www.arundelchurchofenglandschool.org.uk, 01903 883149, reception@arundel.w-sussex.sch.uk

Dear Parents and Guardians The education world is so often a place of change and it is essential that in times of change as a school and as a community we go right back to the basics of what we are all about. Our school is all about its ethos and values. I cannot underestimate the importance of sharing those values at home and ensuring that we work together to get the best for your child(ren).

Values and their place in our school

Think of a cartwheel. The most vital part of the wheel is the hub, the centre to which everything connects. At the centre of our school are the two great commandments – Love of God and Love of Neighbour (Matthew chap.22 vs. 37–39). Radiating out from the hub are the spokes. They represent the way in which the two great commandments are interpreted and explained – our ACE Christian Values. And then comes the rim – the section that actually makes contact with the road – in our school these are the different policies and systems. They are the practical way in which the Christian Values are made real in our school.

I think life often does not take place on a lovely straight road and we have to think carefully about it not always being one of ease. A bend in a road is often a literary signal for a change, either good or bad. Adventure is waiting, danger and destruction is lurking, or a golden opportunity awaits the noble wayfarer who is on the journey of a lifetime. Contrast this to the straight road where things are peaceful and the future is visible, if only you will lift your head and look. I wonder what kind of road your life is on?

Volume 2, Issue 5

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February Mon 6th February Young Voices Choir performing at the O2 Wed 8th February Parents’ Evening 3.15-6.00pm Thurs 9th February Parents’ Evening 4.00-7.00pm Mon 20th–Friday 24th and Monday 27th February

Half term/INSET day and Holiday Club

Tuesday 28th February Back to school Thurs 9th February

Mon 20th–24th February February – Half Term

Mon 27th February INSET Day

March Thurs 2nd March World Book Day Fri 3rd March Women’s World Day of Prayer Mon 13th–Fri17th March Year 6 residential to Blacklands Farm Fri 17th March Red Nose Day April pArApA

Tues 4th April Passiontide Service at St Nicholas’ Church at 10am Mon 10th–Fri 21st April Easter Holiday May Thurs 4th May Easter Eucharist service at ACE at 9.15am

House points badges

Well done to all the boys and girls who achieved their housepoints badges this week. It was good to see the children achieving great things.

It was lovely that Mrs Hine, an ACE governor, was in again this week to work with me and give out some housepoints badges too!

Dates for the diary

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Our Year 6 boy runners and a two of our girls make it to the Cross-Country Southern Finals

This was a fantastic achievement for Aaron, Henry, James B, James C, Ben, Harry and Thomas (who is only Year 5!) for even reaching the finals, and competing in such challenging weather conditions. The boys reached the finals after winning the locality event. Our top 3 runners Aaron, James C and James B came a very credible 4th, 21st and 29th respectively overall and the rest of the boys showed fantastic perseverance and determination to also do really well. In fact this was our most successful year to date with the team narrowly missing out on third place overall.

Young Tegan who is in Year 4 competed against Year 5 and 6 children in the girls’ race after qualifying as the locality champion and came a very credible 38th overall. Unfortunately Ella wasn’t able to compete in the final, but there is always next year!

Aaron Woods meanwhile performed really well and has now qualified for the area games. This is quite an achievement considering that overall this is out of 4,000 runners.

Thank you to Mrs Tipton, Miss Talbot and all the parents for supporting us at the race. A special thanks to Mrs Tipton for training the children. You can see the children in the photos during their warm-up.

The Flash comes back

It has been lovely to see that the comic world has become such a popular thing in Year 4 and it has been great to see so many boys pick up a pencil and write. It would be lovely if everybody encouraged their children to do so. Writing is such an essential skills and like mathematics and reading the more we encourage our children to practise those skills the better they will get. Liam in Year 4 has written his own version of the TV series and comic Flash from DC Comics. As a Flash fan myself it is lovely to see that Liam has kept some of the key parts linked to the comic.

Joe and Finley in Year 4 have even designed their own comic club poster to share with the other children in Year 4.

