News from Year 4 trip to Swanage (Friday)
Present information is that Year 4 should arrive back at 6pm tonight – no further information received as yet.
News from Year 4 trip to Swanage
Year 4 arrived safely yesterday (11 May) at around 11.30 a.m. The journey went well and the weather on arrival was good.
UPDATE 12 May at 8.10 a.m.
They had a very pleasant day yesterday and enjoyed their evening meal. Mrs. Ellis also reported that everyone slept well last night. The views from the Youth Hostel are spectacular.
The Big Bee Buzz
This Charlbury and District Garden Society project focuses on the importance of bees to our world and the need to help in their conservation. It will be in 3 parts – each part to coincide with the society’s shows. This is how it works:
There is a three part quiz to encourage you to find out about bees (to be judged in two age groups: 5 -7yrs and 8 -14yrs). These quizzes should be submitted before each show. There are two entry classes for each show. ‘Bee’ points and small prizes will be awarded at each show and main prizes will be awarded at the Annual Show in September for the people who have collected the most ‘bee’ points over the year.
We hope you will join in. You can register and collect your information pack at the Farmer’s Market in March, containing ideas and help for the Bee Buzz show entries. Entry costs £1 per participant. Or you can register by completing this form; or you may register by contacting Wendy Clifford on 01608 811806.
Young Voices concert
Charlbury School’s choir attended yesterday’s Young Voices concert at the LG Arena in Birmingham, where they got the chance to perform with thousands of other children. The concert was featured on last night’s The One Show on BBC One. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8DLeCrSJV8.
Yenworthy – Day 4 (21/10/10)
Today we did outdoor business. We were supposed to make money, like a business man or woman by doing the activities. We had a list of activities we could chose from and that told you how much it was to buy and how much you would receive by completing it. The activities were things such as trying to get a ring off a massive wooden pole without the ring or yourself touching it. At the end we toasted marshmallows in the fire we made and told everyone what we had learnt. Dinner was great as usual (the cooks are fantastic) and I feel so sad to have to leave tomorrow!!!
Elizabeth Alarcon-Clark
WOW! What an amazing day! Well, if you go surfing AND stand up you have to say it’s amazing. That’s what I did, it was a VERY LONG mini bus journey but we got there (in the end) it was fantastic on the journey there was amazing views although if you’re NOT GOOD at journeys then don’t go because if you look down you see trees (the tops and trunks) but it was good all the same. When we got there it was raining but we ate our lunch and strolled onto the beach (after the ‘great wetsuit putting on’.) we had a lesson or warm up to get used to our board THEN we learnt to STAND UP!! (OMG) we went back into the sea and I and some other people STOOD UP amazing you say well you’re right because it was.
Phoebe Wilkinson
We did outdoor business where we had to work together to achieve money on activities to get an over-all total of money.
We had to pick an activitie which we had enough money for and if we passed it in the time limit we would win a lot more money than we payed and I did: climbing wall,Bridge It(where you had to build a bridge and walk across it without falling off),giants finger(where you had to get a inflatable tyre of a tall telagraph pole without speaking or touching the telagraph pole with you or the tyre touching it),zip wire!!!(where you went down it and try to throw a welly in a tyre and try not to get it in the pond!),hooky colours(where every body holds a rope and there is a hook in the middle and you had to hook certain objects in the circle) and last but not least we had a campfire where we got to roast marshmallows over the fire and say what you learnt.
Niall Gorton
What an amazing DAY!!
Today we did surfing. It was a lovely day. It was felly good fun. When we got there Pete told us how to paddle in the water with a surf board .Then we headed for the waves it was felly good fun! On my first go I hit a felly BIG wave. It was so fast I think it was about 5 miles an hour! Then had to come back. Next Pete told us to come to him. He told us how to stand up. It was felly hard then I did it! Then we came back to the lodge.
Sam Mortimer
Yenworthy – Day 3 (20/10/10)
Today for breakfast, we ate toast and baked beans. It was delicious. Then we did outdoor activities. And at lunch, we ate sandwiches with cheese and onion crisps, raisons, cake and an apple. After lunch, we did more activities then roasted marshmallows and had a shower.
Peter Davies
Today while the other group went canoeing my group did the out door business. The out door business is when you are given £30 (fake) and have to do activities which cots money (about £10-£300), and if you complete it successfully you earn some money (£20-£1000).It was really fun especially the treats Which is the zipwire, spaghetti tangle and the rock climbing wall. In spaghetti tangle you get tied together in groups of 3 and the front person is tied to a rope which is tied to a course. You have to go in things, around things, other things and under things. I loved it all.
