Dear Parents and Carers,

Another week has flown by  - quite literally with the help of Storm Jocelyn who left her mark on our playground! Luckily we are fortunate to have all of our beautiful (albeit muddy) grounds at the front of school to use as an alternative while Mr Gidman works on the playground. We are hoping to be able to use it again next week but having wellies in school would be useful to avoid the inside of school becoming a mud trail!

Big Garden Watch Weekend

Today is the start of the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch weekend. It is the world's largest garden wildlife survey. Every year lots of people take part and it helps the RSPB to build a picture of how garden birds are faring.

If you would like to take part below is a short video. There are also bags of birdseed and a guide to the top 10 garden birds at reception.

Happy Birdwatching!

https://www.rspb.org.uk/whats-happening/big-garden-birdwatch

Forest Schools

Congratulations to Mrs Williams who has completed her Forest Schools training meaning that we are now an accredited Forest School provider. Research shows that the benefits of this type of outdoor learning are numerous and far reaching - benefiting mental health, resilience, problem solving and academic performance. We are very excited to start incorporating this into our curriculum after half term. We will start a rolling programme where each class has half a term of Forest Schools as part of their PE curriculum.

Young Musician of the Year A message from Mrs Elkin, our music lead:

Just before Christmas we entered 4 of our Year 6 Musicians into the new Co-op Musician of the Year Competition: Millie - flute, Florence - guitar, Imogen and Gini - clarinet.  They were recorded playing a chosen piece. These pieces were then submitted to be judged. Well done to all 4 musicians. It's quite nerve racking being filmed playing a solo!

There were 186 entries and only 41 musicians have been chosen to go through to the semi-finals. Gini is one of these semi-finalists!  Our region's semi-final will take place at the Mitchell Arts Centre in Hanley during March. We are delighted to have someone representing Co-op Academy Friarswood.

We are so proud of all of our musicians who have lessons at school on clarinet, flute, guitar, violin, guitar or piano. If you have private lessons outside of school, please let me know so we can celebrate your success too!

Next year, we're hoping to open the competition up to all players. Watch this space.

Good luck Gini! 

On Tuesday 39 members of our school choir went to Birmingham to take part in the Young Voices Concert at The Resort Arena. It was a long day (the coach left school at 10AM and didn’t return until just before 11PM!) but an amazing time was had by all and the children represented our school beautifully. Thank you to Mrs Elkin, Mrs Dickens, Miss Smith, Mrs Master and Mrs Bebbington for volunteering their time to allow the children to be part of such a fabulous opportunity to perform.

You can see photographs of the day on our website 

Year 6 Choir Members Anna-Frieda, Gini, Florence and Amelia have written this report of their exciting day.

"39 of our choir members went to the Young Voices Concert on Tuesday. As we entered Birmingham Resorts World Arena, full of excitement and bursting to sing, we realised it was a much bigger venue than we had imagined! 

We rehearsed from 2 - 5pm. The rehearsal started with  'The Moment' Young Voices 2024 official song. From the moment we opened our mouths the connection between not only us a Co-op Academy Friarswood Choir,  but the other 5,832 pupils was more than clear. A huge amount of children and their accompanying staff, singing together was beautiful and such fun!

We sang with an amazing live band and  3 backing singers Otto, Maddy and Jane. We also had 3 stars: Natalaie Williams a talented singer, Nandi Bushell an amazing drummer who is only 13 and MC Grammar who is actually a teacher! We also loved dancing along with Urban Strides, the dance group. 

There were lots of surprises during the actual concert. At 7pm the arena sky filled with stars and we all went mad! We sang and danced and the parents even joined in too. We created the biggest Mexican wave and had buckets of fun!

Thank you to Mrs Elkin for organising everything, to Mrs Dickens and Miss Smith who are also part of Co-op Academy Friarswood Choir and Mrs Bebbington and Mrs Master who enjoyed fabulous singing and dancing with us too."

PTA

Our wonderful PTA have been busy organising our first events of the year. Here are some dates for your diary:

If you haven’t done so already please could you fill in the PTA Feedback questionnaire. This gives the PTA an overall idea of what events you would like to see and events that are going well. 

Attendance
Our attendance this week has been 97.1% putting us in the top 2% of schools nationwide - congratulations everyone for working hard to keep our children learning!

Upcoming Dates

Ms Hartley

Welcome back!

I hope that you all enjoyed the holidays. We have started the new year as busy and purposeful as always with lots of learning in and outside of the classroom.

Nutcracker at The New Vic Theatre
KS2 started the year with a trip to the theatre on Tuesday. On their return the children’s faces were full of joy and excitement. I heard many tales of giant gingerbread men and teddy bears over playtime! As always the children represented our school brilliantly and the staff at the theatre passed on their admiration of their behaviour and their attentiveness - well done Friarswood! Thank you also to the parent volunteers who went on the trip, I hope you enjoyed it too.

Mrs Wilmer
Mrs Wilmer is continuing her recovery at home. She is making good progress but still needs a little more time to get back on her feet fully. We all wish her well and a full recovery. In the meantime I will continue to spread my time between Year 2 and Acting Head.