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Jasmine and her lovely work

It is always nice that children come to me to share their work. I think it is important that I always try my best to value a child’s work and in this case Jasmine who works so hard on so many things has produced some lovely writing and produced a lovely picture too. Well done Jasmine it is great you have a natural talent when it comes to drawing.

Jasmine has also been working hard on maths in class and it has been nice to see her work so hard on that too!

I wonder what big question you would ask God

“If God were sitting in this room with us right now, what one thing would you ask Him?” Children in various classes have been asking this big question and you can see some of the children in Year 2 completing and displaying their work in an imaginative way. I remember one girl told me that she would ask God why he made so many poor people and why he makes them suffer so. That one left me stunned and speechless, literally weeping. I didn’t have an answer for her.

Exciting Egyptian work

You can see from the photos the boys and girls have really enjoyed the opportunity to investigate and use the subject of Art to explore some of the fine things the Egyptians left us with. The boys and girls in Year 3 also encouraged me to list some interesting fun facts about Pharaohs:

• Pepy II became Pharaoh at the age of 6. • The Pharaohs wore a crown that had an

image of the cobra goddess. • Only the Pharaoh was allowed to wear the

cobra goddess. • It was said that she would protect them by

spitting flames at their enemies. • Pharaohs built great tombs for themselves so

they could live well in the afterlife. • The first Pharaoh was a king named Menes

who united both upper and lower Egypt into a single country.

• Khufu is the Pharaoh who built the largest pyramid.

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Cuddly Caterpillars by Jack in Rainbow Class Jack in Rainbow Class loves his caterpillars and it was lovely that I had the opportunity to work in his class last week. I love his picture and it was great to see his passion and knowledge of caterpillars; he even knew about the passion flowers the caterpillar eats.

Georgina W in Year 3 writes a story and then performs to Rainbow Class I think it is so important that when we get children to produce some writing we try and give them a reason to write. Georgina worked really hard at home to produce a lovely story and it was nice to see her perform her story in front of children in Rainbow class.

Hayley in Year 5 and her Venn diagrams

It is wonderful when children want to develop themselves and Hayley in Year 5 has been working on developing her mathematics. She has recently been working on Venn diagrams and it was interesting how now a day’s maths is often about applying a child’s mathematical knowledge to a problem. Life is all about application and often about being creative.

Hayley has also being talking about distributive laws and others things and it was lovely she was able to share her ideas in the form of a poster.

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So what does that skill-set look like? Not to dwell on the findings it’s no surprise creativity will become one of the top three skills workers will need. With new products, new technologies and new ways of working, we're always going to need to be more creative in order to benefit change – it’s also not a skill you can readily automate, either.

What did surprise me was the idea that negotiation and flexibility will begin to drop from the top 10, understandably as masses of data (yes, big data) begins to make decisions for us.

Similarly, active listening, considered a core skill today, will disappear entirely from the list whereas emotional intelligence, which doesn’t feature in the top 10 today, will become one of the top skills needed by all.

Growth Mindset at ACE

We have been further introducing the language of being a ‘Growth Mindset’ school this academic year. We believe that when we talk explicitly with pupils about how they can develop their ‘can do’ attitude or resilience in their learning – and why this is important – pupils can develop more of a growth mindset, which leads to successful learning

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Super Scarlett-Rose It is really nice when children think about others and Scarlett-Rose has been doing this recently by making a card for her lovely mum. Well done, Scarlett Rose.

Oliver and his favourite TV Programme

Oliver in Year 3 has been working on developing his writing skills. He has been writing little stories for me all about his favourite TV programme. His favourite TV programme is Trollhunters and he was able to write about it and tell me all about it last week.

Fun at lunchtimes

Last week I spent every day at break times and lunchtimes out with the children. Like most schools sometimes children do have issues during this time but in this case I would like to report how lovely it was seeing all the children playing together on a number of occasions. What was particularly nice was the fact that children from all different year groups were playing together and I think I had never seen so many children complete the conga before.