Ellen Gillicker
This morning we were split into two groups, one group went kayaking and the other went to do outdoor business around the grounds. I went kayaking. It took about 50 minutes to get there. Our group had lunch in the shelter of some arches by the sea, and then changed into our wetsuits. We had to wear a buoyancy jacket and a helmet (which made it very hard to swim normally!) We all then had to help carry the boats and paddles down To the waters edge. After the instructors showed us how to work the paddle we got into groups of three and got into the boats. At first it was hard but after half an hour I got the hang of it. Paddling around may sound boring but it was so much fun!!!! After doing a bit of coasteering and jumping off rocks we tried catching some waves (in other words kayaking surfing) once you caught a wave you would zoom to the shore!! Unfortunately we ran out of time and had to go back to Yenworthy. This is definitely a day I will remember!!!!!!
Alicia Ross Vergara
Well today my group did kayaking at first I thought it was going to be easy. But when we got into the water I was cold. The paddle was a single blade with a handle at the top the kayak was quite thin and it had 3 seats the person at the back of the kayak had a double blade and it was orange and the single blade was blue and so was the handle when we got further out to sea the water started to get a bit rough but we managed to not fall out the kayak and we did get the chance to jump out we did it on our knees then we climbed up some rocks and we jumped from the rocks and then we paddled back to shore I really liked kayaking but it’s not better than surfing.
Isaak Chaab Styles
Yenworthy – Day 2 (19/10/10)
Today we went surfing but some of us went canoeing. The surfing was great, first we had are lunch then we got on are wet suits honestly it was hard. Next we got into pairs and got a surf board and walked down to the beach. Then Pete told us what we were doing then he told us what the signs were then we went into the water, and we body boarded on the surf boards. After that we got out and Pete told us how to stand up. Then we went back into the water and tried it I manage to do it quite a lot. After all of that fun we had to get our wet suits off and that was even harder than getting it on but it was cold. Then we had hot squash with lemon drizzle cake it was lovely. After that we went back and had tea and we are just about to go out into the rainy night to play orienteering.
Maddie Cubbage
When we went canoeing we had to jump of a rock!!! And then land in the sea and swim one rock to the other, hard I know but I suppose you will get use to it when you do it again and again. After, we went in the canoe and set of into sea! Then when we came back to the mini bus we had a slice of lemon cake yummy!
Savannah Kaddouri
Today, when we got up we had breakfast, which was: first, a bowl of cereal, followed by sausages, hash browns and spaghetti hoops. It was lovely. Next we had room inspection, our room got nine out of ten, actually most of us got nine out of ten! Then Shaun (one of the staff here at Yenworthy lodge) gave us a talk about how long the journey would take and what kit we needed at everything else that we would be doing for the day. Then when all of us were ready and loaded, we hauled are selves up the steps of the mini bus, we sat down and the mini bus started. When we got of the beach everyone was so excited, and then it started to rain, everyone thought we were going home but we stayed all the same. After that we had lunch in the mini bus, soon after that, we went for a walk along the rocky sea shore. With our wetsuits on and are life jackets on, water shoes to. Then we jumped off the rocks! And landed straight into the water splash! It was so fun as I have never done anything like it before so I would probably do that again! Then Shaun took us back to the mini bus were we got our canoe and set off. After we were dry and changed (it took longer for some people than it did others) we all got a slice of lemon drizzle cake and set back home.
Lola Jones
Yenworthy – Day 1 (18/10/10)
Today as I sat outside school, the coach being loaded and my dad at my side. The atmosphere was a bubbly pool of laughter and tearful mothers! The journey was long and everyone was hot and bored but after three and a half hours of bumps and windy lanes the sign of Yenworthy was in front of us and people started to cheer and shout. We swiftly unloaded, made our beds and had an introduction from Shaun. We had a short talk on the lodge rules before having lunch.
We got our kit -wellies, over trousers and anorak-and set of into the trees for our first activity. The ropes course!
We all thoroughly enjoyed that and came back weak and hungry. We had a little time to ourselves and a quick fire drill test. After that we found the dining hall and got our dinner of sweet and sour chicken followed by shortbread; it was lovely! Before bed time we had a peaceful walk out on the moors, in the cold, crisp night air and the day came to an end!!
