St John’s Primary School Wallingford Newsletter April 2017 Issue 14 3.4.17 Dear Parents, Thank you to those of you who were able to make our post-Ofsted progress meeting last Tuesday. I was pleased to be able to share with you the work we have done, progress we have made and to tell you about the external consultants who have worked with us over the last year. For those who were unable to make it, I am attaching a copy of the slides from the meeting with this newsletter. You will be aware that we are sadly saying goodbye to Charlotte Miles, our SENCo, and Melanie Gravett, our Forest School Leader, at the end of term. We have made temporary appointments for both posts for the Summer Term. Rebecca Jones, who is a former headteacher of a special school, joins us as our SENCo; and Jo Ord who has lots of outdoor education experience with chil- dren and families, joins us as our Forest School Leader. We are looking forward to working with them both. You will have a chance to say goodbye to Charlotte at a Farewell Coffee Morning on Friday 7 th April at 11am – do come along if you can. Our hall is all set for the Year 3 and 4 Midsummer Night’s Dream performances this week and looks fantastic. Many thanks to all of the parents who helped out on the making evening, painting the back-drop and constructing the forest! The rehearsals have been in full swing and the dress rehearsal on Thursday was quite stunning. The audiences have a real dancing, acting and singing treat in store for them today and tomorrow. If you are coming along on Tuesday evening, the PTFA will be selling refreshments too. The children have really embraced their Shakespeare topic this term and have loved putting together this performance. Year 5 and 6 went to the Science Museum in Leicester on Friday as part of their ‘I will survive’ top- ic. They took part in Science workshops and had a chance to look at all of exhibits, learnt a lot and really enjoyed the day. We had fun dressing up in red last Friday and telling Mr Chandler jokes and splatting him, and raised £203 for Comic Relief in the process. Thank you for supporting us with that. You will have received a letter from Mrs Burgess detailing all of the exciting activities we have planned for Book Week this week which will be a lovely way to end the term; this includes a visit from the poet James Carter, our local bookshop owner, visits to the library and a book swap. We are sure it will help to boost our children’s enthusiasm for reading and maybe introduce them to some new books! We have had a real focus this term on Growth Mindset and ‘Purple Learning’. Many of you will have heard your children talking about being a ‘Purple Learner’ and wearing the hat or the cloak in their class. This is having a really positive impact on children’s attitudes towards their learning and levels of perseverance. See more information about this in this newsletter. Term ends at 1.30pm onFriday and there will be an Easter Cake Sale run by Year 6 parents who are raising money for the Year 6 yearbook. Do come along and support them if you can. Nicky Hughes