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together Everyone Achieves More

Walter Evans CE Primary School

www.walterevans.derby.sch.uk email us at - admin@walterevans.derby.sch.uk

Tel. 01332 557139

Newsletter – Autumn 1 Half Term

As we reach the end of the first half term, we hope that all the children have settled in to their new classes. Teachers have got to know their new children, and we hope that everyone found the first Parent Evening of the year a useful and productive opportunity. Next half term we start the run up to Christmas, and it’s a busy and long one (7 weeks and 2 days!) with lots to look forward to. We’ll publish a full calendar of Christmas events nearer the time, but to the right are some key dates to remember. As our harvest season draws to a close, can we take this opportunity to thank all of our families for their generous food donations. This year, both school and St Matthews supported the Hope Food Bank in Derby; after delivering the donations the volunteers at the bank were very appreciative and we’re certain the food will be welcomed by those in need. Joyous News! We are thrilled to share the news that Miss Harvey's baby has been born! Baby Oscar arrived weighing 7lb 2oz. Both mother and baby are in good health and doing well. On behalf of all our school community, we send our love and best wishes to Miss Harvey and her growing family – we cannot wait to see them. As one baby arrives, another one is due! Miss Samson is expecting her first child, due in January 2018 - we wish Miss Samson the very best of health as she continues her teaching at Walter Evans. Miss Samson will begin her maternity from the start of January 2018. We will be recruiting two part-time teachers to our school to cover Miss Samson's teaching commitment each Monday and Tuesday in Year 4 and also to cover her teaching role each Thursday and Friday in Year 3. This cover will be put in place for the duration of both Spring and Summer terms – more detailed information will follow after half-term.

Dates for your Diary… 30

th October- INSET Day

31st

October – Back to school

1st

November – Cauliflower Cards must be returned by today

4th

November – Open Day for prospective parents, 10am-12pm

8th

November – PTFA Macmillan Coffee morning – See below

10th

November – 3/4 African drumming workshop

12th

November – Remembrance Sunday Service at St Matthew’s

13th

November – Anti bullying week

17th

November – Children in Need Day – Dress in Spots for £1

24th

November – PTFA Christmas Fair

29th

November – FS2 Christmas Craft afternoon

29th

November – Whole school Carol Service at Derby Cathedral

6th

December – PTFA Santa’s Secret Sale, all day in school

11th

December – Village carol service

13th

December – FS2 Christmas performance

14th

December – FS2 Adventure Farm trip

14th

December – PTFA Meeting, 8pm

15th

December – PTFA Coffee morning, 9am

15th

December – EYFS Santa’s Grotto

19th

December – Break up for Christmas – toy and special snack day

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Our marvellous Christmas Lunch will be held on Wednesday 13th December this year. Shelley, Rachel and Jas do an amazing job all year round, but their Christmas roast is really fabulous! If your child normally has a school dinner on Wednesday, you need do nothing, but if they are normally sandwiches and you’d like them to have dinner on this day, please send £2.20 in a sealed envelope with your child’s name, marked ‘Christmas Lunch’.

Open Day for prospective parents We are pleased to invite any prospective parents to our Open Day on Saturday 4th November between 10am and 12 noon. This is a great opportunity to visit the school, meet staff and look round, so if you know anyone with young children who might be interested in our Nursery or Reception then please let them know.

Reminder Vehicles should not use the school car park for drop-offs and pick-ups. Our school car park is used by pedestrians each day with any increase in cars adding to the risk of serious injury to our children, parents and staff. In addition, parking around school remains difficult at peak times. This has been especially apparent when larger vehicles, such as school coaches returning from trips cannot get to the front of school because of double parked cars near to school. This happened last week with our Year 6 children returning from Whitehall. Whilst two of these cars belonged to visiting sports coaches (who now know not to park so close to school), the remainder belonged to parents.

Carol Concert at the Cathedral

Following the success of last years’ event, on the evening of 29th November, all children from Year 1 to 6 will have the opportunity to take part in a carol concert at the Cathedral, and we hope that all the children will be able to take part. They will need to arrive at the Cathedral by 5.45pm, ready for their performance to start at 6.30pm. The concert will last around 45 minutes. Tickets will be available to purchase from the school in advance of the event, and the PTFA will be selling refreshments on the night. Performing to parents and grandparents in such an impressive venue makes for a memorable start to the season, and we hope you’ll be able to join us!

St Matthew’s Open Day – Sat 21st October St Matthew’s are hosting an Open Day this Saturday, all are welcome between 12 and 3pm,

followed by an evening of music for their Last Night of the Proms at 7.30pm. No need to

book for either, just turn up. The church is wheelchair friendly, and has hearing loops.