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Max and his super writing with Mrs Walker It is lovely to see when children clearly work very hard on an aspect of their work and get rewarded by a member of staff. Max in Year one has been working very hard on his sounds and words, and as you can see from the photo he has produced a lovely piece of work as a result. It was lovely to see his beaming smile when he showed me his work.

Marvellous Writing by Finn and Finley

Finn and Finley clearly have been inspired by the story of the Iron Man and this was so finely illustrated by some of the lovely work that they produced in their books last week. Both boys not only tried so hard on producing some lovely handwriting but also produced a detailed piece too! Keep it up boys.

George and Rose perform well It is really nice to hear from external organisations that come into our school when they praise our ACE boys and girls. In this case Rose in Rainbow Class was praised for her confidence and George (who sang so beautifully at the Key Stage 1 Nativity) was also praised for his continuing development in his singing. Well done to both of you and please do keep up the hard work. If any other parents would like to share their child’s successes please do so. I am always interested in our ACE children especially when they have done something really well outside of school.

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Georgina in Year 3 has decided to start up a book club for boys and girls in Year 1. She has even constructed a letter which will hopefully be sent out to all the boys and girls in Year 1 to invite them to join her club. The club will take place in the library and further details are in the letter, which Georgia has written.

Georgina D in Year 3 and her book club

A Trust Wordsearch

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Finally a poem about trust

Do your Trust Me?

Do you trust me When evil is against you, When there's nowhere left to run And you can't find the truth?

Do you trust me? I need to ask you this, 'Cause you don't always know I'm there in the midst

Of all your tribulations, Everything that you go through, I am always there, my child, And I will never leave you

News from around the country

Arts leaders unite for education A new report by the Cultural Learning Alliance says changes to the national curriculum, qualifications and teacher training have damaged arts education. Signatories to the document include filmmaker David Puttnam, National Theatre chief Rufus Norris and Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota and his successor Maria Balshaw. It states: “Every effort must be made to halt the erosion of the arts as an essential pillar in the structure of education,” and includes research showing students from poor families who take part in the arts are more likely to get a degree, do voluntary work and vote. Sir Nicholas said creativity “should be one of the cornerstones of education, not an option or an afterthought.”

No shouting brings kudos to school A primary school has introduced a no shouting policy, which bans both teachers and pupils from raising their voices. The ban was brought in to build respect between staff and students, and has seen the Ysgol Llwynderw School in West Cross, Swansea, become the first in Wales to be awarded a Level Two Rights Respecting Award by UNICEF. Its report praised the “inclusive, warm and nurturing” atmosphere at the school which is said to have come from the no shouting policy.

Nursery schools under threat According to a new survey by the all-party parliamentary group on nursery schools, more than one in 10 nursery schools in England are in danger of closing in the next few months. Only 400 maintained nursery schools, run and funded by local authorities, remain, offering quality early years education targeted at vulnerable children from difficult and deprived backgrounds. The research found that 45 of those believe they will be forced to close by July as local authorities look for savings to meet budget cuts, and almost 67% say their nurseries will be unsustainable once an additional £56m of transitional funding, provided by the government to ease the crisis, ends at the close of this parliament.

So I must ask of you To see if you believe, No matter what you face in life, You must always trust in me.

Yours sincerely,

ASimpson Andrew Simpson Headteacher

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Sex education could become compulsory in schools

A government minister has hinted that sex and relationship education could be made a statutory requirement. Responding to pressure from Conservative, Labour and Green MPs, Education Minister Caroline Dinenage said in a Commons adjournment debate: "We have agreed we are looking at it as we speak and we will set out our next plans for inclusion in the Children and Social Work Bill." Meanwhile, Labour MP Stella Creasy has written on high-profile Tory blog Conservative Home to call for cross-party collaboration to make SRE compulsory. She said: “For the benefit of the kids, I’m asking you to do something uncomfortable and work with your opponents,” adding: “This is an olive branch to every Conservative who knows sex and relationship education is the right thing to do for all children.”

Notices Please can we remind all parents and carers not

to park or turn infront of the school gates.

Children walk past this area at drop-off and pick-

up and those people ignoring the signs are putting

our children at risk. Thank you for your

cooperation.