Wow! What an amazing year! And where has the time gone? I can’t believe we are at the end of term already, although I have to say myself and all the staff are well ready for a break!
At the end of my first year I want to say a massive thank you to all of you for such a warm welcome to the Calverley CE community. It has been a great joy and privilege to join such a fantastic team and to work with your amazing children. I’m doing pretty well on knowing the children’s names now and hope to get to know them ALL through next year.
There has been a lot to celebrate and some highlights for me this year have been:
- Carols in the Playground and Christmas Day in school
- Some fantastic trips and visits including West Leeds Activity Centre, Nell Bank, Robinwood, Yorkshire Wildlife Park, Leeds City Museum and more
- Wonderful PTA events including the two fairs, Christmas celebrations and the Grow a Pound competition
- Celebrating Sports Day in the sunshine with parents and children cheering on their houses
- Getting thoroughly ‘splatted’ at the Calverley Carnival
- Incredible KS2 SATs results (around 20% above national averages) and seeing the children shine in their performance of Matilda, proving that we’re not just about tests and results
- Fantastic support from our Parish Church including some memorable assemblies, Open the Book, What’s the Story and seeing the children leading services in church
- Celebrating our strong ethos of Love, Learn and Care in school by awarding our well done certificates to children with parents on Fridays (my favourite time of the week!)
If you haven’t responded to your child’s report (only 10 people have so far) and the Ofsted Parent Questions there is still time to do that by following this link: https://forms.office.com/e/0jfghjYzXk We would really value your feedback.
We are sad to say good bye to a couple of members of staff: Mrs Surtees and Miss Campbell are leaving us at the end of this week. However, we are also really pleased that in a climate where we know school are struggling to recruit staff that we have been able to make some really strong appointments in our support staff team. We still have places available in most year groups for children so if you know anybody looking for a school, please ask them to contact our school office.
I hope you and your children will enjoy joining in with our Calverley Summer Challenge and we can’t wait to see what they children have got up to when they come back in September. Wishing you all 6 weeks of warm sunshine (surely we’re due some?), family time and fun together and we will see you in September.
With very best wishes,
Ms K Cameron and all the Calverley CE Team
House Point Totals for 2024
Blue - Ash, Green - Beech, Red - Chestnut, Yellow - Oak
Congratulations to Beech House for winning our House Cup!
Across the school, over the year 161,368 housepoints were earned, representing 161368 times someone was kind, worked hard, showed politeness or extra effort which is an amazing achievement!
Last week Reception had a Green Team day where they spent time with Mr Harkins and learnt all about how we are caring for and encouraging wildlife in our school grounds. We read the book Somebody Swallowed Stanley and discussed the effects of pollution and how to litter pick and recycle. The children also spent time exploring clay and made their own sculptures of caterpillars or butterflies. They have decorated them this week to take home as an ornament to remember their time in the Boogie Bugs.
We celebrated National Teddy Bear Picnic day by bringing our teddy bears into school and also planted cress seeds to take home.
This week Reception went on a trip to Kemp’s farm and have been learning all about the life cycle of a strawberry plant. They planted their own to take home too. We have been growing strawberries in the Reception garden but the squirrels have been eating them all!
Reception also visited the Calverley Allotments and Mrs Acres, from the allotments, gave them a tour and taught them all about the produce growing there too. We all agreed that by the end we were feeling very much in the green zone and talked about how important getting outside and spending time in nature is to help improve our mood.
We have also had a leaving party for our friend Ava who will be moving abroad with her family this summer and we wish them all the very best and will miss them lots!
After such a busy couple of weeks we have been enjoying spending our last few days together, playing and showing love and care to each other.
Congratulations Boogie Bugs on your first year at big school, you have had a successful start and all the grown ups are so proud of you! They are all yours now Year 1, you are very lucky to be getting such kind and creative children in your classes in September!
Year 2 had a fabulous trip to Kemps Farm last week. Firstly, we really enjoyed a trailer ride across the site, which gave us the opportunity to explore the fields making up the farm. We learned about all the different crops and the conditions for growth needed for each type. We were lucky enough to plant our own strawberry plants and take them home to hopefully grow our own strawberries! Everyone also loved meeting the pigs and piglets, and finding out about how the farmers keep them happy and safe. What a fabulous day we all had!
Year 4HA have ended the year working on a collaborative art project inspired by the street artist, Thank You X. The children have created a wonderful mural made up of individual cubes, which incorporated images representing the spirit of community and collaboration at Calverley C of E. The teachers were so impressed with the children’s creative ideas and how striking the mural looks!
Thank you to everyone who participated in and donated towards our Zarach fundraiser last week. Your generous contributions raised a wonderful £300 which we will be sending over to the charity to support them in their fantastic work in providing children across Leeds with beds. Well done to everyone who took part in our Design a Duvet competition as well. School council met earlier this week and decided on the winning entries: The KS1 winning prize was awarded to Ibrahim Nisar (Y2VSJH) with Amber Calveley (Y5MW) winning the KS2 competition. Congratulations!
Leyton Martin (4SG) has done a great job this week and saved the music department a fortune. By cleaning, tuning and restoring the instruments, six old xylophones are pitch perfect one again and ready to be played. Thanks Leyton and well done!
School closes Friday 19th July 2024
School re-opens to pupils Tuesday 3rd September 2024
Monday 2nd September is a training day
HOPE YOU ALL ENJOY THE SUMMER HOLIDAYS!!
