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Today I was invited to visit the Toy Museums that Butterfly and Ladybird class had created in school. The children were so excited to share what they knew about toys from the past and nowadays. I was impressed with their writing (they had made captions for and booklets about the toys) and their confidence to share what they had learned.
As we approach the end of the second week of our 12 days of Christmas, I hope that you and your children have enjoyed the activities. The PFA committee have worked hard to create some unique fundraising ideas which , with your support, have been a great success.
As today would normally been a Christmas Jumper Day in aid of Save the Children, we have donated £180 to the charity from the money raised by the 12 Days of Christmas.
Although our last week in school for 2020 is going to be a busy one, with Nativity performances AND Father Christmas visiting, we will continue to follow the guidance and measures put into place to keep us all safe. I know that I, and the rest of the school staff, would appreciate your thoughts and prayers to help keep us going to the end of term.
Mrs Reynolds
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Sandygate Star
- Butterfly - Becky
- Ladybird - Archie
- Dragonfly - Saidee
- Grasshopper - Rosie
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Value Award - Kindness
- Butterfly - Finley
- Ladybird - Lei-Lani
- Dragonfly - Lauren
- Grasshopper - William
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100 Club Winner
Congratulations to Anna Morton who was the winner of a crate of Laithwaite's wine in the December 100 club draw.
There will be 7 further draws from January to July next year each with a chance to win £50. If you would like to join the 100 club there are still spaces and it will reopen in the New Year on Parentpay
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12 Days of Christmas Competition Winners
The winners of the competitions were announced in school worship this week. There was one winner from each year group for the colouring competition:
Reception - Ariana
Year 1 - Skylah
Year 2 - Eliza
The winner of the 'Guess the number of Noses' was Eleanora from Year 2. There were 117 noses in the jar, Eleanora came closest guessing 120.
Finally, the winner of the '179 club' draw for the Christmas Eve box was Ameliya in Reception
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Report from School Council
The School Council are looking forward to seeing the acts of kindness advent calendar sheets from children next week. They would like to remind everyone that any sheets that come with 10 acts of kindness or more will receive a special certificate.
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Dates for Next Week and beyond
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PFA 12 Days of Christmas - Light Trail
All Day
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End of Term
1:00pm – 1:30pm
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Christmas Holiday
All Day
From 19 Dec until 03 Jan
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Governor Meeting - Teaching & Learning committee
7:30pm – 9:00pm
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deadline for Primary Admissions
All Day
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Procedures for reporting COVID cases during the school holidays
We have been asked to make parents aware of the following arrangements regarding positive COVID cases during the school holidays:
- Where a pupil or staff member tests positive for coronavirus (COVID-19), having developed symptoms more than 48 hours since being in school, the school should not be contacted. Parents and carers should follow contact tracing instructions provided by NHS Test and Trace.
- For the first 6 days after teaching ends, if a pupil or staff member tests positive for coronavirus (COVID-19), having developed symptoms within 48 hours of being in school, the school will be asked to assist in identifying close contacts and advising self-isolation, as the individual may have been infectious whilst in school.
- Where pupils are required to self-isolate due to contact with a positive case after the first 6 days following the end of term, schools do not need to be informed about their absence until the first day of the new term.
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Last Day of Term - Friday 18th December
We will be finishing early on the last day of term:
Year 1 at 1 pm
Year 2 and Reception at 1.15 pm
Children will have lunch before they leave school.
As Year 2 will be finishing their lunch in the school hall at 1 pm when Year 1 children are leaving which means that Ladybird cannot exit via the main school entrance as usual. Instead, we will be dismissing them from the Reception playground. We would ask that Ladybird parents line up as usual in the middle lane at the front door and we will then direct you down to the Reception playground once the children are ready to be dismissed.
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Christmas Cards & Gifts for Staff
Whilst we are unable to have our usual school Christmas post for cards to school friends, we appreciate some children would like to send a Christmas card for their teacher. We will have post-boxes out at drop-off and pick-up next week for children to post any cards or gifts they may wish to send to Sandygate staff.
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Clubs for Spring Term - Year 1 & 2
Multi-sports
Usports will continue to deliver their Multisports club for Year 2 on Tuesday and Year 1 on Wednesday. An email with a letter giving details of how to book was sent to parents this week.
Scrumys rugby
Scrumys will be returning in the Spring term to offer their rugby club after school to Year 1 on Monday and Year 2 on Thursday. You can book here and more details are on the flyer below.
Sandygate Stars - Year 1
For the first half of the Spring term, we are offering Year 1 the chance to take part in Sandygate Stars. This is a lunchtime club run by Matt Clark, the children's worker from All Saints Church, and is similar to a 'Messy Church' session with a bible story, a song, a craft etc. To sign up for Sandygate Stars you need to complete the form on the school website here
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Home Learning for Spring Term
This term KS1 teachers have uploaded lots of activities on Google Classrooms related to the topics that they have been covering in class. We have been reviewing these and it would seem that very few children are accessing these activities. We have therefore decided that for next term we will only be uploading Maths and English activities.
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General News and Reminders
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10 Dec 2020
The Christmas Raffle has been drawn this morning and the lucky winners are listed below.
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09 Dec 2020
The winners of the 12 Days of Christmas competitions were announced in school worship this morning,
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Nativity DVD
We will be producing a DVD of the Nativity play recordings for parents who wish to buy one to keep. Unfortunately, we will not be able to produce these before the end of term but they should be available to be sent home in the first week back after Christmas. The price is £5 and the DVD will include both performances, Reception & KS1. Orders can be made through Parentpay and must be received before midday on the last day of term.
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Attendance
Our latest attendance figures show that for November attendance was 98.33% and for the year to November 97.97%.
