Dear Parents and Carers,
THIS WEEK
DANCE FESTIVAL
Pupils from Chestnut and Oak classes were given the opportunity to participate in the Gillingham Sports Family dance festival yesterday, which was held at Mere Primary School. 152 children participated in the festival over all, from 7 local schools.
The children performed so well, particularly when the music stopped towards the end of their performance, resulting in a definitive decision from all to restart and perform the dance again.
Gillingham secondary school sports leaders performed dances, and then taught everyone a dance. A fantastic time was had by all.
LEGO CLUB
This week’s challenge was to build a ski lodge from the Winter Olympics. Our winners this week are Ted and Oli.
Usborne Book Sale
My thanks to staff for their hard work linked to parent/carer meetings and to families who attended.
My thanks also to all who supported and purchased books from Hayley from Usborne books. Your purchases have enabled up to have £xxx banked with Usborne to purchase new books to support pupil learning, as the school receives a percentage of the sales back as free books.
BIG BAP FRIDAY
It was Big Bap Friday again this morning. I hope everyone enjoyed their sausage, bacon roll and £3 for a bacon and sausage sandwich.
Orders to the office please by Wednesday 4th February.
PARENT FORUM
A reminder that today there is a Parent Forum in the hall at 14.20. This is to continue developing our home-school connections. This is an opportunity for parents to voice ideas and offer constructive feedback to the school, enabling us to improve.
NEXT WEEK
INSET
A reminder that there is no school on Friday 13th February, as this is a school INSET day, where staff will be receiving training linked to the Therapeutic Curriculum, building knowledge of our Therapeutic Thinking approach.
SPORTS
A reminder that all children should be wearing school PE t-shirt and school jumper, along with dark leggings or tracksuit bottoms for PE lessons. I have noticed a number of brightly coloured, non uniform tops and t-shirts being worn of late by some.
PE days are:
| Oak | Thursday | Friday |
| Chestnuts | Monday | Thursday |
| Beech | Monday | Tuesday |
| Hazel | Monday | Tuesday |
CLUBS
Please book slots using the links provided or via the school office
| Clubs | Day & Time | Year Group | Led by | Cost |
| Lego Club | Mondays
15.30 – 16.30 |
Miss Buxton | Cost per half term (see link for cost) https://kwbclubs.ecwid.com/Stower-Provost-Community-School-Monday-Dorset-Spring-Term-1-2026-Monday-p624603022 | |
| SPAG & Reading SATs Club | Mondays
15.30 – 16.30 |
Year 6 | Mrs Clasby | Free |
| Tennis Club | Tuesdays
15.30 – 16.30 |
Chestnut & Oak
KS2 children |
Prime Sports | Free – school supported
Booking will be taken w/b 6th Jan, with a link sent to parents. |
| Maths SATs Club | Wednesdays
15.30 – 16.30 |
Year 6 | Mrs Clasby | Free |
| Basketball Club | Fridays
15.30 – 16.30
|
Chestnut and Oak
KS2 children |
Prime Sports | Free – school supported
Booking will be taken w/b 6th Jan with a link sent to parents. |
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
Half term events for families
I have been asked to share information on behalf of Dorset’s rural arts charity, Artsreach, about the events that are taking place in partnership with rural community volunteers across Dorset this February half term.
With the support of Dorset Council and Arts Council England, Artsreach provides opportunities for children to experience to professional live performances and creative workshop activities in their local communities. Tickets are available from as little as £6, and events this half term are taking place in:
North Dorset: East Stour, Child Okeford and Sturminster Newton
West and Central Dorset: Cerne Abbas, Litton Cheney and Broadwindsor
East Dorset: Hinton Martell and Sixpenny Handley
You can see all of the events here: https://artsreach.co.uk/whats-on/category/young-people
Half term activity clubs with 15% discount currently!
Please find attached flyers to advertise Prime Sports February Half-Term Camps, where they will be running a plethora of new activities. Please see the attached flyers.
Half term swimming at Coombe House
Please find attached a flyer linked to family fun swims, pool hire and lane swimming at Coombe House Leisure between 30th March – 10th April.
PTFA FUNDRAISING
The PTFA held a meeting last Tuesday, with a view to discussing
The PTFA are keen to gather parental views regarding fundraising ideas for the forthcoming months and to the end of the academic year, and to agree how raised funds should be spent. With this in mind, a questionnaire will be circulated in due course.
