Our Blogs

Last night's Music Evening was a fantastic success; thank you to all the parents and families who came along to support the children as they showed off their musical talents!

A big thank you once again to all our music teachers, but especially to Mrs Stewart for coordinating the evening and leading music in our school.

A few parents asked why we did not have our usual collection at the end of the evening. We decided not to this year as we are very conscious of the fact that there have been several 'drains' on your pockets and purses recently - the forthcoming theatre trip, the O2 & Royal Albert Hall, the Guide Dogs fundraiser to name a few! We are very grateful for your support and generosity, but decided not to have a collection this year. 

There are photographs of the Music Evening rehearsal on the gallery page.

What a wonderful World Book Day we have had today!

THANK YOU so much to all parents and families who helped create such amazing book character costumes - the children looked fantastic at the parade this morning. Thank you also to our Governors for taking on the difficult job of judging and to the staff for throwing themselves into the spirit of things in their usual mad fashion!

Photographs of the day are now in the gallery for you to see. 

The Book Fair is still on tomorrow, before and after school in the hall; children can redeem their World Book Day tokens towards the cost of books at the fair. 

Celebrate World Book Day at The Book Fair!

Thursday 6th March (after school) 3.15pm – 4pm

Friday 7th March (before school) 8.45am – 9.15am

Friday 7th March (after school) 3.15pm – 4pm

There will be dozens of fantastic books for you and your child to browse through.
If we sell enough books, our school will get some free books in return, helping us to fill our library with lots of new and exciting books for everyone to enjoy.

Every child will receive a World Book Day book token worth £1 which can be redeemed at the book fair.

Remember to bring competition entries to win a £5 book token tomorrow morning.

Hope you can come, Happy Reading!

We had a fantastic pancake race for Shrove Tuesday today. To read more and see the teams in action see the photo gallery!

Thank you to Reverend Ann for cooking her special 'racing pancakes' once again this year, a highly guarded recipe especially for flipping!

A huge thank you to everyone who supported the School Council fundraiser on Friday - they raised over £260 towards their aim of sponsoring a Guide Dog.

Along with the fantastic donations for the Bring & Buy Sale, there were some AMAZING dog-themed cakes on offer - thank you so much for your creativity! We have some cakes left over which will be sold on Monday morning breaktime so children can bring some loose change if they would like to.

There are some photographs of the event in the photo gallery - do take a look. 

School Council’s

Guide Dogs Fundraiser

This Friday: 28^th February!

Here’s how it will work:

                   On Friday morning, please bring in items for the Bring & Buy Sale – toys, books and gift items in good condition.

                   Please send in cakes or biscuits for the cake stall on Friday morning too – it would be great if they are ‘dog themed’ but they don’t have to be!

                   Each class will come to the fair during Friday afternoon in school time. Children can bring a maximum of £4 to spend; please make sure this is in a named purse in loose change – no notes please

.

                   Classes will be dismissed as usual at 3.15pm, but then can come back in with parents and families. The fundraiser will run until 4.00pm. (Please remember no buggies or prams in the hall)

                   Mrs Blencowe will be here with Gem, her Guide Dog puppy in training, and there will representatives from the Guide Dogs charity here, along with a blind person and their working Guide Dog: please do come in to meet them! There will also be Guide Dogs merchandise and information available.

Please help us to make our charity fundraiser a great success by ‘bringing’, ‘buying’ and coming along! Hope to see you there!

Thank you, from School Council

This coming Monday is our Open Session after school from 3.30pm - 6.30pm. Please do come along to see your child's books and have a look around school at their work on display. No appointment is necessary and you can stay as long as you want. 

It is also a great chance to come and see the fantastic results of this week's Arts Days on display in the main foyer. Here's a little taster of what you can see:

What a fabulous two days we have had this week for our annual arts days. The children have participated in a wide range of activities: sewing, collage, music & dance, seascape paintings, printing, clay, pastels & charcoal and more!

A huge thank you to everyone who volunteered to help – your extra pairs of hands are invaluable to us. Thank you also for to the staff for their ideas and enthusiasm, without which there would be no arts days at all!

Over the weekend we will be busy displaying the children’s masterpieces in the main entrance so that you will be able to see their work on Monday at the Open Session. In the meantime have a look at the photo gallery to see our artists in action.

Class One were FANTASTIC last week at their performance of 'The Nativity'. Big voices, confident speaking, wonderful acting and dancing and a real tear-jerker of a solo! Well done to everyone in Class 1, including all the grown ups who work really hard to enable the children to shine. Photographs have now been uploaded into the photo gallery - do take a look!

Christmas Fair on Friday!

It’s not too late for those last minute donations for our Christmas Fair this Friday:

Cakes and biscuits for our cake stall, bottles for the bottle tombola, good quality second hand books and toys, gifts for the ‘secret presents room’ and Red/Green/Gold items such as toys, stationery, hairclips for the kids tombola.

We need your help to make our fair a great success!

