Lee Common School By Arabella Norton
The winter snow meant that the school had a longer Christmas holiday than usual but now it is back to business as usual. However there are many items that need reporting from a while ago as unfortunately I couldn’t write an article for last month’s Newsletter.
Thank you to everyone who came to support the School Christmas Fair back in early December. The final figure raised was £3,080. Also, thank you to everyone who came to watch the School Christmas Play ‘Ned’s Christmas Discovery’ and who contributed towards The Horse Trust at Speen – in total £164.41 was raised for this charity.
This year the school held its first Christmas Carol Concert in the St John the Baptist Church as the wonderful parental support means that we have now outgrown the school hall. This was a very dignified affair with the children doing readings, saying prayers and singing carols. David Burgess did the address to a completely packed church so thank you to all the parents who came to support this wonderful occasion. This was such a success that it will certainly be a new tradition in the school calendar.
Sadly the school has had to say ‘Goodbye’ to Mrs Ash who retired last term from teaching Art on Thursday afternoons. We wish her every happiness in her new life free from the constraints of school term times.
The theme for this half-term is ‘Dinosaurs’ and the children have been treated to a visiting storyteller who came full of stories, all with a dinosaur theme. This caused great excitement and everyone has become very inspired. Each class performs a demonstration of what they have learnt in a school assembly to which the parents of all the children in that class are invited. These are always very popular events and, as well as listening to their children speak in front of the whole school, the parents appreciate the chance to look at all the displays on the walls and see the work their children have done afterwards.
Music and drama
The children were treated to a guitar concert by Bucks Music Service which was very well received. They also greatly enjoyed the drama workshop which was run by the Perform Drama Company and had the theme of ‘explorers’.
On the last day before half-term the school was holding a mufti day and a cake sale to raise funds for Haiti. During half-term each of the children was hoping to learn lots of spellings for a sponsored spelling test which is raising funds to replace old and tatty ‘Oxford Reading Tree’ books and purchase more novels for Guided Reading Sets and two more Sound Systems with headphones for the classrooms. The school is also very pleased with its new purchase of three ‘Visualisers’ (one for each classroom.) These display/magnify items onto the Interactive Whiteboards.
During half-term more improvements were due to be made to the school building with the installation of a new exterior door from the Year 1 classroom to the outside space so that during the summer months the children will be able to use both under the teacher’s supervision.
There have been a huge number of improvements to the physical building of the school (with lots more still to come) and this is an advance invitation to any readers who may not have visited the school for a while to please come and watch the Maypole Dancing on Friday 30th April at 11:00am and stay for coffee afterwards and then have a look round the school to see all the changes which have taken place.
The next items due for replacement are the old climbing frames, which no longer meet Health and Safety requirements. Consultation is under way at present with the children and the parents to see what they would like to see put up instead in the rear playground. If anyone would like to make a donation towards this specific fund then please do contact the school office.