Ant class had the best attendance for November with 99.84% and they also have the best attendance for the year to date at 98.94%
So far this year we have lost less than 0.5% attendance for reasons connected with COVID (self-isolating whilst awaiting test results or due to close contact outside of school)
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Snow Closure Procedures
As the weather continues to get colder we thought we would take the opportunity to remind everyone of what happens should we experience severe weather.
At Sandygate we will make every effort to get sufficient staff in to enable the school to open as normal. There are 3 options which we look at :
- opening the school for all children as normal
- opening the school slightly later eg 10.00am
- opening the school for some classes only
In the event that it is not possible to open the school as normal then details of the closure or partial closure will be communicated in a number of ways:
- The Buckinghamshire Council website shows the status for all schools at https://closures.buckscc.gov.uk/Search.aspx This will show if we are in the process of trying to open the school or if we have made the decision to close.
- Our school website marlow-infant.bucks.sch.uk will show a banner headline on the front page if we have made the decision to close.
- By text to all parents via our school communication suite - if you have the e4education app downloaded this will come via the app.
- We will also inform the local radio station, Marlow FM
We will make every effort to communicate this information as early as possible each day. In the situation where we are trying to get sufficient staff in to school a message indicating that we are trying to open the school will be posted but we will then need to wait for staff to actually arrive before we can confirm that we will definitely be open.
Whilst we will liaise with Holy Trinity and Little Marlow it is not always possible for us to have the same outcome as staff travel from different areas and each school will need to ensure they have sufficient staff for it to be safe for them to open.
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'Among Us' Online Game
We have become aware that there are children in Year 2 who have been playing an online game called 'Among Us'. We wanted to make parents aware of the potential risks for young children playing this game.
The game is an online multiplayer game where the players have to work together to find the imposter amongst them whilst the imposters have to kill the Crewmates.
Among Us is rated PEGI17 which indicates that the game may “contain some possibly frightening scenes or sounds. Games can show violence as long as it’s unrealistic and directed towards fantasy characters. There may be some non-realistic violence towards people or violent actions (e.g: bombing of cities or non-human targets).”
Among us does contain some cartoon violence as the Imposter character is instructed to take out the Crewmates on the ship, however, it’s not graphic or pointed towards real people.
On the Apple Store, the game has been listed as suitable for ages 9+ and the Playstore rates it 10+
The main risks are:
Talking to strangers in the game
If your child is playing a game that is set to public, they may meet and chat with people they don’t know which could put them at risk.
Seeing inappropriate content
Although you can use the censor filter to block out bad language, it does not block everything and there are words that are not picked up by the filter. So despite this feature, there is the potential that children can be exposed to inappropriate content.
Is Among Us safe for your kids?
- Due to the public chat, the age of app in the App Stores should be at least 12+.
- Anyone younger than 12 should be supervised 100% of the time while playing Among Us.
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Marlow Christmas Drive In
You may know through the website 'My Marlow' and other media that there is to be a 'Marlow Christmas Drive In' based at the Rugby Ground between Wednesday 16th and Tuesday 22nd December. It is being staged by the Pub in the Park team and supported by the Marlow Town Council. All the events will be 'Drive In' and households will be in cars and not mixing. Many organisations in the Town will be sponsoring/promoting events and the cost of the event infrastructure is being met by the Pub in the Park team and is free to local community organisations, schools, churches etc.
Two events of particular interest are detailed below:
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Drive-in Movie Sunday 20th December
The Rotary Clubs of Marlow, are promoting a film on Sunday 20th December 'The Muppet Christmas Carol'. You can find the trailer for this film on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVAUtzgfumk The venue is the Marlow Rugby Club, SL7 1QU and the gates open at 10.30 for 11.00 am. This event is entirely free of charge.
There is a limit of 100 cars and places are being reserved on a first-come, first-served basis. Simply email your name & car registration to rotarydrivein@gmail.com and more information will follow including parking guidance etc.
This is just one of the events which are part of 'The Marlow Christmas Drive In'. It is supported by Marlow FM who will broadcast from the festival, Marlow Rugby Club who are generously donating the venue, and My Marlow who are providing marketing support. An official programme for the event will be published shortly.
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All Saints Drive-In Nativity Tuesday 22nd December
Last week we opened bookings for our Christmas Eve children's services. We are doing FOUR services this year, but they all sold out within 4 days. We are therefore providing extra capacity by using the Rugby Club venue to hold a special Drive-In Nativity Service on Tue 22nd Dec. Prizes will be on offer for best costume, best-decorated car, and best Christmas craft. The service will be ideal for children. Book at https://marlowanglican.churchsuite.co.uk/events/k3fsfgxl. If you want to go, please book now to avoid missing out.
Other services - please book now
Tickets are going very fast for our FOUR Traditional Carol services on Sunday 20th December and for our services on Christmas Day. You can watch them all online, but if you want to go in person please book tickets ASAP at 4u-team.org/christmas
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Christmas Competition
Eight Wealth Management are running a competition for children to design their own christmas tree. The prizes are chocolate bouquets and a Copas turkey.
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Playball Holiday Camp
Playball will be running a Christmas holiday camp at school from Monday 21st to Wednesday 23rd December. Email playballsouthbucks@outlook.com for more details.
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Stagecoach Christmas Workshop - Mon 21st 2020
Strictly Stagecoach Christmas
Why not leave the children with Stagecoach at Wycombe High School on Monday 21st December from 9.30 to 3.30 and they will keep them entertained and active all day long.
For details and booking go to https://www.stagecoach.co.uk/highwycombe
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Santa Fun Run
Don't forget you can still take part in this anytime between 19th and 31st December and if you want to support the Sandygate families taking part then you can donate here
The Snell family have already told us that they will be taking part so give them some support and let us know if you will also be running.
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