Dear Felbridge families
There is a slight chill in the air in the mornings and the leaves are falling around the school grounds – Autumn has definitely arrived!
Over the past two weeks, our pupils have enjoyed a wide range of extra-curricular experiences. Year 3 took part in Feet First walking training, practising safe routes, road awareness and pedestrian skills. Year 2 and Year 5 welcomed a representative from the local fire safety team who led age-appropriate sessions on general fire and household safety and how to raise the alarm — the children had the opportunity to ask thoughtful questions. Our Year 6 pupils spent a valuable morning at Lingfield College for the Junior Citizen programme, taking part in workshops run by a range of professionals, focusing on keeping themselves and others safe.
Last Friday, we held our Harvest assembly at St John’s Church for the children in Years 1 to 6. Many thanks to Nick Wooldridge and the team for, once again, welcoming us so warmly. Each class prepared a song or a poem to share and the whole school sang with gusto as a collective – the ‘Harvest Samba’ is always a favourite! I was also treated to an enthusiastic rendition of ‘Big, red combine harvester’ when I visited Geckos’ class earlier this week. Thank you to every family who donated non-perishable food items; this is a great example of our school value of kindness. The donations have been shared between Crawley Open House and East Grinstead Foodbank to support local families.
This week, we have focused on our school value of courage, thinking about how we can try to be brave in different situations and have the courage to try something new, whether that be activities, friendships and even food! Trying something new can be exciting and open new possibilities. We also talked about how it takes courage to admit our mistakes, which I explained to the children, even adults have to do sometimes!
Kindness continues to be an important focus for us and my kindness tree is gradually starting to fill up again. Children are nominated for the kindness tree by staff, if they show a particularly kind gesture towards someone else. Congratulations to the children who have been nominated by their classes as Kindness Ambassadors: Year 1 Hugo, Year 2 Izzy, Year 3 Luka, Year 4 Freya, Year 5 Freya and Year 6 Mitchell. These children will help model and promote kind behaviour in classrooms, at playtimes and around the school.
Thank you to the many parents in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 who attended yesterday’s Little Wandle phonics meeting. For those who were unable to join us, we will send home a recording and a copy of the presentation shortly. Please also take a look at the Little Wandle website (Little Wandle) and our own school website (Phonics) both of which contain useful information on the content of the scheme, resources and examples of how to support your child at home.
Next week, on Wednesday, we are excited to welcome the Rainbow Theatre group into school. They will deliver workshops for Years 2–6 which link to the historical topics pupils are currently studying. To help everyone become fully immersed in the sessions, please can the children in these year groups wear their Time Travel Day costumes. Thank you to the Friends of Felbridge Primary School (FoFPS) for financially supporting this event, which they were able to do, due to the money raised at the Colour Run in July – events such as these, enable us to fund important extra-curricular activities.
Speaking of FoFPS, I am pleased to introduce the new core team members who were voted to their respective roles at last week’s AGM:
Rachelle Brown and Luke Goatley (Co-chairs)
Lisa Mayo-Smith (Treasurer)
Louise Nicholls (Secretary)
I am extremely grateful to these parents for putting themselves forward and volunteering to continue the great work of the previous team, raising funds for the school; thank you also to everyone else who attended the meeting to offer their support for the year ahead. The team are working hard behind the scenes preparing for the first big event of the school year, our Fireworks evening on 15th October — if you have not bought tickets yet, please support this important school fundraiser if you are able to; it is always a great evening.
As we approach the final week before the half-term, I would like to thank you for your continued support of the school and I wish you all an enjoyable break, when it arrives!
Have a lovely weekend
With best wishes
