Good afternoon,

 

We have had such a glorious week of sunshine which has been perfect for our Year 6 at PGL and brilliant for our learning and play in school.

 

Thank you for the contributions to the Crowthorne food bank.  The Year 5s walked up to church on Thursday morning to help load the gifts onto the vans and their help was gratefully received.

It was our Reception children's first church service with us and they were fantastic.  We were so impressed with the singing from the whole school as well as the readings by some of our Year 5s.  I hope it has encouraged us all to feel gratitude for all we have and compassionate for others in our community and beyond.

 

On Wednesday, I had the pleasure of leading an achievement assembly.  We celebrated the children who are stepping into the role as School Council reps.  We also awarded some STEP badges (sorry, thank you, excuse me, please) for children who show wonderful manners in a consistent way.  We also discussed the other badge that the children can work towards, a HOC badge.  This stands for Heart of the Community.  We have a different colour HOC badge each year and the children will hopefully aspire to achieve 7 of them!  If your child does something within the community and for others outside of family and friends, please let us know, an email addressed to Mrs Wirth at Finchparents@finchampstead.wokingham.sch.uk and share what your child has done, we love to share photos in assembly too.  Possible ideas would be delivering leaflets for church, baking cakes for a neighbour, helping clear leaves in a neighbour's garden, litter picking, delivering a card to the police/fire/nhs to say thank you for their hard work.  We really hope for a year of creative ideas and we look forward to celebrating the children's kindness and compassion.

 

PGL for our Year 6 has been a wonderful success.  The children have loved their time away and as they call it - PGL standing for Parents Get Lost!  The week is valuable in so many ways but for me the personal challenge, independence, resilience and teamwork are the biggest benefits and we are proud of the children.  They will sleep well tonight, as will the staff.  Thank you to all staff involved especially Ms Bardsley for dealing with all the bookings, payments and paperwork.  Such a trip couldn't happen without their hard work and commitment and the children are saying it has been the best trip ever!

 

I always say how hard our FOFSA committee work. Last week they were collecting Bag2School and this week we are launching a big fundraiser that we hope spreads far and wide.  Sadly, an application for funding was recently turned down and this was needed to provide laptops for the children to use as a class or for multiple groups at a time.  Due to our budgets being so restrictive when such an application is turned down, I need to turn to support within our community.  FOFSA is excited to share a GoFund Me page with the intention of then purchasing the laptops and trolley that would benefit the whole school, across the curriculum.  Please support us and share the link with friends and family, families of past pupils and people within our community.  The very exciting news is that the amount raised might be matched by one of our parents' company.  Here is the link and be prepared to see it shared by FOFSA and please share it through social media if you can.  https://gofund.me/17b6ede1e 

 

I have had the pleasure of teaching the Year 5s today and feel proud of how they have stepped up to fill the responsiblities of the Year 6 children.  Many of them are finishing the week at a football match and I wish them luck.  They will certainly get wet!

 

I wanted to remind you that next week, we will be celebrating Hello Yellow, raising the profile of being comfortable to be who we are.  We will have time with the children for discussions around the this topic as well as mental health in general.  We ask that the children come to school with a yellow accessory.  This could be socks, tights, hair bands, headbands, face paint, scarf, hat.  Thank you for supporting us to share this important message.

 

I wish you all a lovely weekend.  Thank you again to our wonderful staff for making each day so busy and so exciting.  

 

With kind regards

Jacquie Vanstone