Anti Bullying Week – 13th – 17th November

This year’s empowering theme is ‘All Different, All Equal’. To start the week,

we would like all children to wear odd socks on Monday 13th November.

Throughout the week, children will be engaging in activities to support the

topic.

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Nursery - We have had a wonderful half term

settling in our new nursery children and welcoming some back from last year. They have all done so well and we are excited about all the lovely work we are going to be doing with them as we move forward! We have enjoyed some wonderful stories about love and friendship, including "This is the bear" and "Guess how much I love you". The children have loved telling us how much they love their families and are really enjoying seeing their photographs in our family album. We have started to talk about Autumn now and the children have enjoyed telling us about all the natural changes they have seen happening out and about. Our half term will end with our trip to Church for the Foundation Stage Harvest Festivals. We can't wait to sing you our songs!

Reception - The children have settled into Reception and have been having fun exploring

their new environment. We have been talking about how to be a good friend and it has been lovely to see everyone making new friends. We have also been learning our Autumn and Harvest songs ready for our celebration at church on Wednesday and Thursday.

KS1 have started our dinosaur project with enthusiasm! Over the last few weeks we’ve used both the internet and their Dinosaur Encyclopaedias to find out information about the different dinosaurs. In Science we have looked at the range of animals and then sorted dinosaurs into groups. The children were fascinated to see how different types of dinosaurs had different shaped teeth. They also loved creating dinosaur teeth out of salt dough and using

papier mache to create dinosaur eggs – mess on a

monster scale! On a fine day we used the school grounds to explore our senses and imagine different

dinosaur habitats. We were

also thrilled

to dig up dinosaur bones. After half term, we will be making dinosaurs – please save any big cardboard boxes!

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This half term has been action packed! We have been learning about Mighty Metals and have visited Markeaton Park and ‘Jumping Clay’ to investigate different metals and their magnetic properties. In English we’ve been reading The Iron Man and have made a miniature friend for him using different materials. Also in DT we have planned, made and evaluated wind chimes made from different metallic materials. Maths has seen us start our

new ‘Mastery Maths’ where we have looked in depth at place value. Derby County have been in to Year 4 for a football challenge where we have been learning new skills- although we have done really well, the World Cup next year has probably come a little early! Next half term sees the focus change from Science to Music with ‘Playlist’.

A few of Mr McBeth and Miss Samson’s class’s marvellous

wind chimes!

Year 5 and 6 have spent this half term learning about Shakespeare's Macbeth, with a healthy dose of Black Death thrown in for good measure! The school playing field was the scene of a great battle between King Duncan's loyal soldiers and a combined Scottish-Norwegian rebel force. Aside from the use of newspaper weapons, it was very authentic! We have explored how micro-organisms can be transferred from our hands on to the food that we eat (yuck!) and therefore how important it is to wash our hands before eating. The children have designed and created medieval-style journals; combining a range of materials to create a book which looks like it may have been passed down through the generations. In maths lessons we have concentrated on developing a greater understanding of place value, considering numbers up to ten million, exploring negative numbers in context, and using rounding to help us to estimate calculations. Next half term we shall be exploring the polar regions of our planet, following in the snowy footprints of Shackleton as we discover the creatures and features which make up the Arctic and Antarctic.

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Year 6 Residential Year 6 have enjoyed another fun-filled two-night residential trip at White Hall in Buxton. On our way into the Peak District, we stopped off for a visit to Poole's Cavern, where the children walked the impressive caves (inhabited during the Bronze Age) and learnt about the processes that created the fantastic stalactites and stalagmites, and how the Derbyshire River Wye formed the caverns two million years ago.

At White Hall we enjoyed some excellent activities, which included the now infamous zip-wire, and the 80ft abseil challenge from the Miller's Dale Bridge over same Derbyshire River Wye that we had seen at the bottom of Poole's Cavern. As we were visiting slightly earlier than usual this year, we were able to try our hands at canoeing on the Combe Reservoir, and some children (but no staff!) braved a paddle up to their waists in the water afterwards!

It was an excellent opportunity for the children to build both their team work skills and their independence, and the staff were all pleased to see so many pupils develop over the three days. We'll be back again next year!

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Snacks and Treats

Just a reminder on the following points –

Please only send your (Key Stage 2 )child with a fresh fruit or veg snack at break time – no

fruit winders or similar, because of the high sugar content of processed fruit snacks. Children

in Nursery to year 2 are provided with a fruit snack daily.

We do not hand out sweets for Birthdays in school. If you would like to meet your child at

the gates with sweets for their class on their birthday, you may do so.

The last day of each half term is always special snack day – children may bring a small bag of sweets/crisps or chocolate bar for themselves. No big bags please.

When we break up for Christmas and the Summer holidays, we have toy day too – children in years Reception to 6 may bring in a toy from home – nothing electrical or of high value.

