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Good evening,
It is incredible to think that Monday will be the 1st December. The singing in school is fantastic as classes rehearse ahead of the Christmas play. Thank you to those who were able to join us for our Advent Service. The singing was beautiful, and the service gave a hopeful message for Christmas with a valuable reminder of the importance of patience. Thank you Reverend Gemma.
I have many Christmas reminders which I hope will be helpful. The FOFSA committee have already organised a successful Wreath night, and they are working hard towards what I am sure will be a wonderful Christmas fair on 13th December.
As part of the auction, we have the prize of upgraded seats for the Christmas play. This is a great prize to bid on, and I attach the link here. What could be better than watching your child perform from the front row with a goodie bag to enjoy!
https://www.pta-events.co.uk/finchfofsa/index.cfm?event=event&eventId=108849&bidPlaced=true
The jarbola entries can be brought into school before Monday 8th December. They will then be judged by staff and a prize per class will be announced and awarded at the Christmas fair. Jarbola is a fantastic opportunity for some Christmas creativity! Separately to Jarbola, we also need jars in school as we collect them ahead of our Carol Service.
Raffle tickets have gone home, so please send any envelopes back to school. We really appreciate your support and if you are able to help at the fair, please let us know.
This week has started and ended with sport; Mr O’Reilly has been so busy. The sports hall athletics on Monday was a brilliant event to go to with many of Goldfinch. We were grateful to have the Wellington College minibus to support the transport for this event. We then had a great 5-0 win boys’ football match, a super tag rugby tournament and a girls’ football match today. We are proud of our sports participation and this week has been a celebration of the teams displaying positive attitudes, great team work and resilience. Well done to all who have represented the school.
I have had the pleasure of children from different classes sharing their learning with me. This is always lovely as the children talk with such confidence and passion about their learning, progress and achievements. Chaffinch had a visitor this week, Sandra Pullen. She shared her experiences and knowledge through her travels and is an inspiration for our children.
Moving onto next week, we have rehearsals planned, two more football matches and a mufti day on Friday. We have lots of tours next week for prospective families for Reception 26. It is a low birth year, and we ask for your support in encouraging friends or family to join us for a tour if they have children looking for a school place. We are so proud of what we offer, and the children love to show families around.
I finish with the exciting news that we have planning permission for an extension at the front of school. I will keep you updated as plans progress.
I wish you a lovely weekend
With kind regards
Jacquie Vanstone
Good afternoon,
I hope you are well. We have had a great week in school. It has been cold, but the children thoroughly enjoyed the small amount of snowfall we had.
We were delighted to hold our Grounds day and have the children working hard to improve the surrounding spaces. It was fantastic to have Wellington College students with us and their help made a huge difference. Thank you to all the staff for providing the tools and motivation during a busy day.
There has been a focus this week on advocacy and the children have made us very proud. Chaffinch led an assembly on Water aid which was informative and motivational. It was wonderful to see the children already showing such commitment and passion for their chosen charity.
I was delighted to join School Council this week to discuss another opportunity for them to share their views and have their voices heard. There are very exciting plans for a new park across the road from the school. We had an early look at the plans and after some in-depth discussion, School Council shared the information with the rest of the school. The Parish Council is working towards finalising a contract and placing an order to deliver the park in early 2026. In parallel to this process, the Memorial Hall has been hired out between 15:15 and 18:15 on Tuesday 25th November to share the plans in conjunction with the supplier and enable children and families to vote on a variety of park components including the name of the castle and colours of the ropes etc. We would be so pleased if parents could take the children to share their views on Tuesday: they have a lot of great ideas.
Next week, I am going to begin some consultation work with the children on our school uniform. This will form part of a bigger piece of work as governors review our uniform policy for September 2026. Government guidance is limiting the number of branded items for parents to purchase. If you have any comments about the uniform, we would be pleased to know your thoughts, so please be in touch.
We are delighted to be holding our carol service again this year and, once again, the music group will be playing a couple of the carols. If there are any parents who play an orchestral instrument, (or used to play and would like to dust the cobwebs off), we would be delighted if you would like to join with some staff members to play in our music group and accompany the carols. The music is very simple – approximately grade 1 standard and Mrs Gan can provide the music in advance along with 1 practice.
Please email into Finch parents or catch Mrs Gan at the gate by Friday 21st November if you would like to take part. Thank you.
Next week, we have more sporting fixtures, which is great to see. Well done to our girls for drawing their football match this evening. We also had many children enjoying Bohunt dance club today which was great to watch. We also have our Advent service on Tuesday at the church. Parents are welcome to join us, and please remember to drop off at church in the morning.
The Christmas excitement is creeping in as rehearsals begin for the Christmas play and our choir are working hard ahead of their performances. We would like to ask for empty jam jars to be brought in please. These will be used in school for a Carol service in December.
I wish you all a lovely weekend, and thank you for your support.
With kind regards
Jacquie Vanstone
Good evening,
I have my fingers crossed that this will be my last news update on this website and we will then move over to our new one. There have been some teething problems with the transfer so we will make sure all dates etc. are updated on the calendar as quickly as possible. Yesterday I emailed out key dates for the rest of the term, which I hope is a helpful document.
I am sure you will agree that the front of school looked lovely with our poppies. We were so delighted to welcome Stuart Roberts to play The Last Post for us and talk to the children about his role in the army as well as Remembrance day in general. This took place on Monday and then on Tuesday we held our 2-minute silence at the Memorial Cross. The children were respectful and beautifully behaved, and it was lovely to be joined by someone from our community. Thank you to Mr Roberts for this very special assembly.
Yesterday, Mrs Metcalfe took some of Goldfinch to a tag rugby tournament and today, some of the Chaffinch children played in a football match, winning 5-2. Well done to all the boys and Mr O'Reilly. Thank you so much Mrs Metcalfe.
We look forward to next week with more sports events, and we are also holding a Grounds afternoon. We would welcome the children to bring wellies or old trainers to school and, if they want to, they can bring gardening gloves on Wednesday. During the day, the children will be given opportunities to help tidy, clear and develop the grounds. We will be joined by extra students from Wellington College this week and instead of Homework club they will support our work on the grounds alongside the children who usually stay for the club. This is great community support.
Following this, I will share a list of key jobs that need doing within our grounds and if any parents can 'adopt an area', we would be very grateful. We already have some key members of our community who care for specific areas within the grounds and we would like to extend this beyond family and governors to our parents. If you are able to help in anyway, at anytime, please be in touch. An example would be a family offering to maintain the weeding of the side path by Rosefinch and doing so at a convenient time. It is great for our children to see our school community working together and this impact this can have. Thank you.
I wish you a lovely weekend.
With kind regards
Jacquie Vanstone
