In Reception, change is in the air and our children have spent their week reflecting on their achievements in Reception and looking forward to moving into Year 1. We thought about how to welcome the new Reception children into our school and how amazing we think it is to be in Reception at UCPS, this helped us reflect on how much we have grown over the year and how we have built our habits for learning whilst practising our oracy skills and explaining this through video (Green Challenge).
We have enjoyed going with our Reception teachers to visit the Year 1 classrooms and have had an opportunity to ask questions about how it might be different from what we already know. We have drawn maps of our new classrooms and made some suggestions about what we would like in our new classrooms.
On Thursday we had a great time meeting our new class teachers at the Teddy Bear’s Picnic. So it’s onwards and upwards for us in Reception!
Next week we will continue this transition process reflecting on happy memories of Reception. Our challenges will be:
Orange (adult-led): to write a letter to our new class teacher.
Red: to draw a summer picture using a range of materials.
Yellow: to look at some year 1 books and find some tricky words
Green: to draw a picture and cut it into a jigsaw for our friends to re-assemble.
Purple: to contribute to a mural with their new class.
Some Important Notices:
- SUMMER FAYRE:
We are thrilled to share that the Summer Fayre raised £6,000 to benefit our school, bringing the total for funds raised by FOCUS for the school year to over £20,000. Dr. Biddulph and his team are working on securing new playground equipment valued at £25,000, half of which will come from FOCUS and the remaining from a community matching grant. Well done Families for your contributions throughout the year to make this a reality!
FOCUS would like to thank Families, Dr. Biddulph and Staff for attending and supporting the Summer Fayre. We are especially grateful to the small number of Volunteers who helped set up on Friday and worked at the event on Saturday, many of whom generously took long shifts at stalls, and stayed late to clean up. You are true compassionate citizens and wonderful role models for our students and community. We estimate that about 30 families, or 8% of the parent community, volunteered at an event stall. Just imagine what we could accomplish if we had 25% (1 in every 4 families) helping?! The Sky’s the Limit!
Special thanks to our generous Event Sponsors HILL (£1,000 donation) and MEARS (£500 donation); our Raffle Contributors who donated over 80 prizes; Erin Gontang for her help organizing the Raffle; Tom Lynch & Family for bringing us our inaugural and successful BMX Race; St John Ambulance Cycle Team for volunteering for our First Aid Station; The Boyd Family & Participants for entertaining us with an amazing Talent Show; our Event Partners, Premier Education, Cambridge Baseball Club (David Adams), Woodcraft Folk (Stephen Lintott & David), and “Dance Greek” (Sofia Papadia); Mrs. Watson and the Gardening Club for their school garden grown contributions; Melanie Gulston and a Mystery Gardener for their Plant Donations; Ms. Karampasi for arranging for us to celebrate with Greek Dance; Ms. Hooper for her brilliant artistry for the UCPS Selfie Station; the Travel Committee, Rachel Keaveney, Shosh Miller-Langley, Njemilie Faustin & ALL for giving second hand bikes a new home; Anindita Biswas for her help leading up to the event; Szilvia Papp for helping advertise the fayre; Pooja Kakkar for helping print documents; Kash Bygott & Caffiend of Cambridge for keeping us caffeinated; Justine Kerr of Greedy Catering, Emma Chaplin, Manali Desai, Ned Grace, Iain Hood, Corrine Martin, Devin McLachlan, Alistair Simpson, Dirk Visagie, Rich Wilson and ALL Y3 Volunteers for being BBQ Grill Masters and keeping us well fed; Sarah Walsh, Adri Visagie, Rebecca Birkett-Smith, Ali Smethurst, Gina Ghensi, Emma Chaplin, Erin Gontang, Sarah Horrocks, Irina Leavy, Yukari Matsushita, Stefanie Reich, Rachel & Sarah Scott, Natalie Williams, and ALL Y1 Families for leading the sweet Cake Stall & Drinks; Agnieszka Skwark & Family for their super contributions to the Y4 Stalls; Peter Freestone, Sam & Winston Kho, The Miller-Langley Family, Nicola Pearson and Adam Kerr for their contributions to the BMX Stall; Aamina Terywall our Henna Artist; Tamsin Commins, Hazel Grace, Gillian Hood, and Penny Wilson for their face painting masterpieces; Gemma Eungblut and Penny Weeks for organizing the Book Stall; Boguslawa Kaplan for organizing the Adopt a Pet stall leading up to the event; Endahle for organizing the School Uniforms Stall; The Miller-Langley Family for donating the Kitchen Tiles for our Art Station; Nicky Bailey, Anjali Das, Bekah Fairley, Ova Incekaraoglu, Liz Nantais, Notburga Rotheneder, Tracey Self, Karen Stedman for their onsite efforts, and the Reception families who worked at the Bouncy Castle and Jumble Sale the entire day; ALL Food and Cake Stall Chefs; ALL who donated equipment, particular thanks to Howard & Gemma Dandy and The Linton Kitchen, Justine Kerr and Greedy Catering, Jessie Martin Keates, The Terywall Family; Anne Lally and Leah Loughnane for acting as Advisors; and lastly Anahi Romero, Ellie Stamatopoulos, and Reddy Malireddy from the FOCUS Committee. Apologies if your name was accidentally omitted; we are grateful for your contribution.
IF YOU HAVE NOT ALREADY DONE SO, PLEASE COLLECT YOUR RAFFLE PRIZES FROM THE FRONT DESK. A LIST OF WINNERS WAS PUBLISHED VIA CLASSLIST ON MONDAY, 8TH OF JULY.
- JOIN FOCUS for 2019-2020:
If you are interested in joining FOCUS for the new school year, email FocusUCPS@gmail.com.
- SEEKING VOLUNTEERS FOR LOST PROPERTY EVENT:
FOCUS is organizing an event to reunite families with lost property, to be held in the Cafeteria after school collection on Friday, 19th of July in conjunction with a Reception Bake Sale. Following school tradition, items remaining at the end of the year are donated to a charity shop. FOCUS is working with teachers, staff and Premier, to ensure lost items throughout the school and grounds will be collected, organized and centrally located at this event, but we need volunteers to make this happen. If you think this event is of value to our community, please sign up to help. If we do not receive 8 VOLUNTEERS by the time this poll closes on COB Wednesday, 17th of July, we will sadly have to CANCEL the event. Thanks for your support.
Sign up at: https://doodle.com/poll/v2gvkmuhzgwhq277
Reception Notice: Gentle Reminder
- Please ensure your child has a full P.E. Kit in school, some children have no trainers or are not wearing the correct colours, it should be a white T-shirt and black or navy shorts shorts that are all clearly named.
- There are still children coming to school without a sun hat, please help us to keep your children safe in the sun. This also needs to be clearly named.
Happy Weekend Everyone! Reception Team