Charlotte Facer, Year 6
Soundtracks
Charlbury School choir participated in Soundtracks. This concert was to celebrate how wonderful it is to have the Cotswold train line and also that Charlbury station is now getting a second track and platform!
Organising and helping us with the concert was Kismet. They came to several of our choir lessons in the summer term and taught us songs. One of the songs (Train of the Future) we wrote ourselves!
The concert evenings were great. We performed at the Memorial Hall and on both the nights the audience was huge!
Abigail Greenfield, Year 6
A new website for Charlbury Primary School
We hope you will enjoy using the new Charlbury Primary School website. As well as providing practical information, we hope it will give you a feel for the school’s ethos to “develop the whole child”.
THE CONTENT
The website has been planned with three main audience types in mind:
- Parents
- Prospective parents and pupils
- The wider community of Charlbury and beyond
We hope that parents will find the Daily life section particularly useful. You can read past newsletters here, and find out about food in school, uniform, and the school’s homework policy amongst other things. There is also a dedicated My Time section listing the range of after-school clubs and activities that are available and when they’re on, together with instructions on how to book sessions. Should you ever need to find a school policy, most of these can be downloaded from the Policies A-Z page. Further information relevant to parents can be found in the school’s VLE (see below). Also Twitter users can now keep up-to-date with the school’s Twitter stream.
Prospective parents might like to look at the What’s special, Our philosophy and Admissions sections, and read the recent OFSTED report from July 2010.
The Getting involved section outlines some of the various ways that parents and people in the community can participate in school life; such as supporting the CSA’s fundraising events, becoming a Friend of Charlbury School, or coming in to talk to children about your particular area of expertise as part of our Knowledge Well scheme.
If there’s something you can’t find on the site, try using the search box (in the top right corner) or browsing the A-Z of topics.
THE DESIGN
As part of the website design process, we tested out a few new designs for the school logo. Thank you to everyone who gave feedback on these. The majority of parents voted to keep the traditional logo based on Charlbury’s old market house, which reflects Charlbury’s heritage and its special status as a market town. We hope you like the updated drawing of the market house. It’s based on an original photograph of the structure, before it was demolished in the late 1800s.
The updated logo is making its first appearance on the website, but will also be applied to the school’s letterheads and other printed materials in due course. Eventually it will also probably be used on school sweatshirts, but please be reassured that parents will not be obliged to replace any existing uniform because of this.
THE VLE
The website is intended to supplement the school’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), a website platform supplied by Oxfordshire County Council. The VLE is a password-protected area for pupils, parents and governors. If you have been issued with a username and password by the school, you can sign in to the VLE by following the link on the left-hand side of the website.
Charlbury Primary is one of the first schools in the county to be involved in the VLE project and pupils in Year 6 are already using it to do some of the their work online. Signing-in as a parent will give you secure access to personal information about your child such as attendance records and assessment results, as well as an online Calendar, class information pages, and timetables.
THE FUTURE
We plan to add new content to the website over time.
Current ideas for additional content include:
- A video tour of the school
- Termly ‘three cheers’ reports where we’ll celebrate and reflect on all the highlights of the preceding term
- Showing examples of the children’s work
If you have any other suggestions for future content ideas or improvements to the site please talk to Vicky Buser or Liz Donnelly, or email cpswebsitefeedback@gmail.com. As with all volunteer-driven sites, resources are limited so we can’t make any promises – but we’ll do our best! On that note, we are looking for extra volunteers to make weekly updates to the site. If you would like to help, or would like to contribute to the site in other ways please let us know. We’d also be particularly interested to receive feedback about the site from parents who are new to the school. Please email any feedback to cpswebsitefeedback@gmail.com.
Lastly whilst we’ve taken every effort to thoroughly check all the pages, we know that it’s possible that some errors may have slipped through the net. If you spot any, we’d be very grateful if you can bring them to our attention and we’ll fix them as quickly as possible.
THANK YOUS
We would particularly like to thank the following people for their help and support:
- David Green for donating his time and technical expertise
- Liz Donnelly for being a terrific project manager and for designing the town map and school plan
- Beder Kaddouri for the lovely photographs
- Stephen Franks of Franks & Franks for the pleasing design
- Everyone who supplied copy
- Catherine and James Ball for proof-reading the copy
- All the parents who tested the site out for us
The website is at http://www.charlbury.oxon.sch.uk.