Money raised from PTFA events is integral to the school, and is annually spent on facilitating the continued upkeep, use and heating of our swimming, with an annual heating bill of £1500. £1000 is also spent on supporting transport costs, with each class receiving £250, cutting the cost for all. With just these two expenditures a total of £2500 is required to maintain both the use of the pool and support for trips.
Your help and support of the PTFA is therefore of paramount importance in enabling the school to offer the opportunities it currently does to pupils.
If you are interested in helping in any way, do please let the school office know, and we will happily share your details with current PTFA members.
World Book Week Events and Dress Up Day
We are planning a week of activities for the children linked to World Book Day including some Scholastic World Book Day events shown below.
On Thursday 5th March, we suggest children come into school in costume linked to their favourite character from a book. Children should bring the book featuring their character, as there will be time in the afternoon for sharing stories.
Parents would be most welcome to come in and share a book, or section of a book (of their choice) with their child or their child’s class between 8.40 – 9.15 on Thursday 5th March.
| Monday 2nd March
10am |
KS2 | Celebrate 15 Funny Years of Tom Gates with Liz Pichon |
| Tuesday 3rd March
2pm |
KS1 | Double the Drama, Double the Fun: Nora Nightsky with Rebecca Lewis-Oakes |
| Wednesday 4th March
11am |
EYFS | Squirrel Storytime Fun with Kael Tudor |
| Thursday 5th March
10am |
EYFS | A super spring story-time and draw-along for The Flower Thief |
| Thursday 5th March
11am |
KS2 | Solve a mystery at the Ivy Hotel with Emily Hourican! |
| Friday 6th March
10am |
KS1 | A slug-tastic time with the creator of Beastie Bros |
| Friday 6th March
11am |
Whole School | The Velveteen Rabbit with David Litchfield – Story time and draw-along |
CLASS NEWS
OAK
This week, we have been doing our own research about life on The Home Front during World War Two, in particular, Dig For Victory, the Blitz, rationing, propaganda and the blackout as examples; we are looking forward to writing a non-chronological report about The Home Front next week. In maths, we mastered short division and then, widening our ambition, moved on to long division. In science, with the able assistance of Mrs Hillier, we explored seiving and filtration to separate heterogeneous mixtures. Next week, we are looking forward to trying our sticky knowledge questions – just what have we remembered..?
CHESTNUTS
This week in Chestnut Class the children have been preparing for their dance festival and and putting in tonnes of effort to collaborate and perform to their best ability. And it paid off! They were very proud of their performance on Thursday and were excellent ambassadors for the school.
The children have been learning about Area in Maths and exploring how shapes can have the same area but look completely different! They have shown great curiosity and problem-solving skills. Keep it up!
Our class text this term is Philip Pullman’s ‘The Firework Maker’s Daughter’ and the children have been following Lila’s adventure to Mount Merapi with excellent focus and enthusiasm. We have loved hearing about Rambashi’s hair-brained schemes to make money, Lila’s bravery, and Chulak and Hamlet’s race to save Lila before the Fire-fiend consumes her.
In Computing the children are becoming masters of programming in Scratch. They are able to change sprites, backgrounds, events, sounds and movements. They have even created their own melodies and instruments!
BEECH
This week’s writing focus is Topsy and Tim go to London, where the children have been looking at descriptive pieces of work and the importance of using adjectives. In Maths this week, Year 1’s have been looking at augmentation stories for addition and subtractions. Year 2’s have been starting to looking more closely at division.
In other learning, the children have been looking at landmarks in cities as well as the weather and how to describe it.. The children have been continuing to do extended handwriting sessions in the afternoons to improve our letter formation with great results!
HAZEL
This week has been a busy week for the Hazel Class children. We have been bird watching as part of the RSPB’s Big Bird Watch, we then created a bird hide down in forest school. The children created their own clean mud using soap flakes and enjoyed getting messy. We have been looking at different compositions of 6, 7 and 8, and in literacy we have been writing sentences about polar animals.
DIARY DATES
Dates in red have been added to the diary list this week.
| Date | Time | Information |
| 6th Feb | 14.20 | Parent Forum in the hall |
| 6th Feb | 14.55 | Praise and Celebrate Assembly |
| 12th Feb | 15.20 | Half Term starts |
| 13th Feb | All Day | INSET DAY (No school for children) |
| 16th Feb – 20th Feb | HALF TERM | |
| 23rd Feb | 08.50 | First day of second half of term |
| 27th Feb | 14.55 | Praise and Celebrate Assembly |
| 5th March | 14.45 | Parent information afternoon – Therapeutic Thinking and how this links to our new Behaviour Policy |
Best wishes,
Mrs B