Dear Parents,

Another Fluffy Friday, this time with a few centimetres of lovely, fluffy snow to play with. I have just come in from playground duty with the juniors where the children left on site were enjoying safe and happy snowballing and sledging.

We have had groups of infants ‘Out and About’ on the Downs, where they may well have bumped into the extreme campers from the juniors. Other groups outside include feathers and frogs, a winter walk and all you can do in the snow with Henry.

In the warm there is a lego option at both sites. Cooking at the infants is peppermint mice and at the juniors, jammy dodgers and valentine cakes. The valentine theme is also at Pewley Downs, with the opportunity to make valentine cards for your sweetheart!

More unusual activities include writing Dr. Who scripts, making scratch videos and floral art.

It really is a great day of working within the environment and being introduced to new skills. These ways of learning do open up our children to the idea that learning can go way beyond the National Curriculum. We hope that in this way we will encourage them to become life-long learners who lead lives which open up to new possibilities.

I have had to cancel my holiday in France as the weather is freezing with dangerous roads in the Dordogne. So I have a week of unexpected time – I wonder what new possibilities will open up for me?

With best wish for a great half term.
Richard.

Week commencing Monday, 20th February

Phil the Bag (Please keep all your old clothes and shoes as we will be collecting them again; bags will be sent home with your child). Bags will be collected the first week back after half term. Please remember you can use ordinary bin bags too.
 

Lunch Cheques

When paying for school lunches by cheque, would parents please send in 1 cheque even if they are paying for more than 1 child? As before, these will not be processed unless you have your child’s name and class on the back of the cheque. Thank you.
 

Guildford Music Festival March 21st 2010

All children in the orchestra, recorder group and choir (years 6 and 5) have been given an important letter re purchasing of tickets from G, Live for the music festival. The booking opens at 10am on Monday 20th February direct from G, Live. Tickets will sell quickly so please don't leave it too late to obtain your tickets.

HTSC News

Dates for the diary:

Year 4 Drinks - Thursday 8th March – venue t.b.c.
Date change - Quiz night is now Friday 16th March
Summer Fair - Friday 22nd June
We are just beginning the planning for the Summer fair and we need a couple of people to get involved with co-ordinating the event. Please contact us if you are able to help at htsc@holytrinity.surrey.sch.uk. 

Lost

• Jack Jones’s blue sweatshirt is still missing. Please return it if you have seen it. Thank you.
• Natasha Hemsley Thomas, has lost a white circa trainer. It is named , please return it to the office. Thank you.

Found

• A child's (girl's) purse with a cat on one side & fish on the other outside the lower gates to Cline Road , please collect from the office if it is yours.
• A black wii filofax has also been handed in.

Menu - Week 2

See Lunch Menu on Website.

A final year Graphics Design Student, studying at Leeds University, is writing her final dissertation on Parents’ views on what the government is doing to protect their children from certain aspects of advertising.

If you would be able to help her at all in filling out her quick survey found on the link below:
http://freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=o9s90lu3k1mrts21022329 Any help she can get would be greatly appreciated .Parents views are obviously important to her for her work. Please call Lucie Cox on: 07867 904215, if you require any further info. Thank you.

Dear Parents,

There has been a little confusion recently about homework and if I’m honest I think that I may have been responsible for the confusion.  I suppose it all comes down to definitions.  If we define homework as any school task carried out at home then we certainly do have homework.

I believe that it is really important that some tasks happen at home. This is in order to consolidate learning from school; be confident readers and spellers and know how to research and produce a project from their topic using their resources.

To this end all children will be encouraged to read at home. In the earliest year this will be sharing the books with a parent, moving through to our oldest children, who I hope will be reading age appropriate books for their personal pleasure, as well as to continuing to improve their literacy. Of course, we would still hope that they will read aloud with you and be read to.

Initial spellings will be brought home as well as phonics. After the major and minor spelling rules have been addressed, many of the lists may be connected to words from their topics and learning areas for that week.

As the children move through the school multiplication tables and facts are added into the mix.  Complete recall of tables is a really useful aid to maths and they help the children with mental manipulation of numbers.

Finally in the upper years of the juniors we give children the opportunity to prepare part of their topic as a homework task.