Go IT Competition
The children in Year 6 have been working hard developing app ideas in their computing lessons that could help to improve our environment. This is part of a Co-op Academy Trust competition, the finals of which are being held in Manchester later this month. We could only send 1 team to the finals so this morning Mrs Sharman and I had the incredibly difficult job of choosing 1 out of the 5 fantastic presentations. We had an official judging rubric from the competition organisers and the team with the most points were The 4Rs - Ayva-Lilly, Isla, Albert, Jack and Thomas. Well done to all of the teams and good luck to The 4Rs in the finals!

Attendance
You may have already noticed that school attendance has been in the news much more recently. This is because of a Government campaign - Moments Matter, Attendance Counts launched this month. January to March are months particularly fraught with minor childhood ailments,  the NHS Is my child too ill for school guidance and the Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty’s letter on mild illness and school attendance might help you to decide if a day off school is actually required. None of us want to bring an ill child into school but we’ve all seen the amazing recovery a child often makes an hour or so after waking!

Message from Mrs Elkin:
On Tuesday I received a super day's training with Read Write Inc trainer Jilly. I have become Friarwood's Reader Leader as I am passionate about making sure every child at Co-op Academy Friarswood becomes a confident and efficient reader!  Our super team of teachers and teaching assistants also share this ethos.

Parents and carers of Reception, Year 1 and 2 children, who have daily phonics lessons, look out for regular videos being sent by myself or your child's class teacher via Class Dojo to support you and your child at home with their reading! 

We would love to hear about some of the success your child is having with reading at home as the Read Write Inc programme that we follow really does ensure your child makes the best start possible with reading. Message your child's class teacher on Dojo and we will share these successes! If you need any help or support with your child's reading, get in touch. 

Happy reading!

On a similar note a reminder that we have an INSET day on Friday 9th February when all of the staff will be receiving further reading training from Read Write Inc. There will be no Small and Tall as the staff are required to attend the training.

Upcoming Events

Ms Hartley

Dear Parents and Carers

Goodness me - December has certainly arrived with a bang. The weather has made its presence felt this week and there is a definite elf-like buzz around school today!

We are very lucky to have the large fields to play on whilst the weather is icy. They are much safer than the playground but we do need the children to have a change of footwear so that they can enjoy the outside and still have warm dry feet in the afternoon.

Most parents find it helpful to have a pair of school wellies which are left in school to save you having to remember them each day. If you do send some to stay in school please remember to put names inside - you’d be amazed by how many unicorn / rainbow / spiderman etc wellies we have around the school!

This week we have had a very busy week of activities outside of regular lessons

Year 5 Gymnastics

On Thursday afternoon some Year 5s went to Co-op Academy Stoke to start their training for an inter academy competition in January. They worked on a routine using a variety of skills. Good luck to our gymnasts Polly, Rejoice, Lexi, Georgia, Arthur, Kara, Sam, Nora and Ava in their preparations. We are looking forward to hearing how you get on! Thank you to Mrs Shaw for accompanying the children.

Year 5/6 Footballers

Congratulations to the Year 5/6 football team who had an outstanding start to their season winning 3 and drawing 1 match on Monday evening. The scores were  2-0, 5-0, 6-0 and 0-0 - amazing! Well done to Enes, Albert, Teddy, Seb, Jack, Leo, Henry and Stanley.

Thank you to Mrs Sharman for organising, Mr Flemming for being head coach on the day and parents for helping to get the children to the fixtures.

Year 6 Musicians

This week 4 of our Year 6 musicians were entered into the Co-op Academies Trust Young Musician of the Year competition. They will be competing against musicians from all schools across the trust. Good luck Millie, Gini, Imogen and Florence - we are very proud of you.

Thank you Mrs Elkin for organising the entries and recording their performances.

Christmas Market

It was lovely to see so many of you at the Christmas market last week. It was very busy and everyone seemed to be enjoying their evenings. Thank you to the PTA members who have worked hard to organise everything and to the staff who stopped to set up and help run some of the stalls. Once we have had the Chocolate Bingo we will be able to let you know a grand total that our Christmas fundraising activities have made. 

December Dates 

Continuing into December we have some dates for your diaries over the next few weeks:

Grandparents Lunches Wednesday 6th and Thursday 7th

Non Uniform Day (Chocolate donation) Friday 8th

Early Years Nativity Monday 11th

Chocolate Bingo Tuesday 12th

Chester Zoo Trip Thursday 14th

Early Years / KS1 Theatre Trip Tuesday 19th

KS1 Christmas Production Wednesday 20th and Thursday 21st

Thank you to the staff, PTA and parents who work hard and volunteer their time to allow these exciting events to take place.

Parking

We are still experiencing some issues with inconsiderate parking - blocking pavements and drives. I understand that the roads surrounding our school are not designed for large volumes of traffic, however it is important that parents dropping off or collecting park considerately leaving enough room for pedestrians with prams etc to walk along the pavement - even if it means parking a little further away.

The safety of all of our children is always our top priority.

We look forward to seeing many of you over the next few weeks and wish you a warm and relaxing weekend enjoying your family time.