The fair will be launched by the school choir singing in the hall at 3.30pm. Please enter the hall using the side door (up the slope). Please also remember that prams and buggies cannot be brought into the building – many thanks.

Thank you to everyone who came to the PTA Book Fair last week. Thanks to your support we have almost £500 worth of brand new books for our school library!

Stir Up Sunday

In assembly on Monday we talked about ‘Stir Up Sunday’ and the tradition of making Christmas Puddings on the last Sunday before the start of Advent. Lots of children were able to help out in assembly as we made our very own Christmas Pudding. It is now ‘resting’ and will be steamed by Mrs Harrington Smith so that all the children can have a taste if they would like to. In previous years the recipe has proved very popular so we thought you might like to know the ingredients if any children would like to have a go at home. (It is vegetarian and nut-free.)

3 oz plain flour
3oz vegetable suet
4oz dark brown sugar;
½ tsp baking powder with ½ tsp mixed spice
4oz raisins
4oz sultanas
6oz currants
2oz mixed peel
2 medium eggs
Juice from a fresh lemon, orange and lime

Did you know these Christmas Pudding traditions?

Stir-up Sunday is the Sunday before Advent, the term comes from the opening words of the collect for the day in the Book of Common Prayer of 1549:
Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

It is traditional for all the family to participate in stirring the pudding on Stir-up Sunday, whilst making a wish at the same time.

The pudding should only be stirred clockwise, from east to west, in honour of the Wise Men making the journey to see baby Jesus.

The Christmas Pudding is said to have 13 ingredients to represent Jesus and his 12 disciples.

Revd Ann dyed her hair 'Bishop's Purple' for Children in Need and we all supported her by wearing purple accessories with our school uniforms and bringing in a donation towards her sponsor money - we raised a total of £145.

Well done to everyone and especially a very brave Revd Ann!

Thank you to everyone who supported this year's shoebox appeal; we collected a fantastic 65 shoeboxes for children overseas.

Dear parent or carer

Inspection of St Ippolyts Church of England Aided Primary School by Ofsted

We have just told your child’s school that we will inspect it on 6–7 November 2013. The lead inspector will be Keith Williams. We are writing to you because we would like to know what you think about the school.  

Your views about the school are important to us
If you are a registered parent or carer of a pupil at the school (including pupils on sick leave or who are temporarily excluded), you can tell us your views about the school by completing Ofsted's online survey, Parent View, at: http://www.parentview.ofsted.gov.uk.

Parent View asks for your opinion on 12 aspects of your child’s school, including the progress made by your child, the quality of teaching, dealing with bullying and poor behaviour. The inspectors will use the online survey responses when inspecting your child’s school.

To register your views, you will need to provide your email address, which will be held securely. It will not be used for any purpose other than providing access to the online survey. Neither schools nor Ofsted will have access to any email addresses.
Please complete the online survey by 11am on 6 November 2013 as this will give the inspection team more time to consider your views. However, we will consider all online responses that are completed during the inspection. Should you wish to provide written comments these should be sent to the school in a sealed envelope, marked confidential and addressed to the inspection team.

Speaking to an inspector
If you are unable to complete the online survey, it may be possible to speak to an inspector during the inspection, for instance at the start of the school day, or to pass on messages to the inspectors if you are unable to speak to them in person. Inspection administrators will be happy to make the necessary arrangements. If concerns are raised about child protection, we may have to pass the information we receive to social services or the police. You can contact the administrators on 0121 679 9153 Inspectors will be pleased to receive your comments, but cannot deal with complaints about individual pupils or settle disputes between you and the school.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to complete the online survey.

Yours faithfully

Naik Sandhu

Huge Congratulations to our boys football team who played in the ESFA tournament at Wilshere Dacre School last Friday. 

We won the district competition! 

This means that not only do we have a fantastic trophy on display, but the team go on to represent the District in the County Championships.

A special mention must go to Mr Jefferies for coaching the team to victory - thank you Mr Jefferies!

Class 5 have had a great first 8 weeks at school with a brilliant year 6 setting a fantastic example and the year 5s hot on their heels.

I'm feeling really lucky to have such a hard working class, who have been busy setting themselves targets and striving to achieve their very best. We are looking forward to giving the parents and the rest of the school a sample of what we have been learning so far during our class assembly on Friday this week; we hope it will be well attended.

As we head for half term the children are looking forward to a well earned rest ready for a busy 7 weeks when we return in November.

Mrs Racher

Yesterday our new girls football team played their first match. We haven't had a girls team at St Ippolyts before so it was a special day! They played against Cockernhoe School and won 6-0! A huge well done to them all and thank you to Mr Jefferies for coaching them so well.

Please note that the school will be OPEN AS NORMAL for all classes on Tuesday 1st October. 

Thank you to everyone who supported our Harvest Festival on Friday by donating Harvest produce, filling a money box or coming along to the service. It was lovely to see so many parents and families join us in Church.

The total collected in the money boxes for the Bishop of St Albans' Harvest Appeal was an amazing £266.86 so THANK YOU!

To read more about the Harvest Apppeal visit www.harvestappeal.org