Newsletter

Head Teacher's Welcome

Welcome back and I hope you all had a fantastic half term break.

It is hard to believe we are beginning the final 7 weeks of the year! As always a busy half term awaits and we are sure it will be fun and enjoyable for all.  

School Staff and Student Placements

We wish to inform you all that Mr Charles Oldershaw will be retiring from teaching at the end of this academic year. We have been delighted that Mr Oldershaw has been part of the teaching team at Colston Bassett for nine years and we hope he enjoys his well earned retirement. We would like to express our very grateful thanks to Mr Oldershaw for all his hard work and support to the school. We know that everyone will miss him very much.

We are delighted to welcome Miss Eleanor Spence into school towards the end of term on a work experience placement. Eleanor is keen to find a career in teaching and she will be spending the majority of her time with Class 1 and 4+, observing classes, helping with activities and potentially trying her hand at teaching. Eleanor will be with us for three weeks from the week commencing Monday 7th July 2025 until the end of the Summer Term. In addition, we will be welcoming Miss Georgia Taylor from Toot Hill School into school for her Year 10 work experience the week commencing Monday 21st July 2025. Georgia came to Colston Bassett School as a pupil and we are delighted to have her back! We wish Eleanor and Georgia every success with their respective placements.

Visits and Visitors

The children thoroughly enjoyed the online Kindness Workshop from the charity 52 Lives (www.52-lives.org) back in April. We learned that kindness has three qualities – being friendly, generous and considerate. We learnt about the science of kindness and the positive impact it has on our physical and mental health. Next, we practised empathy by watching videos of kindness in action and then said kind things to each other in the classroom. To put our kindness into action, we thought of someone we knew who could do with a little kindness and then made them something in our classrooms. Finally, we looked at the quote ‘be the change that you want to see in the world’ and decided that we can help to create the kind of world we want to live in. Thank you to Tanya Smith for a very engaging workshop.

On Tuesday 8th July 2025, we have arranged a whole school outing to Bradgate Park in Leicestershire. We will be taking part in a ‘River Life’ session with curriculum links to Science and Geography. The children will have a guided walk along the river, learning all about the river and what lives there. They will also learn about food chains and have an opportunity to conduct their own river dip and identify their findings. We will then be taking the children on a minibeast hunt, which will provide the opportunity to explore the wider reaches of Bradgate Park and discover more about the surrounding landscape. A letter with more details about this trip will be sent out in July.

Parent Appointments

As always, an opportunity to speak to your child’s teachers is available this half term. If you feel that you would like an appointment, please contact the office to arrange a mutually convenient time. Please indicate which teachers you wish to speak to if you have any specific preferences. As we had our Open Morning last half term and your child’s end of year report will be due out in a few weeks, we are happy for you to decide if you feel an appointment is necessary or not. We are happy to meet throughout the year if other times are more convenient.

Duckling Project

Thank you very much to ‘Incredible Eggs’ for providing us with the wonderful opportunity of hatching some pet ducklings last half term. The children and staff thoroughly enjoyed caring for them and watching them grow! Thank you to Rachael and Jon Heald who kindly adopted all the ducklings – as you can see from the photos below, they certainly appear to be enjoying their new home! Thank you to Rachael too for bringing the ducks back to visit, they are always welcome!  

School Photographs

We have arranged for Dan Lambourne to come into school for a photo morning on Monday 30th June 2025. Dan owns a company called ‘Memory Box’ and he is an excellent photographer. Photographs will be taken of the children and family groups, and the images will be made available in private galleries for viewing online. After the photo shoot, each child will receive an individual code to access their own gallery, where purchases can also be made. There will also be a proof for a whole school photograph for anyone who wishes to buy a print of this. We will send an email out after the shoot to confirm the instructions. We do hope you enjoy the photographs!

Sports Day/Strawberry Fayre

Our annual Sports Day is being held on the afternoon of Friday 27th June 2024. The events will begin at 2:00pm so please come a little in advance to get a good seat. There will be family events to join in with so don’t forget your trainers! The children will be competing as part of their House Teams, so they will each require a plain T-shirt appropriate to their House colours – light blue for Eagles, turquoise for Tawnies and white for Snowies (the Snowies can just wear their PE tops if you prefer).  The winning team will then be presented with the Sports trophy at the finale.

Once the events are over, the School Council will be arranging a ‘Strawberry Fayre’ as part of their fundraising. There will be strawberries and cream, refreshments, a cake competition, a tombola and a variety of games. We do hope you will be able to join us for this and round off a busy afternoon of competition in an enjoyable way. In the event of poor weather, we will reschedule for Friday 4th July 2025, with the arrangements and times staying the same.

Please note that Drama Club will not take place after Sports Day as the children will, most likely, want to stay and enjoy the Strawberry Fayre! 