Ms Hartley

Dear Parents / Carers,

Thank you so much for your generous donations today for Children in Need.  You raised a massive £162 which will definitely help to make a difference to a child’s life.

Parking on Abbots Way 

We’re receiving lots of complaints about families parking on the yellow lines as well as families running their engines whilst waiting for the children to get to their cars.

The yellow lines are there for the safety of our children and families.  I know you all know this but unfortunately there are a growing amount of people ignoring this.  Parents are reporting these vehicles to the police as this is a major concern.

Running engines whilst waiting means you’re filling the air full of emissions that our children and families have to walk through.

And one last issue that seems to be happening (which is so unsafe and thoughtless) is people driving along pavements when trying to park.  Children have had to be pulled out of the way of cars when they should be safe on the pavement.

PLEASE consider the safety of our children when parking.  

Please can you pass this message onto grandparents and any other person who parks on Abbots Way)

Safeguarding - Internet Safety advisor regarding WhatsApp

Always helpful to have a reminder about parent controls for WhatsApp as quite a few children at school have said that they use this site (which is rated as 16+)

Parents Guide to WhatsApp

As one of the most popular messaging apps used by all age ranges and around 2.7 billion monthly users, WhatsApp has been adding new features over the last year or so which some parents may not be aware of so it might be worth sending a reminder out to them. Internet Matters have put together a really good 'how-to' guide for parents which you can access HERE.

If there are any sites that you would like me to find information about, please just let me know.  However, internetmatters.org has lots of really useful information with easy to read articles about how you as parents can help to keep your children safe on various sites/apps.  

Santa’s Letters

You will receive a message when the letters are ready to be collected from the main office.

Grandparents Christmas lunch.

We can now start to take bookings for our Grandparents' Christmas lunch. The booking form is HERE. 

Coats, hats, scarves & gloves

Please can I ask that you send your child in with a coat and other winter warmers.  The weather is getting really cold now and a lot of children are very cold at playtimes and lunchtimes.

Can I also remind you to label ….. everything!!  Thank you

Mental Health Workshops

On Wednesday, Years 3 and 4 had their own workshops focusing on their own mental health and how to look after themselves.  The children were really focused and learnt so much.  Lots of ideas and activities were spoken about and tried out.

Thank you to Maccas Project for enabling our children to look after themselves.

Glow - relationships without Fear

Years 4, 5 and 6 have started their workshops with Glow.  Glow is a charity that works with families focusing on healthy relationships.  Last year these workshops were very successful so we’re thrilled to be able to get the team back into our school. 

Christmas Market

Don’t forget that Friday 24th November is our Christmas Market, starting at 5pm (til 7pm)  Come along, join in the fun, find a few Christmas gifts and get into that Christmassy feeling.

Last but not least, the button for the main gate has now been fixed. You are now free to come and go as you please and no more trapped parents!! Thank you for your patience with this.

Thank you as ever for your continued support.

Have a lovely weekend.

Take care and stay safe

Mrs Wilmer

Dear Parents / Carers,

Last Friday was the Co-op Academies Trust recognition and awards evening.  I have some great news - Mrs Elkin won the ‘Do what matters most’ award for her dedication and enthusiasm in teaching music.  Mrs Elkin works closely with all teachers ensuring that every child takes part in quality music lessons.  The number of children taking instrument lessons has increased so much that now we have a third of the school taking instrument lessons.  We also have a very large choir.  This is all thanks to Mrs Elkin and her drive to ensure all children receive a well rounded education.

Well done Mrs Elkin!  We’re so proud of you.

Parents’ Evening

Thank you to everyone who came along to parents’ evening.  It was lovely to see so many of you.  If you were unable to make it, please contact your teacher to arrange a suitable time.

PTA Hallowe’en Disco

Not that you can forget but next Wednesday is our Hallowe’en Disco.  I can’t wait to judge the carved pumpkins.

5:30pm - KS1 and early years

6:30pm - KS2

School closed on Monday 6th November due to staff training.  This includes Small & Tall.

Harvest Donations

Next Wednesday we will be collecting donations for Alice charity.  As you know, every year we support this charity as it is very close to our hearts.  Tinned goods, sanitary and hygiene products as well as baby products will all be greatly received.  

You can bring in your donations Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday and we will display them in the main entrance.  We will then take the products over to Alice on Wednesday afternoon.  If there are any parents who are able to help with the transport of the goods to Hartshill, we would love to hear from you.

Thank you in advance for your support with this charity.

Year 6

I just want to let you know how proud I am of Year 6 this week.  Their behaviour during playtimes has been fantastic.  They have supported younger children, played with some of the younger children and helped younger children to take part in games.  It’s been a pleasure to be with them at every lunchtime.  Well done to all of Year 6.

Football Club

Please can I ask that if your child takes part in the football club, they bring in a hand towel and possibly a change of clothes.  The children play in all weathers and today, we’ve had some very soggy children.  They have such a great time and have loved it, we just need them to dry off when they come in. 

Thank you as ever for your continued support.

Take care and stay safe.

Mrs Wilmer