Spelling Bee Winners

Congratulations and very well done to our latest Spelling Bee Winners – Jasper in year 1, Hechan in year 2, Grace in year 3, Sam in year 4, Lewis in year 5, and Florence in year 6.

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On Wednesday 8th November, we’ll be hosting a coffee morning for Macmillan in the school hall from 9am – 10am. If you can bake (or buy!) to support this great charity, please bring any donations to the office on either Tuesday afternoon, or on the morning. All are welcome, so please let Grandparents know too! Thank you to Zoe Sutton and PTFA team for organising this event.

PE and School Sports Round-Up The first half of the autumn term has been busy, with the election of new house captains; organising mini-leaders and mini-activators; and assembling football and cross country teams. We have also taken part in our first triathlon.

House Captains Year 6 children put themselves forward to be elected as this year’s captains for the four house teams. They have the important job of planning, managing and officiating inter-house competitions throughout the year. All the candidates gave excellent campaign speeches and the results were close. The house captains for this academic year are: Dragons: Harriet Aitken-Robertson, Olivia Moore, Hugo Harvey, Cassian Allwright. Salamander: Alicia Day, Millie Martin, Sam Eggleton, Tommy Bucknell. Phoenix: Daniel Wright, Morgan Mitchell, Zoe Mann, Florence Meredith. Pegasus: Henry Straw, Noe Astley, Jemima Hurdis and Molly Boyd. The house captains have already met and are busy arranging competitions for next half term. Mini-leaders and Mini-activators

From: Sandra Hinds – School Chaplain Where do you find peace? Peace can mean different things for each one of us:

- When our four children were tucked up in bed the noise level was much quieter and peaceful

- I have folks say to me “I’m so stressed and cannot find any peace”

- for some they desire for our nation and the nations to be at peace For me as I talk with Jesus and tell him my worries and concerns. At all levels of my life, this particular verse from the bible helps me: “I am leaving you with a gift of peace. Peace of mind and heart and the peace that I give the world cannot give. Let not your heart be troubled or let it be afraid” As your school chaplain I can be available to listen, pray and support you. If you would like to contact me in confidence, you can reach me on 07833 646687.

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An army of year 5/6 children have organised themselves into groups to provide sports activities for younger children during lunchtime and playtimes. Many of the games are created by the children themselves, whilst others are from the Sainsbury’s ‘Your School Games’ pack. Leaders have also been busy learning and creating aerobic dances for KS1 to join in with at the end of afternoon play. Brownlee Foundation Triathlon Twenty-eight year 5/6 children joined nearly 2000 other children from across Derby and Derbyshire to take part in the Brownlee Foundation Triathlon, held at Woodlands School. Children had the opportunity to swim, cycle and run a course around the school. All the children thoroughly enjoyed taking part and successfully completed the event. At the end, they received medals, a t-shirt and ‘goody’ bag from the foundation.

Girls’ Mini Soccer Competition On Thursday 5th October, Walter Evans entered a girls’ football team into the Derby City mini soccer tournament for girls. The team consisted of experienced players as well as girls who were new to football. The girls’ skills noticeably improved over the course of the afternoon and they are looking forward to taking part in other tournaments later this year. Derby City Cross Country League Competition Just over forty children from Walter Evans participated in the Cross Country League, held at Moorways. We are very proud of all the children who took part in the events and were impressed by their efforts. Many children used the opportunity to compete against themselves and endeavoured to beat their previous week’s position. There were also some ‘stand-out’ individual performances, with Seth Blanchenot finishing first in the y3/4 boys’ race two weeks running, (and then went on to win the Championships – well done Seth!) Poppy Lambert finished 3rd in her first school cross country event and Florence Meredith, who has competed in all the cross country events since year 3, also finished 3rd in the y5/6 girls’ event. Oliver Taylor’s second place position in the Y5/6 boys’ race was also impressive, as he was competing against over 110 competitors. In the team competition, Walter Evans came first in the y3/4 boys’ event; whilst the y5/6 boys’ team came 3rd. Well done everyone who took part and a big thank you to all the adults who transported the children and gave their support.

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If your child is interested in continuing with cross country, Derby Athletics Club has a full programme of events over the Winter. They can be contacted on (01332) 290679. Alternatively, there is a 2km Junior Parkrun on Markeaton Park at 9am on a Sunday morning (4-14 years); or if you want to run as a family, there is the 5K Parkrun at Darley Park on Saturday morning at 9pm. More information can be found on the following website: http://www.parkrun.org.uk/markeaton-juniors/

St Edmund’s Church German Christmas Market

On Saturday 18th November between 10.30 and 3.30pm, St Edmund’s are holding their

annual German style Christmas Market at their Church Hall in Allestree. Admission is free,

and there will be refreshments, live music and stalls.