With all these homework tasks, we still want children to have a happy and fulfilling childhood and use their leisure time to the full. Most of these tasks will be on the ‘Just to let you know’ pages.  Please look each week.

So there it is - we do have homework; it is well focused, relevant, useful and not onerous.  I would like to thank all parents for their partnership in their child’s learning.

With best wishes, Richard

Week commencing Monday, 30th January
Wednesday 1st February - 3MG and 4A swimming
Thursday 2nd February at 7.30pm - Parenting Workshop

Please note the change of date for this event:
Surviving Parenting in 2012 On Thursday 2nd February at 7pm in the HT hall there will be a session for any parents who wish to attend. This will be run by Sam Allen, our Home School Link Worker and Mary. We will be looking at a variety of parenting issues: peer pressure, how to say “no” positively, how we can help transition to secondary school etc. Please email maryb@holytrinity.surrey.sch.uk if you think you will be able to attend, so we have some idea of numbers.

Cross Country
Congratulations to our team of runners who participated in the Surrey Schools Cross-Country run at Reigate Priory last Saturday. Outstanding individual performances from Thomas Naisby who came 2nd and Freddie Esplen who came 4th and together with Bo Beynon and Sam Hallam the boys team achieved 1st place overall.
 
Swimming Gala
Great to see 29 of our children enjoying a swimming gala at Cranmore this week.
Well done to everyone who took part, there was a great team spirit!
 
Netball
Well done to all 31 of our Year 5 and 6 netballers who played in a mini tournament at Tormead on Wednesday. It was very enjoyable and the girls all valued the experience. Good luck to the Year 5 team who are playing in the Rydes Hill Tournament on Saturday.

Get Set
Holy Trinity Pewley Down have joined the Get Set network in the run up to the Olympic Games.
It promises to offer some exclusive opportunities and resources for our children to keep the excitement going throughout the year. We are already planning our curriculum week commencing 9th July which this year has an Olympic theme. It will incorporate our sports day which will have a different format so watch this space!

Library
The library system has now gone online and can be accessed from home. You can see what books your child has out and what they have borrowed in the past. There are lots of new features, some of which I am still playing with. I am gradually showing everyone how it works.  Children can log on by putting their library number into both the Username and Password boxes. If they want to find out what their number is they can either ask me or look in the yellow file on my desk which is arranged in class order.  The link needed is:  http://u005614.microlibrarian.net.

GroundHog
Parents have raised concerns regarding the amount of time their children are spending on line.  We have recenly been made aware of a program called GroundHog  that may help. It is a free, simple to install application that allows parents to limit the time children can access the internet for.  Children can pause their time allocation to eat dinner, do homework, etc then return to the remaining time.  It doesn't however allow you to select specific time windows for different days at this stage. There are more sofiticated programs that you can buy if you choose to but GroundHog is a great starting point to set a daily time limit. http://mediavention.com/groundhogmain.html

Lost

• Pair of George Asda shoes with Velcro straps, size 5.  If you have seen these shoes, please let the office know. Thank you.
• A Keller sweatshirt belonging to Jack Jones. Please return it to the office if you have it.

Valentine's Day Movie Night
Stuck for somewhere to go this year, or perhaps finding it hard to afford a night out in this troubled times - look no further! Christ Church in Waterden Road is hosting a romantic evening out on Valentine's Day, Feb 14th. For just £2 per couple come and watch a movie on the big screen - this includes a glass of wine each and nibbles. Film is "Midnight in Paris" (tbc). Doors open at 7.45 for 8pm film start. Tickets on sale from the Church (Box) Office, G. 567072 - email office@christchurchguildford.com, more details from Michael Tame (Geraldine's husband) on 07795173161, michael@christchurchguildford.com. Numbers are limited so first come first serve.

Surrey Arts Open Rehearsal
All string, woodwind, brass and percussion players of all ages and levels of experience are invited to an open rehearsal with the Surrey Arts orchestras and ensembles at Tillingbourne Junior School, Chilworth on Wednesday February 8th 2012 from 5.30 to 7.30pm. There is no charge - just bring your instrument. If you have any questions please call 01483 518099