Fairfields Primary School

Dear Fairfields Community,

It has been another lovely week in school. The children have been working so hard and have been demonstrating some excellent behaviour, especially around the school corridors where we have been practicing speaking with our quiet voices if we need to talk, or using sign language. Please do ask your children to teach you some of the words they have learnt to sign- they are great at it and are now teaching me!

URGENT- No nuts of any kind (including cashews, pistachios and peanut butter)

We are a nut free school and we want to remind you again that you should not send your child into school with any nut products. We have a number of children with severe nut allergies and therefore, to keep these children safe, we cannot have any nut products in school at any time. Please politely share this message with other parents when you speak to them as it is vital that our whole school community understands this.

Funding- check if you are eligible

Pupil Premium funding from the government is given to schools to help pupils reach their full potential, regardless of their background, or financial situation.  It is provided for pupils who:

-Are registered for ‘Free School Meals’
-Have been registered for ‘Free School Meals’ at any point in the past 6 years
-Are, or have been, in care
-Have parents in the armed forces

Please see a link below to check if your family is eligible for 'Free School Meals'.

Although your child may be in Reception to Year 2 and is therefore already entitled to a free school meal, if you receive notification that you are eligible, the school will benefit from additional funding. If you need help to apply, please contact the school office who can support you with this. 

https://www.cloudforedu.org.uk/ofsm/hants

Reading Update

School Council- Book Swap

We informed you last week about the School Council organising a book swap after school on Friday 26^th January (weather dependent). Thank you so much for all the books which have already been donated. We would love more books to come in if you have any unwanted children’s books at home that you no longer want and are happy to donate. Please can they be brought to school by Monday 22^nd January. Thank you in advance.

If we get enough books, and if the weather is kind to us, please join us on the playground after school on Friday with your child to choose a book for free from our book swap to take home and keep.

Welcome to our school library- come and visit

In last week’s newsletter we invited you to our new library to come and read with your child. If you can’t make it, please do not worry as your child will enjoy a group story instead with a guest teacher. Please see below for the list of dates for parents and carers to visit from 2.30-3.00pm. We will also add these dates to our school calendar.

Thursday 25^th January- Madrid  

Thursday 1^st February- Rome 

Thursday 8^th February- Budapest 

Thursday 22^nd February- Cairo 

Thursday 29^th February- Nairobi 

Thursday 7^th March- Canberra 

Thursday 14^th March- New Delhi 

Thursday 21^st March- London 

Thursday 18^th April- Paris 

Thursday 25^th April- Ankara 

Thursday 2nd May- Warsaw 

Thursday 9^th May- Kathmandu  

Thursday 16^th May- Lima 

Thursday 23^rd May- Ottawa  

Outstanding Dinner Money 

We currently have £205 worth of outstanding dinner money. Just a reminder that lunches must be paid for in advance. We can accept payments online through the Arbor system, or by cash or card at the School Office. If accounts fall into arrears, parents will be expected to provide a packed lunch from home until the balance has been paid in full. If you require any assistance with school lunches, please do not hesitate to contact the School Office so that we can support you.  

The Future Services Consultation- please contribute with your views

Hampshire County Council has launched an important public consultation, inviting people to provide their views on the future of some local services in Hampshire, as part of steps by the local authority to help meet a £132 million budget shortfall by April 2025. Please see the attached document (see Arbor for attachments as not all devices enable attachments to be viewed on Jotter) for more details about how to share your views, which we encourage you to do. The consultation is open from 8 January to 31 March 2024,

Clubs

Teacher run clubs will be available to book through Arbor from Monday 22^nd January at 5.00pm and will start in the week beginning Monday 29^th January. In addition to these clubs, year 5/6 netball, KS2 rugby and choir will continue to run this term.

Please also note that we have external providers who run clubs at the school. These include Bootcamp, Sing Star and Drama club. If you are interested in your child joining one of these three clubs, please contact the school office for more details.

Updates from year groups

All Year Groups

Please can we remind you to send your child to school with a coat during this colder weather as we will still try to get outdoors where possible.

