees.

They all looked fantastic.

Next week we have our

Christmas Party and the last Toddler Group until

Thursday

12th January.

See you all

next week.

Year 3 To round off our topic we will be having a VE Day

Party on Thursday 8th December.

We will also be watching Dad’s Army, the movie!

(Dad’s Army has a PG rating, if you would prefer your child not to watch this, please speak to their class teacher)

Thank you

The Year 3 Team

Housepoints

Monk

Core 5 Lexia

Emily, Kobe, Isaac, Aidan, Alex,

Ryan, Quatermain, Rohan

Emily, Alex, Huw, Thomas, Henry

Margherita, Monty and Dylan

Winners of the St. Peter’s Art Exhibition

Lyra, Emily, Diya,

Emily, Perim,

Theo and Arjan

(not shown)

Today we say a sad goodbye and big thank

you to our German Assistants Lisa König

and Jana Mosler. It has been great having

you both at Clifton School and we wish

you all the best for the future. Keep in

touch and come and visit us again soon!

auf Wiedersehen

This week 3P have been busy carrying out an investigation into which paper makes to best paper

aeroplane.

The children firstly learnt how to make a paper aeroplane and once their skills were perfected they made

lots of aeroplanes using different types of paper. They tested each plane and made sure it was a fair test.

Our results showed that tissue paper was definitely the worst material to use as it was too light and

delicate and just floated to the ground. The plain white paper seemed to be the best overall with card

coming a close second.

On Wednesday afternoon we were lucky enough to visit St Olaves where there was a Cosmodome set up.

The children looked up in amazement up at the night sky inside the dome and shared lots

of facts they remembered from the Space topic in Year 2!

On Friday the children bounded into school wearing their

Christmas jumpers and all looked very festive! Christmas

Activity Day was a great success and it was so lovely to

see the older children interacting and helping the

younger ones with their Christmas craft!

Next week we are looking forward to beginning our rehearsals for Cinderella &

Rockerfella, making our products for 3P’s Christmas Pop-up Shop and we will be

celebrating the end of our topic with a VE Day Party!

We were so excited to perform our assembly this week and share some of the things we’ve been learn-ing about in our Polar Explorers topic. The children looked fantastic in their costumes and worked so

Disaster struck when we found some penguins trapped in ice! We had to perform a special rescue

mission to free them. We tried different methods to melt the ice, predicted which would be quickest

and wrote up our experiment.

The Christmas elves have arrived in Nursery this week! The children have had lots of fun decorating their classroom; hanging baubles on the Christmas tree, setting up a Winter Wonderland and

making lots of lovely decorations for their Christmas 'pop up' shop stall. There has been lots of sparkle and glitter around - even in our Christmas playdough! The Christmas dressing up and Santa's workshop has proved very popular, with the children wrapping presents and getting everything organised for Christmas. If Santa needs any extra helpers this year Clifton Nursery

know just what to do.

Year 2 have said a very sad

goodbye to Lisa this week!

We have been so fortunate

to have her help since

September and she has been

such a great part of the Year

2 team. Amongst the many

things Lisa has done for us,

the children have listed,

Helping with sewing

Helping with writing

Helping with maths

Finding PE kit

Tidying up

Quiet Fox!

Making us laugh!

We are all very grateful to

Lisa and, we must have done

something right, she now

wants to train in Germany to

be a teacher!

Thank you Lisa - you have

been a Superstar!

A reminder that the Harrogate and District NHS Childhood Immunisation

Team will be visiting Clifton School on Monday 5th December to give the

Flu vaccination to pupils in Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3. If you have not already

returned your consent form to the office, please do so as soon as possible.

We do still need the form back, even if you do not wish your child to have this

vaccination. Thank you.

Christmas Cards

You should have received your Christmas cards and other items by now, if you have any items missing from your order then please let me know as soon as possible.

Christmas Activity Day

A BIG thank you to all the parents who very kindly gave their time to help at today’s Christmas Activity Day.

Forthcoming Events

Quiz Night – Friday 10th February 2017, 7.30pm in the Rayson Room

Please note change of date! Sign up sheets will be displayed this month for this fun evening. Teams will be either 6 or 8 people and the cost is £10 per person which will include some delicious food.

Parents’ Socials

Year 3 Mum’s & Dad’s Night Out – Friday 27th January 2017

Dates for your diary

CSF Meeting – Tuesday 17th January, 8.30 am in the school dining room – all welcome.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend,

Elizabeth