Events this term The ducklings have been a huge hit with Reception and the whole school so far this term. The Reception pupils watched them hatch and grow as part of their Growing topic. The first duckling was named ‘Dave the Duckling’ by the pupils. All the classes had a chance to visit them and they have now returned to their farm. Years 2, 5 and 6 had a visit from the NSPCC last week. They learnt about different forms of abuse and how to Speak out to Stay Safe. Speaking out may be talking to a trusted adult in school or at home. They could also call the Childline Number 0800 1111. Events: Cultural Awareness/National Dress Day On Friday 24 th May we are celebrating our next Cultural Awareness Day. This was a huge success last year. This year, each class will take a different language spoken by pupils in our school and spend the day learning about it and countries associated with it. We will then open the school to parents to celebrate with us and view the learning. If you are able to contribute anything related to your home language please speak to your child’s class teacher. We encourage all children to come dressed in National Dress/National costume. You could choose to wear colours of any flag eg. red, white and blue; or any National Dress of your choice. Reception: French Year 1: Portuguese Year 2: Urdu Year 3: Polish Year 4: Romanian Year 5: Kurdish Year 6: Macedonian

Events This Term Last week the whole school spent a day learning about Global Issues as part of our Religious Education Curriculum. Pupils learnt about the causes of poverty and action that can be taken to combat this. On Thursday 7 th March pupils thoroughly enjoyed celebrating World Book Day. On Friday 15 th March Red Nose Day was well su pported and we raised £170.82 by ‘Wearing something Funny for Money’. Goodbye and Congratulations We will sadly be saying goodbye to Miss Henriques today and we wish her the very best of luck in her new venture. Next term we will be welcoming Mrs Elahi to teaching Year 2 full-time. In Miss Brass’ absence, Miss Veni will be increasing her days and teaching our Reception Class Monday to Thursday. Mr Masheder will teach every Friday. Miss Veni will also be taking on the role of Acting EYFS/KS1 Phase Leader in the Summer Term. We welcome Miss Emma Deighton as a new Midday Supervisor joining us from April. Also, congratulations to Mrs Brown who is expecting her third baby in August. She will teaching with us until the end of the Summer Term, taking maternity leave from September and then returning during the next academic year. YDP Easter Camps Youth Dreams Project, who run many of our in-school and extra-curricular sports activities, have a number of Easter Camps running that children are able to access. Please see a link to their website below for more information www.youthdreamsproject.co.uk Congratulations to Charlie and Lola who attended the YDP Rewards Day this week. 40 students from across the YDP partner schools were taken for a rewards afternoon at Hollywood Bowling in Bretton. These students were selected for their hard work, excellent performance and attitude. WHAT WE HAVE BEEN LEARNING THIS TERM Reception This half term Reception have been enjoying their topic of Growing and Changing. We have been looking at the different seasons, how we grow and change, life cycles of different animals and how plants grow. We have all planted our very own sunflower seed. We are taking great care of them and cannot wait to watch them grow into seedlings. We are also eagerly awaiting some very special visitors in the Summer Term to support our life cycle learning. Year 1 Year 1 have completed their DT topic: Animal sock puppets. They worked hard on designing their animal puppet and describing the materials and colours needed to make them look realistic. They measured, cut, coloured and assembled their puppet with care and precision. We had so much fun making them and can't wait to take them home. Year 2 This half term, Year 2 had the opportunity to attend a workshop at the Peterborough Museum to support their learning on The Tudors. The children thoroughly enjoyed taking part in all the activities organised by the museum especially meeting the barber surgeon and visiting the vaults underground! They were amazed to see how much our ground level has risen since the 1400s.

Hard working Half-Term! The first Spring half-term was a very industrious one with children beginning to really get to grips with the curriculum of their year group. It has been fantastic to see so much hard work and determination to improve by our children. I hope they all had a well-earned rest over half-term. They have all returned with the same enthusiasm and love of learning.

Welcome back!

Wednesday 20th December 2023 

Children in Need, Diabetes Awareness Day & Anti-Bullying Week

Football Many of our children enjoy engaging with our in-school and extra-curricular football sessions and clubs. We are lucky to be supported by the POSH team in delivering many of these. We currently run after school Girls’ Football on a Thursday and Boys’ Football on a Friday. Our Girls’ Team have been taking part in local fixtures led by Miss Henriques and are showing excellent team spirit. We also offer lunchtime football to: Monday: Year 5/6 Thursday: Year 3/4 Friday: Year 1/2 To access the lunchtime clubs, pupils just need to bring in a pair of trainers to change into to take part. Football boots with studs (including moulded studs) should not be worn (in clubs or PE sessions) as not all children are protected by shin pads. Class Collective Worship Our weekly Wednesday class Collective Worship began this week. Please look out for Tapestry messages with further details specific to your child’s class. The dates are also all available on the calendar here Stay Informed: Calendar and Term Dates (demat.org.uk) Parents Evening Year 5 parents evening has been rescheduled for next week. Please sign up, if you have not already done so, here SchoolCloud - Stanground St John's C of E Primary German You may have seen from our Twitter feed that I was very lucky to spend a week in Berlin last week learning about Teaching German in Primary Schools. This is a funded project run by the Goethe Institute which is aiming to increase the foreign language teaching in primary schools. As we currently speak over 20 languages in our school, developing foreign language teaching is very important to us. We teach Spanish throughout Key Stage 2 and we benefit from our staff speaking many languages. After Christmas, I will be running an after-school German club for KS2 pupils. I am very much looking forward to this and more details will follow in December. In the meantime, if any children would like to get started on learning a new foreign language (or improving their Spanish) Duolingo is a great free tool. Pupils can sign up here www.duolingo.com Upcoming Key Dates

Harvest Festival & Food Bank Donations

Behaviour Culture Over the two weeks, all the staff and children have been working really hard on establishing our behavior culture at St John’s. Every day children are having a short daily behavior lesson with their teacher, focusing on one area of our Code of Conduct. Teaching our children what is expected, and their knowing exactly how to behave, is crucial. This week they have learnt about: P ersonal Space, Kind Hands and Consent, Taking Turns and Sharing . The children are already saying that they now know exactly what they should and should not do to make our school safe and effective learning environment for everyone. Harvest Festival & Food Bank Donations We will be visiting St John’s Church next Tuesday morning for the Harvest Festival. Parents and families are welcome to join us there or accompany us on the walk. Please contact your class teacher if you are able to help. We will be collecting food bank donations for the Mary’s Child charity until next Tuesday. Extra-Curricular Clubs Our clubs are proving very popular. There are still a few places in: TT Rockstars (Year 3-6 Monday) Multi sports (Year 1-3 Tuesday) Netball (Year 1-2 Thursday) Girls’ Football (Year 5-6 Thursday) Boys’ Football (Year 5-6 Friday) Please contact the office if you would like to book a place. These are all free of charge. Upcoming Key Dates Tuesday 3rd October: Harvest Festival Service at St John's Church. Families welcome to attend. (9:30am) Monday 16th October: Parents Evening (3:30-6:30pm) Wednesday 18th October: Parents Evening (3:30-6:30pm) Friday 20th October: School Closed to pupils for Staff Training Day Monday 2 rd October -Friday 27th Friday: Half-Term Monday 30th October: School Re-opens for Autumn 2 Term.