FS

Foundation Stage were very excited to be visited by superheroes this week! They loved trying to solve the mystery of why they had visited their school and completing lots of superhero themed work as part of their new topic 'People Who Help Us'. They even made their own lollystick superheroes! Well done for a brilliant week, FS! 

Year 1

The children have enjoyed an exciting drama workshop today with Billy the Sheriff and have been working hard on their writing this week. Well done Year 1.

Year 2

Well done year 2, we have been very impressed with your learning this week. Keep up the good work! Please remember to return London trip letters when possible. Thank you to the parents who have already volunteered to help on the trip, we will confirm with you whether you are able to come before half term. If you need financial support for the trip, please contact the school office.

Year 3

Year 3 have been enjoying reading the Iron Man and can't wait to find out what happens next in the story. On Monday, we will be making a model of the Iron Man. Could we please ask parents to send any cardboard boxes you have at home. Thank you.

Year 4

Year 4 have had a great week this week. We have written our biographies on Philip Astley and learnt more about sound, Wild Boy and animating our names on Scratch. If you have any more recycling, please bring it in- we are making our instruments on Monday.

Year 5

This week we have been using our modelling skills to make canopic jars out of clay.  The children thoroughly enjoyed this.

Year 6

Pupils have enjoyed the challenge of finding missing coordinates in maths and starting to learn new football skills in PE. Additional small learning groups have been set up for targeted pupils to revise and consolidate their knowledge in writing and maths. These will be taken by Miss Warwick and Mrs Hopkins each week during school time. Plus, we have made arrangements for Bikeability cycle training on 29^th January and would like to remind parents that pupils will need their bikes and helmets in school Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday that week. Unfortunately, we cannot take responsibility for bikes overnight as we do not have secure storage, so please can parents make arrangements to transport bikes home each day.

Maria Miller visit- update from the School Council

Following last week’s visit from Maria Miller MP, the School Council wanted to share the following information that they discovered about her role from talking with her:

• She is a member of Parliament for Basingstoke.
• She makes lots of hard decisions to help improve Basingstoke.
• You have to work hard to become a MP.
• She used to help make adverts before she became an MP.
• They need more girls in Parliament as there are currently not many females in these roles.

Thank you School Council for sharing this with us.

Celebrating our School Community

On our website we have a page dedicated to celebrating the children’s achievements outside school. This could be achievements with clubs they attend such as sporting events, or achievements in the home such as celebrating something they have made or achieved. If you would like your child’s achievement to be added to our school website, please send a picture and short summary of their achievement to us on our email admin@fairfields.hants.sch.uk and we can celebrate with them.

Sunflower Café

We had a very productive visit from the School Nurse Team on Monday with lots of positive feedback from the parents who attended. The school nursing team are coming back to see us later in the year so please keep an eye out for more information.

The Sunflower Café will be open again on Monday morning next week, and Friday from 2.50.

Other Information (attachments are not always visible on some devices through Jotter- please see the Arbor email to access them)

Please find attached details of some upcoming, exciting puppetry and animation events at the Basingstoke Discovery Centre.

Dates:

Thursday 25^th January: Madrid class parents welcome to the school library (2.30-3.00pm)

26^th January: Book Swap on the playground 3.30- 4.00 (Come and choose a new book to take home and keep- weather dependent)

Wednesday 7^th February: Lunar New Year celebrations after school Friday

For other key days, please look at the calendar on the website or the School Jotter.

PE Days are as follows:

FS: PE to start in summer term

Year 1: Tuesday (outdoor PE)

Year 2: Tuesday (indoor PE)

Year 3: Monday (outdoor) and Thursday (indoor PE)

Year 4: Wednesday (indoor PE)

Year 5: Thursday (outdoor PE)

Year 6: Monday (indoor) and Friday (outdoor PE)

Start and finish times are as follows:

Foundation Stage, Year 1 and 2: 8.40am- 3.10pm

Years 3- 6: 8.45am- 3.15pm

Have a lovely, restful weekend and we look forward to seeing you back on Monday.

Mrs Vicky Hopkins