It was wonderful to see so many of you yesterday at our international food celebration. The PTA members and our governors did a superb job of inspiring you all to make and bake. As a result the food on sale was truly delicious.
Thank you if you cooked, donned blue gloves to serve, helped set up and importantly came along to buy and hang out. We are hoping to have raised in the region of £400 for our computer suite and we shall exact amounts by next week.
As most of you know, this year we have been running a ‘reverse advent calendar’ project this half term. We invited children to bring food into school which can be donated to people in need! Well, today, the Fareshare team decided to come and collect what you have donated. They were stunned by just how much food our generous community had donated. In total, we filled an astounding 23 crates!
Well done and thank you to everyone who donated, no matter how big or small! A special well done and thank you to Miss Lucile and Miss McHale for organising such a wonderful project.
This afternoon, our Lant St. playground was the splendid venue for the fantastic Frost Fair. There were many wintery goods on sale as well as a spectacular performance by the ukulele club and the choir who sung (and played) beautifully, creating a beautiful festive atmosphere.
Thank you to everyone who came and especially those who helped organise or run the event. It wouldn’t have happened without you!
The groundworks have begun in earnest and we are delighted that the contractors have begun on the digging and filling the foundations for the new hall and kitchen.
On Tuesday, we had a great time stomping around our local area to raise money and awareness for the charity Health Poverty Action! Every pupil brought in £1 which will be used to support health related projects in less developed areas of the world – have a look at the photos ( a bit blurry but these stompers move fast!) for our stomping!
The School Stomp is a sponsored walk for the whole school to raise money for the world’s poorest children to give them the essential health care and futures they deserve.
Today we were visited by Nicky Morgan MP, Secretary of State for Education and David Walliams. They came to Charles Dickens Primary to promote the importance of reading; learning to read using phonics and also developing children’s love of reading through introducing them to great books, going to the library, starting up book clubs and high quality phonics.
The visited the children in the reception classes and watched phonics being taught before getting the chance to say hello to all the children and share some books. The children loved reading David’s book about the Annoying Elephant.
The Secretary of State and David Walliams read together from one of our favourite books, the BFG! Ms Morgan played the character of Sophie and David Walliams was the Big Friendly Giant – we were very impressed as they did ‘voices’! We learnt about their favourite books (Roald Dahl and JK Rowling were loved by David) and they asked about the children’s favourite books too! David Walliams then brought his book Gangsta Granny alive with a super reading full of funny voices, including a very strange Granny. Everyone laughed a lot! Ms Morgan answered questions about ‘being in charge of all the schools’ and how many schools she had visited! Well done Year 3 and 4 for thinking of such sensible questions.
Lucky Year 3 and 4 children who listened to the reading have each been given a copy of David’s new book ‘Grandpa’s Great Escape’ and we have a few spare ones for the other classes. David Walliam’s publisher also gave us a big box of books for the new library. Thank you Harper Collins!
At the end, some of the children who asked questions got to speak to the camera teams and do some filming of their own. Channel 5 News crew let the children hold mics, direct and film each other! Channel 5 were definitely impressed with them all!
What a busy morning…
We had a wonderful time at the summer fair. Thank you to all the staff and parents who helped plan and manage stalls and tidy up in the afternoon. You are all amazing and we are so pleased and proud to have such an amazing school community.
Thank you to Cllr Dixon Fyle, our Southwark Mayor, for joining us and announcing our raffle winner. It was lovely to see you.
This week all the children are focusing on developing their art skills and spending some time reflecting on their creativity with a minimum of two hours of dedicated art lessons per day.
One of the exciting projects happening this week is the building of the secret garden. Children have built and are designing the walls of the garden as well as building giant sized mini beasts. Lets hope the chickens enjoy their new friends.
There aren’t enough secondary schools in our area. Demand for places outstrips supply, with the result that many local children are forced to travel long distances to secondary schools across south east London and north of the river. Demographic change means that spaces will become even more limited in the future and the problem will continue to worsen.
Because of this, local parents have started a non-political, grass roots campaign for a new secondary school in North Southwark.
As there are already several same-sex and religious schools in the area, parents are proposing that this new school increase local options by being mixed gender and non-denominational.
We have identified a site for the new school as the old Southwark Fire Station, on Southwark Bridge Road. This site would be reachable from your primary school and therefore a possible option for your child.
We need your help to show demand amongst parent’s in particular primary year 4 & 3.
To register your interest, please sign our petition:
http://newse1school.org/?page_id=9
For more information, email: se1parents@hotmail.com Twitter: @se1parents
Sign up forms are also available at your school reception office.
On Wednesday 18th March, we held two workshops for parents all about supporting handwriting at home. It was great to see such a huge turn out! If you missed the sessions and would like some support with your child’s handwriting please come and see Ms Sumner who will be happy to answer your questions. Click here for the resources from the session Handwriting Workshop for Parents