'The Wizard of Oz'/Leavers' Service

Our summer production this year will be ‘The Wizard of Oz’, based on the 1939 classic starring Judy Garland. Dorothy Gale and her dog Toto are whisked away from their Kansas farm by a tornado to the magical land of Oz. There, she befriends a Scarecrow, a Tin Woodman and a Cowardly Lion, each with a wish of their own, and they embark on a journey to the Emerald City to see the Wizard, who they believe can help them fulfil their desires and Dorothy return home. The performance will take place on Thursday 24th July 2025 at Colston Bassett Village Hall, beginning at 2:00pm.

We would like to invite parents to come for a picnic lunch in the school grounds on the afternoon of the production. Please arrive at school for our usual lunchtime at 12:30pm – you are welcome to bring along picnic blankets and any food and drink you desire, and children are welcome to join parents/families on the field for lunch instead of their normal school lunch break. Everybody can then head down to the village hall for the production to commence at 2:00pm.

After the performance there will be a leavers’ ceremony to celebrate the Year 6 children who are moving on in September. We will also be presenting the House Cup to the team that have gained the most house points during this academic year.

We do hope you are able to attend this event – we will send out an email reminder nearer the time.

Show and Tell

Just a polite request! Show and Tell is such a lovely activity for the children to take part in as it develops confidence in a group situation and encourages communication and language skills. However, we are finding that the children are bringing in multiple items that are not designed to be part of a fifteen minute assembly – Show and Tell is now often taking up a whole lesson and this is not a valuable use of time. Items also need to be stored in the school office before the assembly, so size is quite important as storage is limited!

If children forget to bring something in, please don’t worry – they can always remember for the next time when their particular date falls. We can’t extend the Show and Tell time to accommodate different year groups who do forget things. The dates of the assemblies for this half term are below.

We do hope you understand and thanks as always for your co-operation.

Sun Safety/Summer Clothing

Just a reminder that please could parents supply a bottle of sun cream for your child, if you haven’t already. We do keep some high protection factor sun cream at school, however it is always better to bring your own along as this minimises the risks of any potential allergy. Please also make sure your child has a sun hat in school – if they don’t have one, we have a supply at school available to purchase at £5.00 each.

We will remind the children to wear their hats and drink plenty of water in sunny weather. Waterproofs will be required over the summer months too, as we will continue to do PE outside if it is raining. Thank you.

Sickness Policy

Just a reminder that we do follow a strict policy as advised by the NHS regarding exclusions for vomiting and diarrhoea bugs. These bugs spread rapidly and because of this, we do ask that children are kept at home for 48 hours (two days) after the last time they were either sick or had the diarrhoea. We appreciate that this does seem a long time, however due to the nature of how young children play together with lots of close contact with each other and staff, we do need to ensure that everyone at Colston Bassett remains fit and healthy, including the whole staff team, so that we can remain open at all times. Thank you for your co-operation.

Primary Maths Challenge

This half term, we are delighted that some of our children will be taking part in the Primary Maths Challenge. The PMC is a fun and exciting mathematical challenge designed to make pupils think outside the box – it is not just another ‘test’ in the school year.  We are of the belief that the PMC encourages enthusiasm, boosts confidence in mathematics and shows the different way questions can be asked. 

There are 20 multiple-choice questions in the PMC. The questions asked are not necessarily subjects that have been covered in the curriculum, but the questions can create a great starting point and lead to discussions later in the year. The questions are not heavily reliant on formal mathematical knowledge but can be solved by logical reasoning.

The PMC will take place over two weeks, from Monday 16th – Friday 27th June 2025 and the children participating will all receive a certificate once we have submitted the results. We wish them luck with the challenge!

Jewellery

Please be aware that for health and safety reasons, no jewellery should be worn in school other than stud earrings. This is particularly relevant for PE lessons and other sporting activities that take place during the day, as jewellery presents a potential hazard not only to the wearer but also to other children. Medical advice confirms that any jewellery worn in PE lessons is an unnecessary risk and should be avoided at all times, which we will reinforce in school, however we would appreciate your co-operation in adhering to this policy too – many thanks.

Colston Bassett Summer Feast

This year Colston Bassett Village are holding a 'Summer Feast' on Saturday 5th July 2025 starting at 12:00pm and the school have been invited to attend. There will be a variety of traditional events including a barbecue, Artisan food stalls, refreshments, a tombola, a raffle, a cake competition and live music.  

We hope that you will be able to support the event by providing some cakes to sell as part of the competition. If you are able to help with a stall or in any other capacity, please do let Mrs Newcombe know so that she can pass on this information to the committee. We are sure they will be most grateful for any support.

Curriculum

Dates for your Diary

Please refer to the ‘Calendar’ on the school website:

www.colstonbassettschool.com/parent.php#parent_calendar